The breakthrough dual-gender idea being championed by the Australian Open might do wonders for girls’s golf if replicated world wide, based on defending champion Ashleigh Buhai.
The South African star, and two-time defending champion, has confirmed she’ll return this 12 months for a history-making hat-trick try when the match returns to the sandbelt, with Chilean LIV star Joaquin Niemann additionally locked in to defend his crown.
Niemann was granted a particular invitation to the Masters at Augusta on the again of his victory, in entrance of large crowds at The Australian Golf Membership final 12 months, and put a return excessive on his agenda with the match being performed throughout Kingston Heath and Victoria Golf Membership from November 28 to December 1.
“To have the chance to defend a title, particularly a nationwide Open, is one thing actually particular that I’m drastically wanting ahead to. I totally loved the Australian Open expertise final 12 months and assume will probably be a improbable option to finish a profitable 12 months,” Niemann stated.
“Having performed on the Melbourne Sandbelt beforehand, I can’t wait to try to go back-to-back throughout Kingston Heath and Victoria at this 12 months’s match.”
Main champion Buhai gained the primary of her two Australian titles at Victoria in 2022, the primary incarnation of the dual-gender occasion the place the boys’s and girls’s tournaments are performed on the identical programs on the identical time.
Declaring her Australian Open expertise was behind solely this 12 months’s Olympics in Paris for crowd measurement and help, Buhai stated, whereas acknowledging the difficulties, the world-leading idea may very well be utilized in different tournaments as a lift for the ladies’s sport.
“I believe it’s superb. We all know the boys are the drawcards and produce within the crowds, however for us to have the ability to play in between them, have crowds all the best way round, it brings such an unbelievable ambiance,” she stated.
“I keep in mind strolling up the 18th gap final 12 months and the embankment was full of individuals. It introduced goosebumps to my pores and skin and I want we did do it extra usually world wide.
“I believe from a girls’s aspect we’d wish to see it, however with the boys’s schedule and the ladies’s schedule, there’s not might free weeks out there.
“I wish to see extra of it, even when we did a males’s and girls blended groups occasion, it might be thrilling to see.”
The 2 defending champions be a part of Min Woo Lee among the many confirmed gamers for the 2024 Australian Open, with Jason Day additionally set to hitch the likes of Adam Scott and Cameron Smith within the males’s area.