LATE last year, Australian golf was the centre of the universe – with the Presidents Cup flowing to either side of the US-Internationals clash for the Australian Open and the Australian PGA Championship, and the irony was that it was a humble Greg Chalmers who won both. Now, the stage is clear for some of the world’s best women golfers to play in two major titles – the Australian Ladies Masters and Women’s Australian Open – in the first two weeks of February. For the past two decades it has been the Masters leading the way in the quality of its field but this year Golf Australia has found the cash to persuade the LPGA Tour to co-sanction the Open while Masters promoter Bob Tuohy could not. The result is that the Masters has a slightly inferior field and a total purse of $500,000, while the Open has prizemoney of $US1.1 million ($1.07 million). Co-sanctioning with the LPGA does come at a cost. Golf Australia must provide airfares and accommodation to every LPGA player and that is estimated to be an additional $800,000 to the tournament budget. About 80 LPGA players will be in Sydney.
