MELBOURNE, Australia — With great stages come great heartbreaks.
Masters champion Rory McIlroy ended an 11-year absence from the Australian Open, which ended a 34-year absence from the country’s most famous golf course, Royal Melbourne, hosting the historic championship.
Augusta National announced the Australian Open winner would be invited to the Masters. Attendance records were smashed with 112, 698 attending for the week. The global buzz was palpable to watch McIlroy and a world-class DP World Tour field tee up at Royal Melbourne’s composite course.
All of which only amplified Aussie Cam Smith’s gut-wrenching missed short par putt, handing Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen the Australian Open.
Denmark’s newest member of the PGA Tour, and overnight leader, Neergaard-Petersen made an otherworldly par save from a treacherous short-sided position and punched his ticket to Augusta National.
Smith, the 2022 British Open winner at St. Andrews, started Sunday at Royal Melbourne two shots behind the Dane and the pair traded blows in a thrilling final day featuring multiple two-shot swings.
The crowd favorite Smith made a crucial, tricky birdie putt on the par-5 17th to stay tied for the lead with Neergaard-Petersen at 15 under heading into the last.
A brilliant drive down the 18th fairway and a smart, safe approach shot to the back middle—where a devilish pin was tucked against bunkers on the right edge—gave Smith a considerable advantage when his co-leader flared his second shot right and short of greenside bunkers.
From a nasty lie in thick rough, Neergaard-Petersen flopped the ball over a bunker. The 26-year-old then drained a 12-foot par putt that proved to be the winning stroke, with his 70 earning a 15-under 269 total for the historic week.
“Where I hit it, [I’d probably save par only] one in a hundred, maybe one in 60, 70, that sort of range,” Neergaard-Petersen said.
Smith had faced a difficult long birdie putt on the 72nd green that settled inside five feet from the hole. His par putt to force overtime missed left. Smith was visibly devastated after a final-round 69 left him solo second 14 under (270).
Si Woo Kim finished third at 13 under, with Michael Hollick a shot back in fourth, and Adam Scott fifth at 11 under. The trio secured places in the 154th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale given the Australian Open is a stop on the R&A’s Open Qualifying Series.
The 31-year-old Smith declined to speak to reporters after a second runner-up at the event, nine years after losing in a playoff to Jordan Spieth at Royal Sydney. The 121-year-old tournament’s Stonehaven Cup is the trophy Smith wants most outside of a second major victory.
Adding to his hunger to win, the LIV Golf star faced a wave of criticism this year for missing all seven cuts prior to the Australian Open—including the four majors—at events outside LIV that offer Official World Golf Ranking points. An early exit from last week’s Australian PGA was the seventh.
In the face of everything, an Australian Open win at Royal Melbourne would have been both a statement win and a feather in his cap.
“Absolutely; we’ve all been there,” Neergaard-Petersen said. “I know this is one of the events that are very big for him, so obviously I feel him in that way. I was nowhere [out of position] on 18. I had nothing from the right and somehow, some way I managed to get it up and down. But [Smith] a class act and it was great to be out there with him today.”
A three-time winner on the European secondary Challenge Tour, the Australian Open was Neergaard-Petersen’s first triumph on the DP World Tour. It’s ironic, because it was his last start on the European circuit before coming a PGA Tour member.
The former Oklahoma State golfer is bound for a return to the U.S. in 2026 after grabbing one of the 10 PGA Tour cards given to the top finishers on the DP World Tour’s final Race to Dubai rankings. He went five-under through his last five holes at the DP World Tour Championship in November to secure that card.
He’s also headed to the Masters.
“It means the world to me,” Neergaard-Petersen said. “Growing up, the Masters, as soon as I watched that tournament, was the first event that I was like, ‘If I one day be a professional golfer, that’s the event I want to play.’ It’s a dream come true and I can’t wait for April.”
Speaking of the Masters, the reigning champion finished T-14 at Royal Melbourne at seven under par. A one-over 72 in the first round for McIlroy left too much work to do for a fatigued World No. 2. After a globetrotting fall schedule and career-defining year, the newest member of the career Grand Slam club arrived in Australia for his first appearance since 2014 to a rock star reception all week in Melbourne.
“I wish I could have been in contention coming down the stretch and battling with the boys, but it’s been an amazing week and can’t thank everyone in Australia enough for the reception and I can’t wait to come back next year,” said McIlroy, who committed to the 2026 edition at nearby Kingston Heath. “I said at the start of the week this is a golf tournament that’s got so much potential and I think it showed a little bit of that potential this week. The scenes and just how this tournament has looked on TV all week, you have that on in Europe or back in the States and it makes an impact.”
There’s no doubt such a stage made an impression on the golf world. The cruel reality is such stages always have winners and losers.
