DP World Tour : Crown Australian Open Tee Times Leaderboard
The DP World Tour continues its double header Down Under with the Crown Australian Open at Royal Melbourne Golf Club. Here are your five things to know.
A renowned venue
The DP World Tour visits stunning locations and courses on a regular basis, but some weeks the schedule features stops at venues that deserve extra spotlighting.
After a 20-year absence, this week sees golf's global Tour return to the renowned Royal Melbourne Golf Club for the fifth time. It previously staged the Heineken Classic for four consecutive years between 2002-2005.
This is the 17th time the men's Crown Australian Open - co-sanctioned by the DP World Tour and PGA TOUR of Australasia since 2022 - has been held at the venue and the first since since 1991. This week, players will compete over the Composite Course. Royal Melbourne was most recently under the international golf microscope when it hosted the Presidents Cup in 2019.
Rory ends dream year Down Under
2025 will forever be the year that Rory McIlroy fulfilled his childhood dream - to win all four Major Championships. At his 17th attempt, the Northern Irishman won the Masters Tournament to become just the sixth player to complete the career Grand Slam and first since Tiger Woods in 2020.
Prior to claiming the Green Jacket, he had already won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and THE PLAYERS Championship on the PGA TOUR earlier in the year. After jumping to the top of the Race to Dubai Rankings with his Augusta National triumph, McIlroy added a second DP World Tour title of the campaign in dramatic fashion at the Amgen Irish Open, before going on to hold off Marco Penge to win the Harry Vardon Trophy for a seventh time as he finished runner-up to Matt Fitzpatrick at the season-ending DP World Tour Championship.
Now, the five-time Major champion makes the first of a two-year commitment to play at the Crown Australian Open on the Melbourne Sandbelt. The last time the 36-year-old appeared at the national open was in 2014, the year after he beat home favourite Adam Scott by one stroke to win the Stonehaven Cup.
Inside the field
This year sees the Crown Australian Open move away from its previous combined event, where the women's edition and Australian All Abilities Championship shared the stage with the men's national open.
McIlroy may be the headline name, but there are plenty of other draw cards for the home crowds. Among those are Major champions Adam Scott, Cam Smith and Geoff Ogilvy. Min Woo Lee draws strong support too, while fellow Antipodeans Ryan Fox, Daniel Hillier and Kazuma Kobori will be out to impress.
There is a strong international presence, with South Korea's Si Woo Kim, Mexico's Carlos Ortiz and Japan's Ryo Hisatsune among those to receive an invite. Chile's Joaquin Niemann and Mexico's Abraham Ancer are both past champions and teeing it up. American Charley Hoffman makes his first start of the season, having taken up the option of membership for players who finished 101-200 in the final 2025 FedEx Cup Rankings.
Twelve of last season's HotelPlanner Tour graduates take their place in the field, while 17 of this year's Qualifying School graduates tee it up including Canada's Aaron Cockerill who finished T2.
Major spots up for grabs
Following a new exemption criteria announced earlier this year by Augusta National, in an attempt to align with The R&A, the Australian Open is one of six national opens where the winner will be awarded a spot at the Masters in 2026.
The tournament is also part of The Open Qualifying Series (OQS), with the top three finishers not already exempt securing a spot in the championship at Royal Birkdale next summer.
Earlier this year, Marco Penge booked his spot at the Masters by winning the Open de España presented by Madrid. Players already exempt for the Masters competing in this week's Crown Australian Open are Rory McIlroy, Adam Scott, Danny Willett, Ryan Fox, Cam Smith and Carlos Ortiz.
Of those, McIlroy, Fox, Smith are exempt for The Open as is Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, Daniel Hillier, Elvis Smylie and amateur Fifa Laopakdee.
Last time around 2024
In just his second start on the DP World Tour start after coming through all three stages of Qualifying School in 2024, American rookie Ryggs Johnston claimed a three-shot victory at Kingston Heath Golf Club.
Named after Mel Gibson’s Lethal Weapon character, the then world No 954 emerged from a big pack of home hopes to claim the Stonehaven Cup - becoming the 11th American winner - with a nerveless final-round four-under-par 68.
By doing so, he secured exempt status for this year's Open Championship at Royal Portrush, where he made the cut on his Major Championship debut. Despite going without a top 20 after his triumph, he managed to just qualify for the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship - the opening event of the DP World Tour Play-Offs and the penultimate event of the 2025 Race to Dubai campaign.
Johnston has opted not to defend his title and instead he is in the field for this week's Nedbank Golf Challenge in honour of Gary Player in South Africa.
europeantour.com
Bryan Angus (edit)
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