Mark Allen didn’t mince words when he said the Australian Open used to be “the worst-run event of the year.” That blunt dismissal was an accusation rooted in absolute chaos, with amateurs calling the shots, pin placements that made no sense, and more.

“It’s funny back in the dark old days, I’ll tell you which tournament didn’t look after us the best, and that was the Australian Open,” Allen said on the Talk Birdie To Me podcast.

Allen was initially asked which golf venue made the players feel the most loved and welcome. And he didn’t even take a breath before answering the opposite. But the former golfer clarified that he wasn’t referring to reality under the current administration led by James Sutherland.

“This is back in the dark old days of the AGU,” Allen said. “We used to laugh as pros every year we’d play the Australian Open. It was the worst-run event of the year because it was the amateurs running the event. So we’d get very different pin placements; it was just really strange. The dots were in the wrong spot. And then it was, like I said, it was the worst-run event of every year, the Australian Open, and it was because the amateurs were doing it.”

This honest rant highlights a time when the AGU, which often lacked the requisite expertise in professional play, handled the event. The most infamous disaster happened at the 2002 Australian Open at the Victoria Golf Club, when the amateur bosses prepared the greens so poorly that the grass became as slippery as frozen ice, despite perfect weather…

On the third hole, Richard Ball hit a putt that simply refused to stay near the cup. The ball rolled past the hole and then rolled twenty feet back to him. He tried four times before his entire group finally refused to play any more golf. The people running the event were so confused that they had to stop the whole round, cancel the first day, and throw away everyone’s hard-earned scores.

Although the then-AGU executive director, Colin Phillips, took responsibility for the situation, he wasn’t the only one responsible for this blunder.

The comparison looks worse when looking at the tiny professional touches that make a golf event truly world-class.

On the PGA Tour, players often get their own fancy cars and private chefs. The Travelers Championship, for example, provided 156 courtesy cars ready for players and their caddies. At the Masters Tournament, the image of players driving Mercedes-Benz down Magnolia Lane is a defining element.

In contrast, the AGU-run Australian Open often left players to manage their own logistics. 

While Allen ensures modern iterations of the event have improved, and despite all these issues, the Australian Open always remained one of the ultimate ‘Crown Jewels’ of golf, “but as far as just the little bits and things that professional golf was great about, the Australian Open just didn’t have it.”

And even though the ‘dark days’ of the amateurs were over, the tournament faced a brand-new identity crisis.

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A bold golf experiment that faced a massive backlash

In 2022, the Australian Open decided to hold the men’s and women’s Open tournaments simultaneously. It was a brave move that made headlines, drawing big crowds to the Melbourne Sandbelt courses. But it created a whole new set of problems.

Many of the male stars felt the course setup was being compromised. Players like Cameron Smith were not happy with how the grass was being prepared for them. Smith claimed the greens were too soft and slow and made it clear that blaming Melbourne’s rainfall for it was a “b——” excuse.

Smith even said the tournament was starting to feel like “kind of target golf” instead of an actual hard test.

The tension grew so high that Adam Scott decided to skip the tournament in 2024. His absence was a massive blow to the event. Scott felt the long rounds and slow play were making the tournament almost impossible to enjoy. Other pros also agreed that playing with two different fields at once created logistical issues. The ‘Stonehaven Cup’ was losing its shine because of this messy situation.

Finally, the bosses at Golf Australia listened, and CEO James Sutherland announced that the men and women would play their own separate tournaments once again from 2025.

Former world No. 51 Marcus Fraser called the entire trial-and-error method approach with the Australian Open “frustrating.”

From amateur mistakes to failed experiments, this tournament has truly seen the best and the worst. But the Australian Open is finally putting the ‘dots’ in the right spots. And the participation of stars like Adam Scott and Rory McIlroy in the recent season proves that the dark old days are over.