There will be 16 events played from October 2022 to April 2023, with the highlights of the summer being the Fortinet Australian PGA, the return of the men’s and women’s Australian Opens played concurrently on the Melbourne Sandbelt and the Tour heading back to New Zealand for the country’s Open and PGA Championships.

Starting in Western Australia at the WA PGA held at Kalgoorlie from October 13, the Tour visits two countries and five states with both metropolitan and regional venues playing host.

“We are well on our way to a growth strategy with our Tour highlighted by two co-sanctioned DP World Tour events, state PGAs, state Opens, two events back in New Zealand and then the Webex Players Series events,” PGA of Australia CEO Gavin Kirkman told reporters this week.

“The other thing that we have worked really hard on is to grow the prize pools, and as the events get announced we hope like all Tours at the moment we can continue to grow our prize pools. Our focus is on our 200 plus Tour members to create really good playing opportunities to create pathways and to have them playing on major Tours within Australia but also outside Australia.”

The New Zealand Open sits alongside the Australian Open and Australian PGA as the three highlights of the schedule. PHOTO: Hannah Peters/Getty Images.

The growth of the Tour schedule has been much needed in Australia, where the heyday of 20 plus years ago when top names regularly came Down Under and a plentiful calendar were but a distant memory, with local players needing to head overseas to make their living.

Although those at the helm acknowledge that pathways to more lucrative circuits overseas is a primary driving factor in their mission, an increase of local playing opportunities is a key point of a five year growth plan currently at its midway point.

“The vision we set out on was a five plus year vision that was set out about two years ago, but it is something we have been working on the last couple of years now and have put a few of those building blocks in place in that time which we all know has been a difficult time to really take things forward,” Tournament Director for the ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia Nick Dastey said.

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“Some of those things we really set out to do was, we weren’t happy with where our schedule was at the end of 2019 pre-pandemic and certainly the amount of events that we had on our Tour wasn’t where it needed to be.

"The amount of prize money the players had to play for wasn’t where it needed to be, and we wanted to make some real changes to that and really start to one concentrate on increasing the amount of playing opportunities or events on our Tour that were available to our players and the prize money, but a real focus on the pathways and where we wanted to go with the opportunities for our players to get overseas Tours and certainly the PGA Tour and to the DP World Tour.”

“The vision we set out on was a five plus year vision that was set out about two years ago, but it is something we have been working on the last couple of years now ... we weren’t happy with where our schedule was at the end of 2019 pre-pandemic." - Nick Dastey.

Dastey noted an aim of one day having 22-25 events on the calendar, with the bigger event prize pools to also grow from the current $2 million on offer at the PGA and $1.7 million at the Australian Open. As well as more larger events being part of the schedule.

One other area of change will be the switch from a monetary based Order of Merit back to a points system, which will make the challenge for three DP World Tour cards on offer via the season long standings less of a result from one good week at either of the country’s national championships. Players will also be required to play four events to earn a place on the Order of Merit standings at the end of the season.

“Last year was a unique year with the one major tournament and certainly it could be skewed in that way, but we will be moving to a points system and we have conveyed that with our membership,” Dastey said.

“We have a few details we are finalising, and we will go through but we will move to points. We have done a hell of a lot of modelling on that and worked very closely with the TPC and the playing group in general on that over time.

“By moving to points, and also having three plus major events, that will be less skewed in that way and certainly performance in the smaller events around the country will make a difference to your final season end points position.”

2022/2023 PGA Tour of Australasia Schedule

10-16 October: CKB WA PGA, presented by TX Civil & Logistics, Kalgoorlie Golf Course, $200,000
17-23 October: WA Open, The Western Australia Golf Club, $162,500
7-13 November: VIC PGA, Moonah Links Resort, $200,000
14-20 November: Queensland PGA, Nudgee Golf Club, $200,000
21-28 November: Fortinet Australian PGA Championship, Royal Queensland Golf Club, $2,000,000
29 November-4 December: ISPS HANDA Australian Open, Victoria and Kingston Heath Golf Clubs, $1,700,000
5-11 December: Gippsland Super 6, Warragul Country Club, $175,000
23-29 January: TPS Victoria hosted by Geoff Ogilvy, Rosebud Country Club, $200,000
30 Jan-5 February: TPS Murray River in honour of Jarrod Lyle, Cobram-Barooga Golf Club, $200,000
6-12 February: VIC Open, TBA, TBA
13-19 February: TPS Sydney presented by Webex hosted by Braith Anasta, Bonnie Doon Golf Club, $200,000
20-26 February: TPS Hunter Valley hosted by Jan Stephenson and Peter O’Malley, Oak Cypress Lakes Resort, $200,000
27 February-5 March: NZ Open Presented by Sky Sport, Millbrook Resort, $1,400,000
6-12 March: NZ PGA Championship, TBA, $400,000
13-19 March: Play Today NSW Open, TBA, $400,000
Late March: Season Finale, TBA, $200,000