Australian Goldfields Open

Australian Goldfields Open

Tournament information
Venue	Bendigo Stadium
Location	Bendigo
Country	Australia
Established	1979
Organisation(s)	World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association
Format	Ranking event
Total prize fund	$500,000[1]
Current champion(s)	John Higgins

The Australian Goldfields Open is a professional ranking snooker tournament. The reigning champion is John Higgins.

History

Australia had previously hosted the 1971 and 1975 World Snooker Championships, as well as several other high profile snooker tournaments and in 1979 the Australian Masters was established. There was an attempt to turn the event into a ranking tournament in 1989 but the sponsorship fell through so it was staged in Hong Kong instead, as the Hong Kong Open, which incidentally became the first ranking tournament to be staged in Asia. The Hong Kong event was discontinued after just one year, but returned to Australia in 1994 as the Australian Open. The tournament reverted to being called the Australian Masters for the following season, but was dropped from the calendar after the 1995 event. In 2011 the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association resurrected the event under the Australian Goldfields Open name and added it to the 2011/2012 calendar.

Winners

Year	Winner	Runner-up	Final score	City	Season
Australian Masters (non-ranking)[2]
1979	Ian Anderson	Perrie Mans	[n 1]	Sydney	1979/80
1980	John Spencer	Dennis Taylor	[n 1]		1980/81
1981	Tony Meo	John Spencer	[n 1]		1981/82
1982	Steve Davis	Eddie Charlton	[n 1]		1982/83
1983	Cliff Thorburn	Bill Werbeniuk	7–3		1983/84
1984	Tony Knowles	John Virgo	7–3		1984/85
1985[3]	Tony Meo	John Campbell	7–2		1985/86
1986	Dennis Taylor	Steve Davis	3–2		1986/87
1987	Stephen Hendry	Mike Hallett	371–226[n 1]		1987/88
Hong Kong Open (ranking)
1989[4]	Mike Hallett	Dene O'Kane	9–8	Hong Kong	1989/90
Australian Open (non-ranking)
1994[5]	John Higgins	Willie Thorne	9–5	Melbourne	1994/95
Australian Masters (non-ranking)
1995[5]	Anthony Hamilton	Chris Small	8–6	Melbourne	1995/96
Australian Goldfields Open (ranking)[6]
2011[7]	Stuart Bingham	Mark Williams	9–8	Bendigo	2011/12
2012[8]	Barry Hawkins	Peter Ebdon	9–3		2012/13
2013[9]	Marco Fu	Neil Robertson	9–6		2013/14
2014[10]	Judd Trump	Neil Robertson	9–5		2014/15
2015[11]	John Higgins	Martin Gould	9–8		2015/16

Notes

1. The finals were decided on aggregate score over three frames between 1979 and 1982 and five frames in 1987.

References

1. Kalb, Rolf (29 June 2014). "Turnier-Infos: Australian Open" (in German). Eurosport Deutschland. Retrieved 30 June 2014.
2. Turner, Chris. "Australian Masters". Chris Turner's Snooker Archive. Archived from the original on 20 September 2010. Retrieved 10 November 2011.
3. Hayton, Eric (2004). The CueSport Book of Professional Snooker. Lowestoft: Rose Villa Publications. p. 31. ISBN 0-9548549-0-X.
4. Turner, Chris. "Other Asia Ranking Events". Chris Turner's Snooker Archive. Archived from the original on 24 July 2011. Retrieved 14 June 2011.
5. Hayton, Eric (2004). The CueSport Book of Professional Snooker. Suffolk: Rose Villa Publications. pp. 165–167. ISBN 978-0-9548549-0-4.
6. "Hall of Fame". Snooker.org. Retrieved 22 June 2013.
7. "Stuart Bingham beats Mark Williams 9-8 to win Australian Open". BBC Sport. 24 July 2011. Archived from the original on 13 June 2012. Retrieved 10 November 2011.
8. "Australian Goldfields Open (2012)". Snooker.org. Retrieved 4 June 2012.
9. "Australian Goldfields Open (2013)". Snooker.org. Retrieved 22 May 2012.
10. "Australian Goldfields Open (2014)". Snooker.org. Retrieved 23 May 2014.
11. "Australian Goldfields Open (2015)". Snooker.org. Retrieved 6 April 2015.