in this part of the world, we can fill that void in two or three years.
India has joined Malaysia and Thailand as one of your most frequent stops on Tour. How important is the sub-continent to the growth of the game? India has been fantastic, especially from a player’s point of view because we have a wealth of young players coming through the ranks to replace guys such as Jeev Milkha Singh, Jyoti Randhawa, Arjun Atwal and Shiv Kapur - all solid players who have now gone on to ply their trade on the European and PGA Tours. We’ve got the likes of Anirbhan Lahiri, Sujjan Singh, Chiragh Kumar and not forgetting, the ISPS Handa Singapore Classic champion Himmat Rai who have become household names. For us, India is such a huge untapped market and a lot of sponsors are very much interested in that market, so we have been spending a lot of time and effort to get new tournaments into India. We have a unique partnership with the Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI) and this is reflected by the fact that its president Gautam Thapar is also on our board. So, in the long run, we’re looking at more South Asian tournaments.
What would your next area of growth be?
This augurs well with the 2016 Rio Olympics being the horizon; who knows we may have a Malaysian player making the mark in the world rankings to qualify on merit.
Probably more tournaments north of Thailand? Yes, pretty much. We’re working our way in Taiwan with a couple of event and last year we had KJ Choi host the inaugural CJ Invitational, which was a milestone for us in terms of a player hosting an event on Tour and we appreciate that sort of support.
When we take a closer look at your schedule, autumn is obviously the most congested period of the year. Do you view this as a problem? It’s a good problem to have but yes, it remains a problem. I think the main thing is that a lot of sponsors demand that star players which are players from the European and PGA Tours - make appearances in their tournament and their availability is pretty much after September, which is why our biggest cosanctioned events - the Barclays Singapore Open, the Hong Kong Open and the Iskandar Johor Open take place almost consecutively during that time of the year.
© Asian Tour
If you look at our existing schedule, Malaysia obviously remains a strong future potential with the Maybank Malaysian Open and the Iskandar Johor Open as our two biggest tournaments. On top of that we have the CIMB Asia Pacific Classic, Malaysia - we hope the field will expand, so that more regional and Malaysia’s own stars can be a part of it.
We’ve also had a great event in Selangor annually and also a handful of Asian Development Tour events, which is set to expand in 2012. We’re strongly looking at an event across in East Malaysia and other regions outside of the Klang Valley - so, we’re still tapping the market here. We’re also trying to give more Malaysian players the opportunity to play on Tour more regularly and the signs are healthy because we’re seeing an improvement in their standard of play.
With 2011 Order of Merit champion Juvic Pagusan
BATTLE OF WILLS? Has the situation with OneAsia changed? Right now, we feel we’re just going to concentrate our own work and get more tournaments for our members. It goes without saying that our members have been united behind us, they know that the Asian Tour is a viable tour with good fundamentals. It’s obviously not a pretty situation and it’s not good for golf in Asia either but we have to hold our ground and the support from the market forces as well as our partners in the International Federation of Professional Golf Tours has been encouraging. In the long run, I am confident we will prevail but yes, it has confused the market a fair bit and it has strained our players a little, so it’s not a great spot to be in. What would you say about the comparison drawn that the top ten on the Asian Tour’s Order of Merit earned less than the top ten of OneAsia? While earnings are important gauge mark, I don’t think it’s the final thing to it. Overall, our top-65 players earn more on a more consistent basis than on our rival’s tour. You just have to look at our solid membership and the playing opportunities that we accord to our members. In my consultation with our members, the younger players have expressed their wish to participate in as many tournaments possible to hone their skills and by giving them that quality platform to perform and excel. Our events are accessible and our operations side do their best to assist our members in getting the best rates be it airfare or accommodation arrangement across Asia. Our top players get into the Majors and World Golf Championships and a host of invites to European and PGA Tours events and that’s important for us because our events have consistently accorded more Official World Golf Ranking points and that’s important if a player has the Olympics in his mind. The introduction of mega-rich exhibition events in China have surely shaken up the establishment in Asia. What’s your take on these events? It’s not good and I believe strongly that these exhibition matches don’t really do anything for the development of Chinese golf or golf in Asia. It’s timely that these events start working towards gaining sanction in the near future. In our OWGR meetings at The Masters and British Open last year, we came to a consensus not to encourage such events by reducing the number of ranking points on offer in such events.
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