OneAsia Tour is On...Without Asian Tour
We blogged about a story a few weeks ago that came from Reuters saying that the Asian Tour's chief executive, Kyi Hla Han, had been claiming they had been ignored by the mastermind behind the formation of the OneAsia Tour - the PGA Tour of Australasia.
Now, the Asian Tour is officially saying they will not be a part of the concept scheduled to begin next season.
"We are not going to accept it," Kyi Hla Han told Reuters. "We don't feel there can be two entities in the market place."I think the comment is a bit awkward. After all, there already are more than 2 entities in the market. And a bunch of them are teaming up to form OneAsia.
...Han said the Asian Tour had decided not to come on board having received no cooperation from the other circuits in the region.
"We have repeatedly asked help from the Australian Tour, the driving force behind this, but they have ignored us," the Myanmar national said.
"We've asked them to help set up talks, they had meetings in February, they didn't invite us.
"It's our position that we are a success and have been accepted in the marketplace already. I don't think we can accept two organisations."
The Japan Golf Tour Organisation, the China Golf Association, the Korean Golf Association and the PGA of Australia have agreed to give their "complete support" to the proposed tour, the Australian PGA announced on Friday.Well, there you have it. I find it curious that the Asian Tour is so sure of itself. After all, we did a study last week of the purses on the Asian Tour that are NOT co-sanctioned events. The picture was not as glorious as the Tour would want an outside observer to think. Were it not for the European Tour's co-sanctioning relationship with the Asian Tour and claiming the majors and WGCs on their schedule, the Tour may very well be struggling to survive.
The golf circuits of Japan, China, South Korea and Australia -- the "Founding Tours" -- have agreed to form an interim board with a chairman to be named in the coming months, the Australian PGA said.
Here's the release from the PGA Tour of Australasia website.
1 comment:
I think all said and done, the fact is that the Asian Tour has been on the rise and the quality and level of play also has been definitely improving. Which can gauged from the fact that more and more co sanctioned events are being won by the Asian Tour regulars. It seems unlikely to me that most of the tour regulars would hop on to the new circuit. As far as I am aware the players have tried to distance themselves from the new tour talks. Even some of the Co Sanctioned events that have been conducted over the last months had the Asian Tour breathing fire and most players were backing the tour till some of the demands were met with and the European Tour did have to make some adjustments.
I would be interested to see in which directing the the Professional Golf Tour of India because their stance could really affect the status of the new tour because along with China, India is the other big growing market in the region and that is reflected in the fact that as many as four Asian Tournaments are being held there this year. The plans for the OneAsia Tour could get a huge boost if the PGTI sides with them. We will have to wait and watch to see how this story pans out.
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