Aussie KIWI of the Month

Kia ora, Lydia Ko

OK, so this past month’s headline act isn’t an Australian, but as a New Zealander and incredible ambassador for golf overall, it’s hard not to focus on Lydia Ko in this space.

You probably didn’t miss the news of Ko’s one-under par 71 in the final round of the Olympic women’s golf tournament at Le Golf National, which won her the gold medal.

What you may have missed was exactly what this did for Ko’s legacy. Ko, whose 20 LPGA Tour victories include two women’s majors, began 2024 hunting for the 27th point needed to join the LPGA Hall of Fame, for which entry is guarded by strict criteria. Ko broke down the door with an Olympic gold medal for that 27th point. She has now claimed all three medals since golf returned to the Olympics in 2016, when she earned silver in Rio before bagging bronze in Tokyo in 2021. She’ll probably take out a fourth New Zealand Sportswoman of the Year Award, too. As golf fans, we are lucky to have witnessed her career in this era. At 27 years of age, she’s likely to give us plenty more moments to watch.

Golfers in the news

Cameron Smith Scholarship winners: Amateurs Kayun Mudadana, from Sydney, and Wes Hinton, from Brisbane, won the Cameron Smith Scholarships for 2024. It’s another Smith award for Hinton, who won the 2022 edition of the Cameron Smith Junior Classic. Mudadana, 18, was runner-up in the Australian Boys’ Amateur and is the club champion at New South Wales Golf Club, while Hinton, also 18, was sixth at the Australian Boys’ Amateur. The duo will spend time with Smith at his US home in Ponte Vedra, Florida, this month. They’ll also travel with him to LIV Golf’s individual championship in Chicago.

Koala Karl coming home? Fresh off his breakthrough Korn Ferry Tour win in his fourth start on the US secondary circuit, Karl Vilips [left]is eyeing a homecoming to play the Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland and the Australian Open in Melbourne, schedule permitting. “I’ve been speaking with the Golf Australia team, and I hope I have time to come back home; I don’t know how a schedule looks for the PGA Tour,” Vilips said. The 22-year-old West Australian, who played college golf in the US at Stanford University, should be a PGA Tour player by the time he returns Down Under. Vilips sat 13th on the Korn Ferry Tour points standings in mid-August, with the top 30 after the season-ending Korn Ferry Tour Championship in October earning PGA Tour cards for 2025.

Australian Blind Open champs: The ISPS Handa Australian Blind Open was held at Emerald Lakes Golf Club in Queensland recently, with Jamie Hain, from nearby Logan, winning the overall net in the national championship by a shot from Darren Solly. Hain also won the Queensland Inclusive Championship that was held concurrently. Another Queenslander, Joshua Wood, won both the national and state junior titles.

Australasian season underway: The 2024-2025 PGA Tour of Australasia season kicked off recently in Port Moresby with the PNG Open. Cameron John, Jeff Guan, Harrison Crowe, Elvis Smylie and Hayden Hopewell were among the young stars tipped to go big this season.

Taking golf to the islands: Golf WA community instructor Megan Henry recently took golf to Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands in a successful coaching mission. Henry started with three days on the Cocos Islands off WA’s north-west coast, where she oversaw MyGolf in Schools sessions for 80 primary students, as well as Get Into Golf clinics for adults, and joined the weekly ‘Scroungers’ outing at Cocos Islands Golf Club – the only golf course in the world with an active international runway passing through it. Henry then flew to nearby Christmas Island for similar coaching.

Birdie of the month

Scott’s Open streak

Adam Scott has given Australians at least one compelling reason to consume the Aussie coverage of the Open Championship for 25 straight years. The former world No.1 played his 24th consecutive Open at Royal Troon. Sometimes our contingent at the links major is light, or out of form, and other years Cameron Smith wins the 150th Open at St Andrews. You can never pick the cycle. But Scott has been a consistent presence on the leaderboard and authored that incredible four-year run from 2012 to 2015 when he finished second, T-3, T-5, and T-10. In three of those, he held at least a share of the lead on the back nine on Sunday. At Royal Troon, Scott was three shots off the lead early on the final day, and when he finished his round sat T-11. That was until Englishman Dan Brown, in the next group, bogeyed the last to push T-10 from one-under par to even-par. At T-10, Scott guaranteed a return to The Open at Royal Portrush next year, his 25th straight start going back to the 2000 edition at St Andrews.

Bogey of the month

Olympic selection criteria

The Olympic eligibility criteria for the men’s tournament needs re-evaluation before Los Angeles in 2028. Using the Official World Golf Ranking to select teams was outdated, and the way certain nation’s federations could interfere – like the Netherlands Olympic Committee not sending three golfers who had qualified via the Olympics rankings because they didn’t think the trio could finish in the top eight in Paris – went against the romanticism of the games. The system unfairly ruled out Cameron Smith from joining Jason Day (who finished T-9) on the Australian team and instead sent Min Woo Lee (T-22). Lee deserved his spot and performed admirably after a poor first round, but Data Golf – which has become a more accurate representation than the OWGR of the current best players – has Smith at world No.35 and Lee 58th. In the past three years, Smith has won an Open Championship and bagged four other top-10s at majors (including a T-6 at this year’s Masters), won three PGA Tour events, an Australian PGA and three LIV Golf titles. He is arguably our best male player and yet he wasn’t in Paris. 

 getty images: kevin C. Cox, Andrew Redington