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The Australian Open started way back in 1904 and remains one of golf’s oldest tests by bringing the world’s best golfers to the fairways every single year. Legends like Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player chased the famous Stonehaven Cup decades ago. And the 2025 edition promises another thrilling chapter for the PGA Tour of Australasia, where fans flock to see who lifts the trophy and grabs the massive paycheck. But sometimes, seventy-two holes just aren’t enough to decide a true champion.

Firstly, all the qualifying professional and amateur golfers play in a Championship Pro-Am. And then they compete in a seventy-two-hole stroke play event that lasts for several days.  Only sixty players advance to the second of four rounds out of one fifty-six players, after thirty-six holes. Then comes the climax. Suppose there’s a tie for the sixtieth place. In this case, both the players remain and failed to make the cut, while one amateur player may advance if his total is equal to or better than that of the sixtieth-ranked pro.

A tie at the top of the leaderboard or seventy-two holes triggers a more interesting sudden-death playoff format to find the winner. Tied players return to a specific hole, start the play their until we get a golfer who has shot the lowest in the lot. Since its first edition, the tour has witnessed so many intense moments of sudden death, but the most heartbreaking example of sudden death came in the 1997 Championship.

Local hero Greg Norman battled rising European star Lee Westwood over four intense extra holes, and they matched each other shot for shot until they reached the tricky eighteenth green. But Norman three-putted for a bogey on the exact same tier he failed on years earlier, and that mistake handed the famous Stonehaven Cup to the young Englishman.

The 2016 championship at Royal Sydney also produced the same kind of story when US star Jordan Spieth faced off against two hungry Australian challengers in Cameron Smith and Ashley Hall. All three players found the green safely on the very first playoff hole. Then Spieth stepped up and hit a massive three metre birdie putt and walked away with the trophy.

And Joaquin Niemann gave the most recent moment during the 2023 championship finale. Niemann battled Japanese star Rikuya Hoshino back to the par-five eighteenth hole twice. And then the Chilean star hit a laser eagle putt while rain started falling on the second attempt, and won the trophy.

History teaches us that Sunday at the Australian Open always brings excitement and..

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The 2025 edition is currently following that exact same script

Australian icon Cameron Smith entered this week searching desperately for his lost form after missing seven straight cuts in ranking events before arriving at Royal Melbourne. But the “Mullet” found his magic touch with brilliant rounds of 65 and 66. A massive twenty-five-meter eagle putt on the fourteenth hole electrified the home crowds on Saturday afternoon, and Smith now hunts the leaders with serious momentum heading into the final round.

Meanwhile, Rory McIlroy faced one of the strangest obstacles in professional golf history on Saturday. His drive on the second hole landed directly under a discarded banana peel. Rules officials told him that moving the peel would cause the ball to move. So McIlroy had to hit through the fruit and ended up making a painful double-bogey. That bizarre “double whammy” left the four-time major winner chasing from nine shots back.

Danish rising star Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen grabs the headlines after scoring a fourteen-under par. Petersen birdied the final three holes on Saturday to take a crucial two-shot lead over Cam Smith, Si Woo Kim, and Carlos Ortiz, and ended with a first-place 15 under after the final round.