“I understand there’s issues with sponsorship from the Victorian government, but yet we don’t need to be put together in a national open for people to compare the sexes. We are totally different. I think the tournament should be held in a higher stature than that.”
Golf Australia boss James Sutherland defended the format, which is a first for a national open.
“One, we’ve seen the Vic Open which is a format which has been played for a number of years very successfully down at 13th Beach, but also, we’ve drawn inspiration from the tennis,” Sutherland said.
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“The tennis Open is obviously a major event and a great event that comes to Melbourne every year. We see that putting the men and women on the same stage, it’s a great celebration of golf, it exposes the game in a different sort of way, and we’re really looking forward to the opportunity for crowds to come to the game and see men and women together on that same stage.
“It’s also the Australian All-Abilities Championships, where we’ve got people of various abilities being able to play in a national championship as well.
“Scott’s not playing obviously, but I think let’s see how it all plays out over the course of this week. The feedback we’ve heard from our commercial partners, government partners but also the players, they love the format that we’ve played previously at the Vic Open, and I don’t think anything’s going to be different this week.”
The Australian Open will follow this weekend’s Australian PGA Championships at Royal Queensland, where the men, including Cam Smith and Minwoo Lee have been competing.
Minjee Lee said she hoped that atmosphere flowed down from Brisbane to Melbourne.
“I saw some on TV. I think Minwoo had a couple of highlights, so I was trying to watch that on TV,” she said.
“It’s been good. The 17th hole has been really loud and fun, so hopefully we can get some of that in Melbourne this week.”
But Sutherland said the Australian Open would be “a little bit more conservative”.
“We haven’t quite graduated to that party hole yet, but it certainly looks fantastic there at the PGA Champs,” he said.
“We’ve got a really nice set-up there with some nice grandstands, particularly around 18, so it’ll be a great welcome home for everyone when they come in on 18.”
Thursday and Friday will be split across the two courses before the first cut, and the final two days of the tournament will be played at Victoria Golf Club.