The Australian Goldfields Open was a professional

ranking A ranking is a relationship between a set of items, often recorded in a list, such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than", or "ranked equal to" the second. In mathematics, this is known as a weak ...

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sport played on a rectangular Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, billiards table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets: one at each corner and ...

tournament. The final champion was

John Higgins John Higgins (born 18 May 1975) is a Scottish professional snooker player from Wishaw in North Lanarkshire. Since turning professional in 1992, he has won 33 ranking titles, placing him in third position on the List of snooker players by num ...

in 2015.

History

Australia had previously hosted the

1971 * The year 1971 had three partial solar eclipses (Solar eclipse of February 25, 1971, February 25, Solar eclipse of July 22, 1971, July 22 and Solar eclipse of August 20, 1971, August 20) and two total lunar eclipses (February 1971 lunar eclip ...

and

1975 It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 – Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...

World Snooker Championship The World Snooker Championship, or simply known as the World Championship, is the longest-running and most prestigious tournament in professional snooker. It is also the richest event to date with a total prize money of £2,395,000, including ...

s, 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 addition, the tournament was also held in 1995 as the ''Australian Open'' immediately following the Australian Masters, featuring mostly the same players and the same two players in the final. In 2011 the

World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) is the governing body of professional snooker and English billiards. It is headquartered in Bristol, England. Founded as the Professional Billiard Players Association (PBPA) in ...

resurrected the event under the ''Australian Goldfields Open'' name and added it to the 2011/2012 calendar. The tournament's later incarnation providing the first ranking tournament victories for future World Champion

Stuart Bingham Stuart Bingham (born 21 May 1976) is an English professional snooker player who is a former World Champion and Masters winner. Bingham won the 1996 World Amateur Championship but enjoyed little sustained success in the early part of his pro ...

and future world finalist

Barry Hawkins Barry Hawkins (born 23 April 1979) is an English professional snooker player from Ditton, Kent. He turned professional in 1996, but only rose to prominence in the 2004–05 snooker season when he reached the last 16 of the 2004 UK Championship, ...

and arguably resurrected the careers of these two players who had previously been considered journeyman professionals, who had previously hovered between the fringes of the top 16 and top 32. In 2016, the event was quietly dropped from the calendar.

Winners

Notes

References

{{snooker tournaments Recurring sporting events established in 1979 1979 establishments in Australia Snooker ranking tournaments Snooker competitions in Australia Recurring sporting events disestablished in 2015 2015 disestablishments in Australia Defunct snooker competitions Defunct sports competitions in Australia

History

Winners

Notes

See also

References