Golf Australia has learnt from its mistakes, reverting to a traditional one-cut Australian Open and reducing the women's field for the second dual-gender national championship.
The 2023 Open will return to Sydney, with The Australian and The Lakes golf clubs confirmed on Wednesday as co-hosts for the November 30 to December 3 event.
GA chief executive James Sutherland said officials had reacted to player feedback from last year's revolutionary tournament in Melbourne by tweaking the format to free up the fairways for the final two rounds.
Players complained of near six-hour final rounds last year, prompting GA, the PGA Tour of Australasia and the WPGA to restore the 36-hole cut in 2023 and cap the women's field at 84 players.
Last year's Open controversially featured two cuts, one on Friday as normal and a second on Saturday, all but eliminating the prospect of players charging home on Sunday from six or seven shots back after round three.
Players will also only tee off from the first tee on the Sunday, and not the 10th, while the all-abilities championship will run from Thursday to Saturday.
"They're some of the things the players felt were, not compromising the integrity, but were just extra complications," Sutherland said.
"It sort of clears the field a little bit for the weekend."
DP World Tour and PGA Tour winner Lucas Herbert and LPGA Tour star Stephanie Kyriacou are the first two marquee players to confirm their appearance in Sydney this summer.
Sutherland is promising more big names to come, and threw down the welcome mat to LIV Golf players from the breakaway group - even those banned from competing on the PGA Tour in America.
"We just want to put on a great golf tournament and we want the best players in the world playing here," Sutherland said.
"If they want to play, I'm all ears. I want to have those conversations."
The men's Australian Open returns to The Australian GC for the first time since 2019, while the women's homecoming to Sydney has been 16 years in the making.
Royal Sydney hosted the most recent event in the NSW capital, when Karrie Webb was victorious in 2007.
Sutherland also revealed the hosting city for 2024 was up for grabs, leaving Sydney - and other state capitals - in the running after it was previously thought the Open would return to Melbourne next year.
For this year, The Australian will be the host venue across the four days with nearby The Lakes to be used on Thursday and Friday.
The dual Australian Opens will carry a minimum of $3.4 million in prize money.
The men's event will be co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour of Australasia and DP World Tour, ensuring Australian golf is on the world stage for two consecutive weeks of the summer with the Australian PGA Championship staged at Royal Queensland the week before.
The men's field will consist of 156 players, with the top-60 professionals plus ties making the cut.
The top-32 professionals plus ties in the women's Open will make the cut.
All professionals who make the cut will receive equal prize money across the men's and women's events.
