Fore! Things: A Busy Australian Open, LIV Golf Ticket Sales and Sergio Hits a Low

Men and women will both play this week in Melbourne, Tiger falls to a career-worst in the OWGR, and more.
Fore! Things: A Busy Australian Open, LIV Golf Ticket Sales and Sergio Hits a Low
Fore! Things: A Busy Australian Open, LIV Golf Ticket Sales and Sergio Hits a Low /

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Fore! Things

1. Cam Smith's victory at the Australian PGA Championship was worth approximately 10 world ranking points and did not alter his spot as the third-ranked player in the world.

2. Smith, along with Adam Scott, defending champion Matt Jones and Kevin Na are among the participants at this week's ISPS Handa Australian Open.

3. The event is being played across two courses with men and women in alternating groups at Kingston Heath and Victoria Golf Club. The final two rounds are at Victoria.

4. Dan Bradbury won the DP World Tour event in South Africa, securing a place in the British Open at Royal Liverpool this summer. Sami Valimaki and Christiaan Bezuidenhout also qualified. Bezuidenhout, who tied for third, got the final spot due to a higher world ranking than Daniel Von Tonder.

Fore! More Things

1. Tiger Woods is ranked a career-low 1,277th in the world but would move up more than 1,000 spots with a win at the Hero World Challenge.

Sergio Garcia is pictured at the 2022 British Open.
After 23 years, Sergio Garcia is no longer ranked in the world top 100 :: Rob Schumacher/USA TODAY Sports

2. Sergio Garcia has dropped out of the top 100 in the world at age 42 after a 23-year run that dates to just after he turned pro as a 19-year-old in 1999.

3. LIV Golf said it sold 25,000 tickets in the first 48 hours they were on sale for its event in April in Adelaide, Australia. The organization said that more than 60 percent of the buys are under the age of 45 and that tickets were purchased from countries outside of Australia such as New Zealand, Fiji, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand.

4. Smith’s win at the Australian PGA comes with a two-year exemption on the DP World Tour—a perk that might be short-lived due to a ruling concerning LIV Golf players coming in February.


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Bob Harig
BOB HARIG

Bob Harig is a senior writer covering golf for Sports Illustrated. He has more than 25 years experience on the beat, including 15 at ESPN. Harig is a regular guest on Sirius XM PGA Tour Radio and has written two books, "DRIVE: The Lasting Legacy of Tiger Woods" and "Tiger and Phil: Golf's Most Fascinating Rivalry." He graduated from Indiana University where he earned an Evans Scholarship, named in honor of the great amateur golfer Charles (Chick) Evans Jr. Harig, a former president of the Golf Writers Association of America, lives in Clearwater, Fla.