SYDNEY, Australia -- The Australian Women's Golf Open will
be held in February after a two-year absence, reviving a tournament
that began over 30 years ago, Open executive director Paul McNamee
said Tuesday.
The tournament, co-sanctioned by the Australian and European
tours, will be held at the Royal Sydney Golf Club and will have a
prize pool in excess of $375,000 through a four-year sponsorship
deal, McNamee said.
A former director of the Australian Open tennis tournament,
McNamee said he was "amazed" when he joined Golf Australia last
year to find the women's tournament, staged since 1974, had slipped
from the national sporting calendar.
"Golf is a big sport, women's golf is a great product and we
had no national championship," he told the Australian Associated
Press. "That needed to be corrected but the realities of the
marketplace (are) you need a couple of million bucks to put on a
tournament, so you do need a title sponsor.
"As soon as we got the sponsor we announced it, even without
knowing who's going to be playing, because it's a statement, it's
back on the calendar."
The women's tournament lost its sponsors after a scheduling
clash in 2004 with the Australian Formula One Grand Prix and men's
tournaments in Australia and New Zealand jeopardized television
coverage.
McNamee said he would now try to assemble the strongest-possible
field for the tournament, specifically targeting top-ranked Annika
Sorenstam, Australian Karrie Webb and Britain's Laura Davies, who
won the last Australian Open in 2004.
"Annika's a terrific player, obviously Karrie's fantastic," he
said. "Right now it's hard to say who might be coming, but we'd
want to be presenting the product as well as we can and that means
the right balance between local players and international stars."