Since 2013 the men and women have walked the same fairways at 13th Beach during the Vic Open.
Every year the staging of this event has got bigger. Grandstands have been popping up on course, the tv production has been a fantastic product broadcast live on Facebook and the numbers walking the fairways with the players have grown. The prize money has matched this growth too. Rising 10 fold in just 6 years.
If you ask players for their favourite event on tour I would hazard a guess a large percentage would plump for the Vic Open. Myself included. What’s not to love? We get to play a great venue just 90 minutes outside of Melbourne. We get to stay in a beautiful Australian coastal town where the locals love having us around just as much as we do being there (the local pub does great business that week). You can surf, you can fish, it’s an event that just has a feel good factor about it.
The women’s field at the Vic Open has always been of a top class standard, especially since the LET’s involvement as of a couple of years ago. With 2019 being a Solheim year and the Vic Open having the coveted spot in the schedule of the week before the Australian Open, I expect next year to be even better than ever before. Now with the news that the mens European Tour have come on board I can’t wait to see who can be enticed to come and join in the fun at the Vic Open 2019. Maybe someone who enjoys a surf? Or a wine connoisseur?
The thing that I can’t believe has taken this long to happen is another event replicating the principles of the Vic Open elsewhere in the world. There was news recently that in 2019 the Northern Ireland Open on the Challenge Tour will have the same format as the Vic Open. Ladies European Tour and Challenge Tour joining forces to deliver the first event of this sort in Europe. For me it’s a fantastic step forward for this event. As a player I really don’t see a downside to this format. For spectators they get to watch the guys crash 350+ drives, yet in the group behind can watch the women’s tempo in something closer to their own game. Surely its a win win. Obviously for the LET it’s another event to add to a schedule which hopefully will gain pace in 2019. There are enough 36 hole venues in Europe to have more of these events with the same principles. In 2013 it may have been a gamble for Golf Victoria to move to this format, but as the Vic Open is now Australia’s richest golf event, that vision has been a success story which does not know when to end.
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