After several years scheduled alongside the men, the Women’s Australian Open returns as a standalone event for the first time since 2020 and to one of Australia’s great layouts in Adelaide’s Kooyonga Golf Club – a host to six Australian Opens (five Men’s) and multiple amateur and professional State titles.

Kooyonga is part of Adelaide’s “sandbelt” to the west of the city and is a stone’s throw from the Adelaide Airport. The golf course features beautiful native vegetation, a rolling sandy topography and wonderful greens and bunkering that have been embellished in recent years under the watchful eye of design firm, Crafter+Mogford.

Korean Jin-young Ko won the 2018 Women’s Open when it was last held at Kooyonga and co-sanctioned with the LPGA Tour. It was Ko’s second LPGA victory at the time and came just before her breakout 2019 season when she won the two major championships she has on her resume to date.

With no tournament scheduled on the LPGA’s Asian Swing in this week, several high-profile players have been enticed to make the trip. Major champions Minjee Lee, Hannah Green and Grace Kim will compete alongside fellow Australians Steph Kyriacou, Karis Davidson, Cassie Porter and Sarah Kemp.

Kim’s breakthrough major championship win at last year’s Evian Championship in France was one of the undisputed highlights in Australian golf for the year. Her remarkable short game saved her on the first play-off hole with a pitch-in birdie after finding water with her approach. She followed that with an eagle on the second playoff hole to beat world No.2 Jeeno Thitikul for the title.      

PLUS...

'No backing away': trio seeking end of Aussie Open drought

Australian golf's trio of major winners are all striving to become the first local in a dozen years to collect the Women's Australian Open trophy.

Kim missed the cut as a 17-year-old amateur at Kooyonga back in 2018, but returned to beat home Kirstin Rudgeley for the Australian Amateur title three years later.

“I have great memories of Kooyonga; I love the course,” Kim said.

“The layout makes it difficult, but the course conditions are always well-maintained. The greens are firm, the course can play long as well, and the wind can pick up, so it’s almost like a [Victorian] sandbelt course, but in Adelaide.”

Her major-winning compatriots, Green (3rd) and Lee (tied 5th) both contended in 2018 and all will be looking to capitalise on some Kooyonga “local knowledge” in search of their first national title. 

PLUS...

Chaos, camaraderie and Kooyonga: Kyriacou finds rhythm ahead of home Open

Steph Kyriacou’s press conference ahead of the 2026 Women’s Australian Open at Kooyonga on Adelaide’s sandbelt is only moments old, and it has been beset upon by a gang of hecklers.

Elsewhere, from an Australian perspective, NSW’s Kelsey Bennett – recently crowned champion of the Australian Women’s Classic at Magenta Shores - and the WA duo of Rudgeley and Maddison Hinson-Tolchard enjoyed success in their LET campaigns last season and will be pushing to take the next step in 2026.

So too evergreen NSW golfer Kemp, who split her time between the LET and LPGA after returning from a horrific leg injury, logging three Top-10 finishes on the LET in just eight starts.

Bennett and Hinson-Tolchard played out their first full seasons in Europe in 2025, something Queensland’s Justice Bosio and Victorian Stephanie Bunque will look forward to this year after earning their cards at Q-School in Morocco in December. Bosio was successful in her first attempt after a solid season on the LET Access Series (LETAS), but for Bunque, the rise to the main tour in Europe has been a slower burn.

A former Victorian Amateur champion and Australian representative, Bunque has combined TV work with starts on both the WPGA and LETAS over the past few seasons, but with a card now safely secured via her second attempt thru Q-School, the Victorian has a different outlook ahead of the big events to come.  

“It was nice to finally come away with the goods [in Morocco] and feel a little bit of success,” Bunque said.

“Looking ahead, although I haven’t technically played on the LET before, I do feel a bit more comfortable and mature within myself. I am surrounded by a lot of girls who I have grown up playing with, or have recently been playing with. Just knowing where I feel I’m at relative to them is what gives me some confidence.

“And I think having my first four weeks on the Tour at home, I couldn’t have written up any better way to start my first full year on a main tour. In past years when I’ve been lucky to have had starts in some of these events, it’s really sort of been all or nothing, knowing I’d have to win to get to the LET or go home.

“It feels great that if I play solidly, I can earn some points, which goes towards the order of merit, which then goes towards my re-rank later in the year. It feels pretty special to go into them feeling relaxed, rather than stressed and tense knowing I had to perform, rather than allowing myself to perform.” 

For most of the local WPGA Tour Australasia members and elite amateur entrants, four tournament weeks with three $600,000 events surrounding the $1.7 million Women’s Australian Open obviously represents a substantial opportunity on many levels.

As Bunque alluded to, these are the four weeks local players have circled in their diaries, hoping to peak for each year. The biggest paydays, the greatest pathways to other tours, the most eyeballs on their own and the women’s game in this country lie in wait for them across this period.

Queenslander Hannah Reeves has been on fire in her rookie professional campaign with three WPGA victories in October alone, while Bosio also opened her account as a pro with victory in Narrabri before flying out immediately to Morocco for her ultimately successful LET Q-School tilt.

In a similar vein, the crop of young amateurs in the Australian ranks at the present time are as exciting a group as any that have gone before them. Many are pursuing U.S collegiate scholarships and still completing high school, but a core group, including Australian Amateur champion Rachel Lee, Jazy Roberts, Amelia Harris, Reagan Denton and recent U.S. Women’s Amateur semi-finalist Ella Scaysbrook are all taking giant strides and impressing in the opportunities they’ve had to play against the professionals.   

It has only been a matter of months since players like Reeves and Bosio were competing alongside them as amateurs, so this four-week stretch of tournaments will present another opportunity for them to both challenge and be challenged on four different golf courses, against world-class fields.