The worldwide economic recession has impacted professional golf tours around the world. The LPGA Tour has been hardest hit to date, but other tours have suffered, too. And two more tournaments have bit the dust in the past couple days when new title sponsors couldn't be found:
- Today the Asian Tour announced its season-ending Volvo Masters has been canceled. Volvo declined to renew its sponsorship for the Thailand tournament in 2009. Two other Asian Tour events were canceled earlier this year. Volvo also sponsors the World Match Play Championship and the China Open, and there is no indication at this time that the carmaker plans to pull out of those events.
- Yesterday the European Tour announced the cancelation of the 2009 British Masters. The British Masters lost its title sponsor after last year's tourney and couldn't find a replacement for this year. It had been played since 1946, making it one of the oldest events on the European circuit.
Comments
It is a real pity that the British Masters will not be played this year. Any tournament that has been on for so many years, holds a special place on tour and with Quinn not able to continue its support, its just sad that we will not have the tournament this year.
But the other tournament that has been plugged is quite a curious case. Yes, the auto industry has suffered as we saw with Mercedes backing out of the season-opener on the PGA Tour but this one will have interesting ramifications. Volvo might be facing a credit crunch but they have underlined two important reasons for their backing out of the Masters of Asia- one is the unrest in Thailand and the second, more significant reason being the ensuing confusion in the region. The Volvo Masters of Asia was promoted by WSG, who have dual interests as they also hold the broadcast rights for the OneAsia Tour, a rival tour that is aiming to usurp all the high-profile Asian Tour event.
This is not the last that we have heard from there and it would be interesting to see how the issue pans out in the next few months. With Japan already having decided to back the OneAsia Tour next year, the Asian Tour does stand on weak ground and they may have no other option but to compromise and become a part of this new tour.