Out of the Rough: Crown Australian Open (2025)

For the second consecutive week, the DP World Tour stays in Australia, traveling south from Brisbane to Melbourne for this week’s Crown Australian Open.

The Crown Australian Open is the oldest and most prestigious event on the PGA Tour of Australasia’s schedule and will be con-sanctioned this week with the DP World Tour. This will be the fourth edition of the event being co-sanctioned by the two tours.

It was first played in 1904 and since 1930, the winner has been awarded the prestigious Stonehaven Cup.

Jack Nicklaus himself had previously deemed this event the ‘Fifth Major,’ as he won this event six times.

Many of the game’s greats have lifted the Stonehaven Cup as alongside Nicklaus, the likes of Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson and Greg Norman have had their names etched on the trophy. 

This is a nomadic event, bouncing between the best golf courses Australia has to offer. For the first time since 1991, Royal Melbourne will play host this week. This course also hosted the 2019 Presidents Cup.

The Field

A star-studded field is set to hit Royal Melbourne this week.

Headlined by defending Race to Dubai Champion and World No. 2 Rory McIlroy, the field too includes home favorites Cam Smith and Adam Scott.

A slew of LIV Golf Tour stara continue to turn out on the DP World Tour this week including Joaquin Niemann, Abraham Ancer, Marc Leishman, Carlos Ortiz, Jose Luis Ballester, Sebastian Munoz and David Puig.

Being the national open, a strong Australian contingent too will look to claim the Stonehaven Cup. An Australian has not won this event since 2019 when Matt Jones claimed his second Crown Australian Open title.

Including the aforementioned Smith, Scott, Leishman, Min Woo Lee joins the home favorites looking to end the skid for the Australians.

Other PGA Tour regulars attending this week include Cam Davis, Ryo Hisatsune, Karl Vilips, Si Woo Kim, Ryan Fox, Matt McCarty and Charley Hoffman.

Notable DP World Tour regulars playing this week include Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, Elvis Smylie, Kazuma Kobori, Daniel Hillier, Ale Fitzpatrick, Wenyi Ding, among others.

Ryggs Johnston won this event a season ago, topping Curtis Luck by three strokes. Johnston will not be back this week to defend his title.

Other former winners of this event teeing it up this week include Niemann (2023,) Jones (2019 and 2015,) Ancer (2018,) Davis, (2017,) McIlroy (2013,) Greg Chalmers (2011 and 1998,) Geoff Ogilvy (2010,) Scott (2009,) John Senden (2006,) Peter Lonard (2004 and 2003) and Stephen Allan (2002.) 

The Course

This week’s course will be the Composite Course at Royal Melbourne.

It consists of 12 holes of the venue’s West Course and six holes of the East Course.

The West course was routed by Dr. Alister MacKenzie and opened in 1926. The East Course was routed by Alex Russell and opened in 1932.

The Composite Course was first played in 1958 when this venue hosted the World Cup. 

Overall, Royal Melbourne’s Composite Course is regularly regarded as one of the top-ten golf courses in the entire world.

It plays as a par-72 at roughly 7,007 yards.

It is laid out within the sandbelt of Australian golf. The sandbelt is a region where the golf gods laid out near-perfect conditions for a golf course. Along with Royal Melbourne, some of the World’s best golf courses can be found in this region.

Off-the-tee, golfers will be tasked in finding the correct landing spot within the fairway to attack the green. This simply is not a golf course that can be out-musceled.

It is a second-shot venue, meaning that finding the correct landing spot off-the-tee is more important than getting the ball as close to the green as possible.

From there golfers will look to land the ball, under the hole. They’ll be playing to the front of the greens more so than to the pin.

Royal Melbourne is notorious for having some of the fastest putting surfaces in the entire world.

Holding greens from non-ideal approach shots will be next to impossible. Along with that, many greens feature ‘death zones’ which will make holding the green from these areas next to impossible.

The course too is known for its large and dramatically shaped bunkers. Golfers better be able to get up-and-down out of these bunkers if they hope to have a chance this week.

In all, we as fans are in for a treat this week.

The Weather

As of the time of writing this, there is just a ten-percent chance of precipitation on Thursday and a 20-percent chance on both Friday and Saturday. Sunday calls for a 15-percent chance of precipitation. Temperatures will begin at 86-degrees on Thursday before drastically falling to 69-degrees on Friday. Temperatures will continue to drop to 68-degrees on Saturday before returning to 69-degrees on Sunday. Winds will be at the highest on Thursday at 16 miles-per-hour before dropping to ten miles-per-hour on Friday. Winds will reach 11 miles-per-hour on Saturday before finishing the week at nine miles-per-hour on Sunday. 

Key Stats

• Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee (SG: OTT) / Driving Accuracy

• Strokes Gained: Putting (SG: PUTT)

• Three-Putt Avoidance

• Strokes Gained: Approach (SG: APP) 

• Sand Saves Percentage

• Strokes Gained: Around the Green (SG: ATG)

• Scrambling

• Par Five Average Scoring

Betting Card

Matt McCarty (+2800)

I often steer away from PGA Tour guys playing on the DP World Tour but this is a unique event where we’ve seen non-DP World Tour regulars have success. Joaquin Niemann won in 2023, Abraham Ancer in 2018, Jordan Spieth in both 2014 and 2016, just to name a few. McCarty comes into this week in great form, placing T3rd in his latest outing at the Bank of Utah Championship. He also placed T14th at the Baycurrent Classic, T43rd at the Procore Championship and T8th at the Wyndham Championship on the PGA Tour. He finished last season on the PGA Tour 17th in SG: PUTT, 28th in scrambling, 37th in driving accuracy, 63rd in par-five average scoring, 69th in three-putt avoidance, 75th in SG: ATG, 86th in SG: OTT, 116th in SG: APP and 136th in sand saves percentage. 

Abraham Ancer (+3300)

Ancer not only won this event back in 2018 at The Lakes Golf Club, he was also a part of the 2019 Presidents Cup that was held at Royal Melbourne. He had a great showing, while being Mexico’s first ever representative on the team. He went 3-2 during that event, only losing to a team of Rickie Fowler and Justin Thomas in fourball and lost his singles match to Tiger Woods. As a member of LIV Golf, there aren’t any stats to go off of besides a good track record in Australia and at this very golf course. He played last week at the BMW Australian PGA Championship where he placed T33rd. 

Kazuma Kobori (+7000)

Kobori looked great last week through the first three rounds of the BMW Australian PGA Championship. A final round of four-over derailed his chances. Prior to that he placed 42nd at the DP World Tour Championship and 41st at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship. He finished last season second on the DP World Tour in driving accuracy, 23rd in scrambling, 21st in SG: ATG, 42nd in SG: PUTT, 45th in three-putt avoidance, 102nd in SG: APP, 106th in par-five average scoring, 115th in SG: OTT and 137th in sand saves percentage. 

Clement Sordet (+20000)

Sordet ended his skid of missed cuts last week at the BMW Australian PGA Championship where he made the cut. Prior to that he missed three-consecutive cuts but before that, he placed T42nd at the FedEx Open de France, T15th at the Amgen Irish Open, T33rd at the Omega European Masters and T33rd at the Betfred British Masters. He finished last season sixth on Tour in sand saves percentage, 17th in SG: PUTT, 34th in SG: ATG, 61st in par-five average scoring, 68th in scrambling, 79th in SG: OTT, 81st in driving accuracy, 111th in three-putt avoidance and 139th in SG: APP.

2024 Betting Card

• Rasmus Neergaard-Peteren (+2200) - T39th

• Victor Perez (+2500) - 91st

• David Micheluzzi (+3000) - T54th

• Adrien Saddier (+5500) - T11th

• Ashun Wu (+17500) - T46th

2023 Betting Card

• Adrian Meronk (+1400) - T8th

• Ryo Hisatsune (+2200) - 2nd

• Alex Fitzpatrick (+6000) - T8th

• Jason Scrivener (+9000) - T8th