By John Huggan
GEELONG, Australia — It was already groundbreaking, but the ISPS Handa Vic Open ended up being earth-shattering, too. At least it did for the equally well-paid two champions to emerge from this mixed-gender collaboration of the European Tour, the LPGA, the PGA of Australia and Australian Ladies Professional Golf. Only five events into his rookie season, 27-year-old Scot David Law can now call himself a European Tour champion. And Celine Boutier of France can do likewise on the LPGA Tour, early in only her second year as a full card-holder.

RELATED: Law’s European Tour breakthrough proudly reverberates 13,600km away at the MENA Tour’s season opener in Jordan

Reflecting perhaps the difficulty in setting-up any course for both men and women—a succession of tight pin positions on the final day were a lot more accessible for the male pros—the winning scores ended up 10 shots apart. Law’s closing eagle on the par-5 18th on the Beach Course at the 13th Beach Golf Club not far from Melbourne took the former Scottish Amateur champion to 18 under par and a one-stroke advantage over a pair of Australians, Brad Kennedy and Wade Ormsby. Boutier’s eight-under aggregate was two strokes better than two more Aussies, Sarah Kemp and Su Oh, as well as England’s Charlotte Thomas. Both winners earned $165,000.

Law’s victory was ultimately the more dramatic of the two. Standing on the 16th tee, the Aberdonian (a protege of 1999 Open champion Paul Lawrie) was 15 under and three shots behind the long-time leader, Ormsby. But that was soon to change. In the space of 30 minutes, Law made a birdie on the 16th, then struck a hybrid to 12 feet on the final green and holed the eagle putt. All before Ormsby made a disastrous double-bogey 5 on the par-3 17th. The roles were suddenly reversed.

“My aim was to finish 3-2-4 [all birdies],” said Law, who shot a final-round 66. “My caddie and I reckoned that would get me a top-three finish. All I was trying to do was beat Brad. We had been competing hard for two days so that felt like a reasonable target. But that shot to the 18th was the most important of my life. It has changed my life really.”

Perhaps even more commendable, Law had earlier called a penalty on himself when his ball moved as he addressed it in semi-semi-rough just off the ninth fairway. His reaction was more positive—birdies on each of the next two holes.

Michael Dodge/Getty Images
Three strokes back with three to play, Law carded a birdie and eagle to post a final-round 66.

Boutier, too, had some stellar moments down the stretch. Locked in battle with Oh in the final group—Kemp had finished much earlier with a best-of-the-day 65; Thomas not much later with a 69—the Duke University graduate made a 25-foot birdie putt on the short par-4 15th just after her playing partner had lipped out for eagle. Boutier then made 10-footers for par on the 16th and 17th to preserve her advantage. As a result of those telling and timely putts, the safe par she made on the last a formality as she capped a closing even-par 72.

“I’m so excited,” was Boutier’s understandable reaction. “I’ve been working really hard for the past two years, and I’m just so happy that I was able to get my first win. I’m happy, too, with the way I handled myself today. I was struggling a little bit in the beginning, but I just held on and kept fighting until the end.”

There is nothing new in that, of course. Despite much success in her amateur career (she was a member of the French sides that won the 2010 and 2011 European Team Championships and the Duke team that lifted the 2014 NCAA crown), Boutier initially found life as a professional a lot more stressful. But since working with swing coach Cameron McCormick of Jordan Spieth-fame, things have rapidly improved.

“At the beginning, I was just super nervous, stressed and anxious, and I kept missing cuts,” says the 25-year-old, only the second Duke graduate to win on the LPGA Tour (joining Brittany Lang), and the fourth golfer from France (but first since 2003). “I was focusing too much on results, and I didn’t feel like I belonged out there. Now I do.”

RELATED: Vic Open is more than a novel event. It’s a model for the future

Law also knows a bit about perseverance. And heartache. Now the proud parents of a daughter, Penelope, he and his fiancée, Natasha, endured the agony of a still-born child two years ago.

“When you go through something like that, you realize how fragile life is,” Law says. “I’m just so grateful that we got the support we did. It was unbelievable. I went back to play two weeks after it happened and, honestly, it was probably six weeks too early. We were both still in a pretty bad way. But I had to play, and I knew that the longer I put it off, the harder going back would be. That first week, in particular, was horrendous.”

William West/AFP/Getty Images
Boutier, a two-time LET winner, became only the second Duke graduate to claim a title on the LPGA Tour.

Less than a year later, Law won the 2018 Scottish Challenge in his 100th start on the European Challenge Tour, where he had lingered for five years. That victory, however, sent him into the top-15 money winners. And there he stayed until the end of the season, advancing to the European Tour. Finally.

“I think that it’s only natural you begin to have some doubts,” he says of his earlier struggles. “I knew I was good enough to play and be competitive at a higher level, but when you keep getting knocks you start to wonder if you’ll ever get the chance. It’s not something you really want to think about, but there comes a point when you can’t ignore it any longer.”

And so to the celebrations. Law’s joking plan, living down to every Scottish stereotype, was to “sink around12-15 pints,” while Boutier predictably went with “champagne, French of course.”

Some things never change. You can put men and women together on the golf course, but sometimes they just have to go their separate ways.

The post David Law, Celine Boutier pull out matching first-time wins at the ISPS Handa Vic Open appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Huggan
GEELONG, Australia — This is an event for real golf fans. Or fans of real golf. Both really.

This week’s Vic Open in Australia—a ground-breaking collaboration of the European Tour, the LPGA Tour, the PGA of Australia and Australian Ladies Professional Golf—has men and women playing alongside each other on two golf courses at 13th Beach Golf Club on the picturesque Bellarine Peninsula and, here’s the big news, for equal prize money. No, not huge money by today’s standards—a $1.5 million total purse for each—a factor that has surely led to the absence of many star names across the gender divide. But the Vic Open remains a fascinating hint of a more enlightened future for professional golf.

“The guys and girls thing just makes sense. Two real tournaments played at the same time on the same courses makes sense,” argues former U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy, a native Victorian who will be playing in his home state Open for the first time in 21 years. “I wanted to be part of that. Everybody has been praising this event for the last four or five years. That’s all I’ve been hearing in the locker room.

“The people walking on the fairways, guys and girls at the same tournament, alternating groups, a cool venue, two different courses. It’s all great. They are ticking every box. And the field is getting better every year because of that.”

Indeed, backed by the state government, this latest version of the Vic Open—it has been around in various forms since 1957 and has been won by the likes of Peter Thomson, Kel Nagle, Bruce Devlin, Greg Norman, David Graham and Ian Baker-Finch—is in many ways a step back in time. To a better time.

As Ogilvy points out, in recognition of the fact that golf is best viewed from “down the line” rather than “face on,” spectators will walk behind the players rather than alongside them. And the fields contains much of interest to the true golf aficionado. The likes of Laura Davies, Karrie Webb, Minjee Lee, Paula Creamer, Georgia Hall and Catriona Matthew on the women’s side, and Ogilvy, Victor Dubuisson, Ryo Ishikawa, Matteo Manassero, Nicolas Colsaerts, Lucas Herbert and Bob Macintyre are all in attendance. It’s an eclectic mix of young and not-so young.

Indeed, the Vic Open has been so successful, Golf Australia—who run the men’s and women’s Opens Down Under—have taken note. While immediate contractual obligations make an imminent move unlikely, seeing the two championships together is a definite long-term possibility.

“There is no downside to this event,” confirms Matthew, who is making her Vic Open debut. “It really is an inventive initiative and a fun format. I’m enjoying the different vibe that comes with having the men alongside. The only depressing aspect is how far they all hit the ball [laughs]. But I’m all for anything that gets away from the normal 72-hole stroke play we see almost every week.”

Michael Dodge/Getty Images
Signage around 13th Beach Golf Club highlights the fact both the LPGA and European Tour are running concurrent events on the same course.

Amid all of this giddiness, there have been one or two murmurings of discontent. Many of the women have noted the sight of several of their tees sitting either directly alongside or marginally ahead of those of the men. This, many argue, will lead to a wide disparity in the winning scores that will only support the chauvinistic notion that the men can play and the women can’t.

“It’s not that hard,” says one woman who asked not to be identified. “All they have to do is set the test up so that we are all hitting the same clubs into the greens. There are some holes out there where I’ll be going in with a hybrid and many of the men will be hitting short irons. To a tight pin, that’s just not fair.”

Still, perhaps the only real downside is the list of absentees. Symbolically at least, it is disappointing that only four of the world’s top 50 women have made the trip, especially when the Australian Women’s Open, also an LPGA event, will be played in Adelaide next week. (Which is not to say that the leading men have made any more of an effort to acknowledge this historic event).

“I haven’t explicitly said we should get the same money as the men,” says Englishwoman Meghan Maclaren, one of the more interesting voices in the women’s game (go to megmaclaren.com to read one of the most thought-provoking blogs out there). “I’m not sure we will ever get to the stage where that can happen. Because of the way the business and golf worlds have operated for so long. If you are bringing in more money for sponsors, it makes sense that you should be paid more. But if you bring it all back to its most basic level, we are doing the same things as the men.

“We are playing the game to the best of our ability. Which makes me think there is no reason why we shouldn’t start with equal pay. But it has never happened. And the gap is so vast, which is what should be getting more attention. It shouldn’t be as wide as it is. And it doesn’t need to be.

To that end, says Maclaren, the Vic Open is a big deal. “We are getting the chance to play for the same prize-money as the men, which is great,” she says. “Nowhere else in the world is doing this. This week we will end up with two different winners—and they will have played the courses completed differently.”

Exactly. Golf geeks of the world unite. This is a tournament(s) worth watching. And watching closely.

The post The Vic Open is more than a novel event. It’s a model for the future appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.