Swinging in the Middle Kingdom

That China will play a crucial role in the future growth of Asian golf became apparent with the announcement of the full schedule of the 2004 Asian Tour season. In the past few years, even while showing appreciable development, the Asian Tour faced difficulties in finding sponsors.

It is something that can perhaps be linked to the economic slowdown in the region. Yet full marks to Ramlan Harun, executive director of Asia Tour, who ran the erstwhile Asian PGA and now the Tour.

Both the Tour were not just run by the players themselves, but they have managed to take the Tour to greater heights.

The Asian PGA is now a closed chapter as Harun formally announced that the Asian PGA was no longer the official sanctioning body for professional golf tournaments in the region.

At the same time, last month, he endorsed the Asian Tour as the new sanctioning body at the International Federation of PGA Tours meeting.

The biggest success for the Asian Tour has been getting China to play a lead role. Taiwan, India, Thailand and Korea have done their bit, but China's recent interest in the sport "" what with an amazing number of courses coming up in the Middle Kingdom "" has indicated that it will now play a vital role in the sport's growth in the region.

Between China and Shanghai, there will be a total of six tournaments "" three in mainland China, two in Shanghai and one in Macau. There are two more in Taiwan.

This week, the Jack Nicklaus-designed Pine Valley Golf Club, plays host to the inaugural $300,000 Volkswagen Masters, which will be followed by the $275,000 Macau Open. Mainland China's other events this year are the $200,000 Tianjin TEDA Open and the $200,000 Sanya Open.

Shanghai will host the two big ones "" the $1.5 million BMW Asian Open in May and the $1 million Volvo China Open in November. Both events are jointly sanctioned with the European PGA and will, therefore, see the cream of European talent.

The other positive thing has been that the hosts have not been averse to putting out more money to get marquee names and push up the profile of the events. If the Volkswagen Masters has the likes of Faldo, Woosnam and Phillip Price, the popular Macau Open will see Asia's best "" Zhang Lian Wei and Padraig Harrington.

The BMW Asian Open will feature top Asians and Korea's Choi Kyung-ju, fresh from a third-place finish at the Masters as well as Australian legend Greg Norman.

While the SK Telecom Open in Seoul, to be held between May 20-23 next month, has also managed to get KJ Choi to play, who will be defending his title. Besides, new events like the $ 200,000 Carlsberg Vietnam Open in Hanoi will boost the profile of the Tour.

The Asian Tour, which is controlled by a board run by players, is headed by chairman Kyi Hla Han, one of the seniormost players in Asia. Louis Martin a South African is the chief executive.

Ironically, Martin was deputed by the European PGA to help the players set up the new Asian Tour instead of the Asian PGA, but while he was still here, the European PGA announced some kind of an arrangement with the former body's marketing agents.

That threw everything into confusion, as a result of which Martin resigned from European PGA and joined the Asian Tour full time. "I wanted to help out the players in Asia. I could not leave when the work had barely begun," he said on a recent visit to India during the Indian Open.

For the present, the Asian Tour will have a minimum of 21 tournaments with prize money of $11.3 million which is a new record. And this is something Asian players will be more than happy about.

 

What's Up Last week (ending April 25, 2004)
Tour	Event	Champion
USPGA	Shell Houston	Vijay Singh
European PGA	Canarias Open, de Espana	Christian Cevair
Nationwide	Rheem Classic	Franklin Langham
Japan	Tsuruya Open	Brendan Jones
Indian	Hero Golf, Chandigarh	Harinder Gupta (A)
This week (ending May 1, 2004)
Tour	Event	Defending Champion
USPGA	HP Classic of New Orleans	Steve Flesch
European PGA	Telecom Italia Open	Mathias Groneberg
Nationwide	BMW Charity Pro-Am	Tripp Isenhour
Asian	Volkswagen Masters	New event
Japan	The Crowns	Hidemasa Hioshino
LPGA	Chick-Fil Charity	Se Ri Pak