The PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Golf Australia announced a new partnership on Wednesday to work together to elevate the Australian Open as a premier event on the global golf calendar.
As part of the partnership, which runs from 2027-2029, the Australian Open will be co-sanctioned by the DP World Tour and Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia, with more involvement from the PGA Tour to help elevate prize money and position the event in a “distinct window” of the global golf calendar to help draw more top players to the event.
“We are thrilled with this agreement between our Strategic Alliance partners, the DP World Tour and the Capital.com Australian Open,” PGA TOUR’s senior vice president of international Christian Hardy said in a release. “The Capital.com Australian Open remains one of the most prestigious events in global golf, and our members have long valued the opportunity to compete in Australia. We look forward to continuing to build on this relationship in the years ahead.”
It is the first time the PGA Tour has formally partnered with Golf Australia, which is particularly notable as the PGA Tour enters a new era under CEO Brian Rolapp. Rolapp spent more than a decade with the NFL, where he saw firsthand how one of the main growth opportunities for established American sports leagues is to export that product overseas to international audiences. The NFL’s global shift has exploded in recent years, and given golf is already a global game, it stands to reason that the PGA Tour under Rolapp will expand its international approach.
The strategic alliance with the DP World Tour is part of that, but the PGA Tour being specifically noted as part of this partnership with Golf Australia is notable. The PGA Tour is in process of reshaping its schedule for 2027 and beyond, with minor changes coming next year and plans for a much larger shake-up in 2028.
Australia is a market that has produced a number of PGA Tour stars over the years, but it’s not a place the Tour has engaged in terms of events. That’s in large part due to logistics of Australia being in the southern hemisphere, which means its golf season takes place in the middle of the PGA Tour’s offseason — the 2026 event will take place from Dec. 3 to Dec. 6. However, after LIV Golf found tremendous success in Australia (and South Africa, another huge golf country), one can’t help but wonder if Rolapp questioned why the PGA Tour has ignored such a golf-crazed market.
This new partnership seems like the business equivalent of dipping a toe in the water for the PGA Tour, but as LIV Golf teeters after losing PIF funding, targeting one of its most successful markets seems like a pointed choice by the Tour. By helping elevated the prize pool and eliminating conflicts in the calendar, they’ll see what the appetite is for Tour stars to play in the event. Rory McIlroy is already committed to playing this year after making his debut in 2025 — finishing T14 and speaking glowingly about the experience — and perhaps others will follow his lead.
One of the challenges the PGA Tour faces in expanding their global reach is a desire from most American stars to be at home as often as possible. It was one of the reasons LIV Golf struggled to poach as many American stars as it wanted despite its once endless financial backing. Flying to Australia to play an event is no small commitment, but the sandbelt is one of the most fertile golfing grounds on the planet and just about anyone that makes the trip raves about it afterwards.
The Tour will know that selling players on an experience alone won’t draw many of them out of their comfort zone. With this partnership, there’s now a more substantial prize on the line, but also they can pitch players on what they stand to gain for their personal brand by playing in a place that loves golf but has rarely gotten top stars from outside Australia to play there. On top of that, once they reach 2028 and the fully revamped schedule comes out, players may be more amenable to offseason golf if the PGA Tour season itself is lightened up.
Now that players have more equity in the PGA Tour’s business, explaining that the biggest and most immediate growth opportunities are overseas will be more impactful, and they’ll sweeten the pot a bit more on top of that with expanded prize purses to try and elevate the status for these events. Perhaps the Australian Open partnership will just be a one-off, but given Rolapp’s background it wouldn’t be a surprise if this is the beginning of an expanded global approach from the Tour.