Major golf champs boost Aussie Open field

Two more major champions have joined the stellar women's field for the historic mixed-gender Australian Open.

American Jennifer Kupcho and former world No.1 Jiyai Shin of South Korea have both agreed to tee it up in the Melbourne sandbelt from December 1-4.

The 11th-ranked Kupcho claimed her first major at the Chevron Championship in California earlier this year, while Shin is a two-time winner of the Women's British Open.

The duo's presence bolsters a stunning field for world golf's first-ever dual-gender national open being co-hosted by the Victoria and Kingston Heath Golf Clubs next month.

Australia's top-ranked players Minjee Lee and Hannah Green, five-time winner Karrie Webb and rising LPGA Tour star Stephanie Kyriacou, 2022 British Open winner Ashleigh Buhai from South Africa, Chinese world No.16 Xiyu Lin and legendary Dame Laura Davies are all playing the women's tournament.

The women's field for the Open now includes four of the top 20 players in the world rankings - Lee (5), Kupcho (11), Lin (16) and Green (20) – which sets up the tournament for an outstanding return after the 2020 and 2021 editions were cancelled because of the pandemic and travel restrictions.

The Open, which will feature men, women and All Abilities playing at the same venues and at the same time, has adopted a new inclusive format for 2022.

The men's tournament - featuring British Open champion Cameron Smith, fellow Australian stars Marc Leishman, Adam Scott, Cam Davis, Lucas Herbert, Min Woo Lee and Matt Jones - is co-sanctioned by the DP World Tour as well as the Australasian Tour.

Both the men's and women's events will offer record $1.7 million prize pools.

Meanwhile, the field for this week's Australian PGA Senior Championship is being likened to a 1990s Australian Open leaderboard as a raft of golf greats assemble for the three-round event in Sydney.

First won by 1969 US Open champion Orville Moody in 1986, age-old tournament boasts champions such as Lee Trevino (1996), Terry Gale (1997 and 2006), Peter Senior (2009 and 2019), Peter Fowler (2011) and Rodger Davis (2015).

The evergreen pair of Senior and Fowler return to Richmond Golf Club for the 2022 event where they will face off against the 'young bucks' such as Richard Green, Andre Stolz, Jason Norris and Scott Laycock.

Last year's runner-up Peter Lonard, Peter O'Malley, Terry Price, Mike Harwood and 2017 champion David McKenzie are also teeing it up.

"It looks like the Australian Open leaderboard of 1992," said defending champion Guy Wall, who won on the fifth hole of a sudden-death playoff with Lonard in a rain-interrupted 2021 championship.

"In 1992, I would have paid to go and watch these guys and now I'm there competing."