Australian Open finds home and potential

Australia’s Minjee Lee chips at The Grange in preparation for the Australian Open Picture: Tait Schmaal.

The Australian Open this year has moved off broadway. The women’s tournament is now in Adelaide and not its traditional home of Melbourne where it was clapped but never cheered.

Not to be rude but Victoria hosts so many sporting events that the Open had remained an event and a curio and not a celebration and a hot ticket. Adelaide now has the chance to embrace the tournament and make it part of its sporting summer.

It is trying. Cheyenne Woods, winner of the Ladies Masters two years ago in Queensland and niece of that man Tiger, was on a boat on the Torrens as promotion for the Open. If that doesn’t drag them in then nothing will.

The Open starts tomorrow at The Grange Golf Club’s West Course, more than 6000m of sophisticated golf layout. The bible of golf course ratings, Golf Australia magazine, ranks the course the 28th finest in the country. That underlines the quality of golf challenges in Adelaide — for Glenelg, Kooyonga and Royal Adelaide are considered ahead of the layout refurbished by course architect Mike Clayton in 2008.

Reports back from the practice rounds suggest the course, in predicted fierce heat, will play firm as in hard, and hard as in difficult. That can be a treacherous two-putt, especially if the wind wakes up.

Four of the world’s top 20 players are here. Numero Uno, that’s Spanish for Lydia Ko, is playing. She is the defending champion and last week won her third New Zealand Open. She is 18. Ha Na Jang, 23, is ranked ninth. There are another two in the top 20 — Brooke Henderson, of Canada, two spots further back, and Australia’s Minjee Lee sits at 17. Australia’s greatest golfer, Karrie Webb, now remarkably 41, is 34th in the world.

Jang defeated Henderson by two shots in the Coates Golf Championship in Florida at the start of the month and Ko by three.

This Open might be short on names but the quality and potential glistens.

The tournament is part of the US Tour but it has been mostly ignored by the top players because of travel time, low prizemoney, scheduling and the price of the Australian dollar. Other than that, the Open had a lot going for it.

In truth, it really does. Ko and Lee are two of the best golfers in the world — male or female. Their combined age is 37.

Jang respects the course and so she should. Its wide fairways and short grass are tricks. The course can be mastered only by picking the right lines and angles. Players on the US Tour play very few like this one.

“I think it’s a really tough golf course because it’s really narrow and then very difficult the bunker shot, and then the greens are really fast. So it’s different (to) American style, so things a little more comfortable (for me) because very similar to Korea.

“Korea’s golf course too narrow, then very tough on the greens, so this no problem this week,” she said yesterday.

Lee is now Australia’s best player. Last year she won her first tournament on the US Tour in her rookie season. And she did not spare herself. She played in 29 of 31 tournaments and this year will likely play more with the Olympics on the agenda.

She finished tied for seventh in the Open last year.

“I think I was a little nervous probably because it was my first, I mean national championship, as a professional,” she said.

“I’ve had a lot of experience last year playing on the tour in front of crowds and stuff, so I think I’m a little more relaxed and just probably going to be nervous on the first tees and stuff but just not as nervous overall, I think.”

And it makes perfect sense. A year on the US Tour is a little like speed reading.

The Australian Open is an important tournament for Lee. She might be covered by Korean sponsors, her gear and bag a billboard for international companies, but she is desperate to win her national title.

“Oh yeah, definitely. It’s the tournament that I always wanted to win, the Aussie Open, it’s like it’s your national championship, so yeah. I haven’t really thought about it going into this week. I always want to go in with no expectations but obviously you have your own expectations. Ah, yeah, I mean, I want to play well, so I’ll just do the best that I can here and play one shot as it comes, I guess.”

Sadly, it is a window into women’s sport in Australia. One of the finest talents in the world is largely unrecognised by her ­nation. It is not a problem peculiar to Australia but it does sit uncomfortably when you remember that Time magazine in 2014 ranked Ko as one of the most influential people in the world.

In Australia, sponsors rank Nick Kyrgios ahead of Lee. Make sense of that.