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 The PGA of Australia was one of the main driving forces behind the
establishment of OneAsia in 2009 but in June it dropped the tour
from its oldest event, the Australian PGA Championship.
The European Tour will instead debut as co-sanctioners of the
tournament on the Gold Coast this week, leaving the Australian Open
as the last remaining stop Down Under on a shrinking OneAsia
schedule.
Asked about the long-term future of the relationship between the
Australian Open and OneAsia at the weekend, Golf Australia chief
executive Stephen Pitt was non-committal.
"I guess, it's hard to look at it for the next four or five years
because it's a very dynamic area, there's a lot going on with
tours," he told reporters on Sunday.
"So at the moment we're looking at some of those things with our
commercial partner Lagardere ... we'll make those decisions at the
appropriate time.
"There'll be some tour options without a doubt. But I'd say it's an
interesting time in terms of the tour landscape."
The interesting times have been brought about by talks over a
proposed merger between the fast-expanding European Tour and the
Asian Tour, a player-run organization that preceded OneAsia and
bitterly opposed its establishment.
Pitt said the decision over the future alignment of the tournament
would ultimately be taken by Lagardere, formerly the World Sport
Group, and Golf Australia.
Lagardere are a major player in the Asian golf market and have been
long-time global marketing and media partner of the OneAsia tour.
Mark Hardess, their president of southeast Asia and Australia, did
not want to specifically discuss the relative merits of aligning
with various tours but did explain the reasons for co-sanctioning.
"For us, the more can link Australia to Asia and the huge population
up there, hopefully that's a bigger and better proposition and
brings money back into the event," he told Reuters on Sunday.
"Particularly on our broadcast platform. We try and get Chinese,
Japanese, Korean, southeast Asian players in there because people
obviously follow their own.
"So that's the whole purpose of looking to sanction with whatever
partner up in Asia is to get Asian lads in here so they get seen on
television up there and people follow us.
"OneAsia was the link into Asia but it could have been with any
Asian tour, we could have just gone to the Japanese, to the Koreans,
to the Chinese. OneAsia was just one conversation instead of three."
The prospect of a tour that could bring big names from not only Asia
but also Europe might be highly attractive to an event like the
Australian Open, which has been revived from a fairly moribund state
over the last few years.
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PARLOUS STATE
It was the generally parlous state of the Australasian tour, with
its best homegrown talent heading to the U.S. and Europe and cut off
from the potential riches of the Asian market, that led to the
formation of OneAsia.
With the Australian PGA, China Golf Association, Korean Golf
Association and the Korean PGA on board, the new tour was launched
with ambitious plans of 20-to-30 events a year each with a prize
purse above one million dollars.
But for branding on the TV pictures, however, you would have hardly
have noticed that last weekend's Australian Open was the final stop
on its schedule.
South Korea's Moon Kyong-jun was crowned Order of Merit winner after
the event but there was no presentation as he was not among the
OneAsia members playing at the Australian Golf Club.
The schedule was reduced to seven events this year after the
cancellation of the Indonesian PGA and China Masters as well as the
loss of the Australian PGA.
"We've struggled, it's been a difficult year," David Parkin,
OneAsia's Director of Tour Operations, told Reuters on a Sunday as
he fulfilled his role a co-tournament director.
"But we're still offering our members the chance to earn good money
and play in big tournaments and that's what it's about at the end of
the day.
"Hopefully we'll have a couple more tournaments next year, we're
hoping to have the China Masters and the Indonesian PGA back," he
added. "I'm positive about the future."
(Editing by Patrick Johnston)
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