MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Golfers Cameron Smith and Adam Scott believe the Australian Open has regained its status as a prestigious tournament after returning to its traditional format without playing it concurrently with the Women's Australian Open.
Smith had been highly critical of Australian golf’s biggest event, which for the past three years had been played concurrently with the Women's Australian Open, with male and female golfers playing off alternate tees.
Smith and Scott will join Rory McIlroy in this year's Australian Open which starts on Thursday at Royal Melbourne.
While Golf Australia claimed it made the most sense commercially, the women, including top-ranked local Minjee Lee, mostly didn’t benefit, arriving jet-lagged after the LPGA season-ending event in the U.S. and playing in a reduced field.
The stand-alone Women’s Australian Open returns to Adelaide in 2026 at Kooyonga Golf Club from March 12-15. That date follows a three-tournament Asian swing by the LPGA Tour in Thailand, Singapore and China, increasing opportunities for more of the world's top golfers to play in Australia before they return to the U.S.
Former British Open champion Smith said he had spoken with Golf Australia chief executive James Sutherland about reverting to the traditional format, and was pleased with the outcome.
“There was a lot of back-and-forth throughout the last couple of years, and I think everyone’s pretty happy with the result,” said the LIV Golf player, who has struggled for form this year and has missed seven cuts in a row, including at last week's Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland in Brisbane.
“Everyone’s talking about the Aussie Open again, which is what we wanted," Smith said Tuesday. “We wanted it back at Royal Melbourne and we wanted it to be an event where international stars come down and compete and make it the event that it once was, so I think we’re on the right track.”
Scott said the tournament, which also offers the winner a Masters invite, had been a talking point among players this year.
“It probably is more appealing, certainly for international players, to come down to play,″ Scott said. “Obviously Rory is on board and he’s coming off the back of an incredible year, so that’s very timely for the event, and coming to this venue is creating a lot of hype as well.
“I think winning the Aussie Open at Royal Melbourne has one of those asterisks next to it, where it’s just that little bit more meaningful,” added Scott, who finished seventh at last week’s PGA in Brisbane.
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf
FILE - Adam Scott, of Australia, tees off on the ninth hole during the final round of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Oakmont Country Club, June 15, 2025, in Oakmont, Pa. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
CORRECTS NATIONALITY TO AUSTRALIA NOT SOUTH AFRICA - FILE - Cameron Smith, of Australia, putts on the seventh green during the second round of the British Open golf championship at the Royal Portrush Golf Club in Portrush, Northern Ireland, July 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco, File)
HONG KONG (AP) — The father of a U.S.-based activist wanted by Hong Kong authorities was convicted Wednesday for attempting to deal with his daughter's financial assets in the city, in the first court case of its kind brought under a homegrown national security law.
Kwok Yin-sang's daughter Anna is the executive director of the Washington-based Hong Kong Democracy Council. Authorities in 2023 offered 1 million Hong Kong dollars (about $127,900) for information leading to her arrest and later banned anyone from handling any funds for her — widely seen as part of a yearslong crackdown on challenges against Beijing's rule following the massive, anti-government protests in 2019.
Kwok, 69, was arrested in April 2025 under the security law, locally known as Article 23 legislation, enacted a year before. He was accused of having attempted to obtain funds from an insurance policy under his daughter's name. He pleaded not guilty.
Acting principal magistrate Cheng Lim-chi found him guilty on Wednesday, saying Kwok must have known his daughter was an absconder and he was attempting to handle her assets.
According to previous hearings, Kwok bought the insurance policy for Anna when she was a toddler and she gained control of it when she reached 18 years old. The father in 2025 wanted to cancel the policy and get funds from it, the court heard.
Kwok’s lawyer, Steven Kwan, pleaded for a lesser sentence for his client, saying there was no evidence to show his client was trying to get the money to send to his daughter. He suggested the judge consider a 14-day prison term.
While the maximum sentence for his charge is seven years of imprisonment, but his case was heard at the magistrates’ courts, which normally hands down a maximum sentence of two years.
His sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 26.
Authorities have accused Anna Kwok of demanding for foreign sanctions, blockade and engaging in other hostile activities against China and Hong Kong through meeting foreign politicians and government officials.
“Today, my father was convicted simply for being my father,” said the younger Kwok on X. “This is transnational repression.”
She said his charge was founded on “incoherent fiction” and she had not received or sought funds from her father or anyone in Hong Kong. She added that the moves from the city's government will not discourage her from carrying on her activism.
Amnesty International Hong Kong Overseas spokesperson Joey Siu said the conviction was apparently politically motivated.
“It also sets a dangerous precedent, designed to terrify and silence others who continue to speak out about Hong Kong issues from overseas,” she said in a statement, calling for Kwok's release.
The police’s bounties targeting overseas-based Hong Kong activists, including Siu and pro-democracy former lawmakers Nathan Law and Ted Hui, have drawn criticism from the U.S. and the U.K. governments.
In 2025, Washington sanctioned six Chinese and Hong Kong officials who it alleged were involved in “transnational repression” and acts that threaten to further erode the city’s autonomy. It said Beijing and Hong Kong officials have used Hong Kong's national security laws extraterritorially to intimidate, silence and harass some activists who were forced to flee overseas.
Weeks after that, China said it would sanction U.S. officials, lawmakers and leaders of nongovernmental organizations who it said have “performed poorly” on Hong Kong issues.
After Beijing imposed a 2020 national security law on the city, many leading activists were arrested or silenced. Others fled abroad and continued their advocacy for Hong Kong, a British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Both China and Hong Kong governments insist the security laws were crucial for the city's stability.
This story was corrected in an earlier version to reflect that Kwok Yin-sang was arrested in April 2025, not May.
Anna Kwok, second right, speaks to Sen. Jeff Merkley at an event outside of the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C., on March 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Didi Tang)
Anna Kwok speaks during an event commemorating China's June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy movement in Washington D.C., on June 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Didi Tang)
