The Women and the Men Join Forces in Australia

The only tournament of its kind tees off this week. Both men and women compete in the ISPS Handa Vic Open, and they play for equal prize money.



This is a new event on the LPGA's schedule and will give them a two-week swing through Australia. (It's followed by the ISPS Handa Women's Australian Open.) It's co-sponsored by the LPGA, the ALPG, the European Tour and the Australasian Tour. (That's two women's tours and two men's tours.)

So today I'm primarily giving you links to articles that give you the details about the event because there is so much new about it, although the Vic Open originally started in 1957.

• I'll start with Tony Jesselli's preview over at his blog. I do need to update his list of major female players since Brooke Henderson has had to bow out because of illness.
• The European Tour has done a "Five Things to Know" article about the event which gives you some of the men's news about the tournament.
• The ET also posted this article that explains how the format works.
• Randall Mell's golfchannel.com article "Women Saved the Vic Open; Now They're Getting Their Equal Reward" is the most thorough of the articles, giving you a history of the event and how female participation has helped keep the event alive over the years.

Something to note about this event is that it isn't an invitational event where players are guaranteed a paycheck. This is a regular full field tournament with a cut, and this is the first year that the LPGA and the ET have been involved.

This new twist to the event has the potential to create yet another new format for golf tournaments, with male and female golfers teeing off in alternate groups so that both genders are playing the course at the same time.

Tony's post lists the TV times, as GC intends to give this event around 18 hours of coverage. It begins on Wednesday (Feb. 6) for three hours starting at 11pm ET.