Vic Open tees up the future of golf

THE Victorian Open tees off this week and will celebrate its 10th year of being held in a mixed format, and one of the driving forces behind the innovation has praised 13th Beach Golf Links’ part in it.

The men’s Vic Open dates back to 1957 and the first Women’s Vic Open was held from 1988 to 1992, but the administration of both tournaments went through a major shakeup in 2010.

David Greenhill was one of the acting chief executive officers of the just-formed Golf Victoria (a merger of the Victorian Golf Association and Women’s Golf Victoria) at the time.

Mr Greenhill, who now works in an administrative role for Golf Victoria, said the idea of men and women playing the same courses at the same time for equal prize money came to him while he was walking his dog late one evening, and was inspired by the entrepreneurial efforts of Tony Charlton to promote the Vic Open in the 1970s and 1980s.

“The obvious answer just popped up,” he said.

“I had a great collaborator called Bronwyn Young, who was the former CEO of Women’s Golf Victoria, and I went into work the next day with a one-page summary of what I thought it could look like, and she thought it was a great idea; then we took it to the Golf Victoria interim board, and they thought it was a great idea; and we took it to the state government, and they thought it was a great idea; so we went off and got it going, basically.

“It’s been common for years for major tennis tournaments to run tandem men’s and women’s events – I couldn’t understand why golf hadn’t tried it before.”

The final standalone men’s-only Vic Open was held in 2011, and the new joint format was held for the first time at the Spring Valley and Woodlands golf courses in Melbourne in 2012.

13th Beach Golf Links in Barwon Heads has hosted the tournament since 2013 with the exception of 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It made sense to do the event at the one location. The Geelong catchment’s got a population base of 250,000-300,000 anyway and there’s over 10,000 registered golfers in the Geelong area, so we knew we were going to a strongly populated market and a strong golf market,” Mr Greenhill said.

“The state government particularly liked the idea of trying to regionalise mainstream sport, so it ticked a whole lot of boxes, and no question, the event’s grown on the back of the partnership with the City of Greater Geelong, 13th Beach Golf Links, the state government and various sponsors.

“The players absolutely love going to the Barwon Heads and Ocean Grove area each year for this event.

“And the galleries we’ve had there over the years have been absolutely fantastic. The course isn’t roped, so you can walk along with the players … at the Vic Open, you can be two feet from them if you want.”