Asian Tour set for record prize money in 2003
Asian Tour set for record prize money in 2003
Agencies, Kuala Lumpur
Record prize money of US$11.85 million will be on offer for the
2003 Asian PGA Tour, officials announced on Tuesday.
The season begins with this week's $833,000 Okinawa Open, the
first Asian event to be joint-sanctioned with the Japan Tour, and
ends almost 12 months later with the $500,000 Volvo Masters of
Asia in Thailand from December 11-14.
For the fourth year in a row, the tour's flagship event will
be the $1.6 million Johnnie Walker Classic, to be staged at Lake
Karrinyup Golf Club in Perth, Australia from Feb. 13-16.
The Johnnie Walker Classic, which South Africa's Retief Goosen
won by eight shots in January, is tri-sanctioned by the Asian
PGA, European and Australasian Tours.
In 2003, the tournament will be sandwiched between two other
events co-sanctioned by the European Tour -- the $900,000
Singapore Masters in late January and the $1.1 million Malaysian
Open from Feb. 20-23.
In all, a minimum of 20 events will be staged in 14 countries
on the 2003 Asian PGA Tour and total prize money is up on last
year's $10.7 million.
"It's a season that promises so much," Ramlan Harun, the Asian
Tour's executive director, said in a statement.
"The prize money is very lucrative but, more importantly, we
have a wonderful spread of events that traverse the region. And
we are extremely confident that more tournaments will be added to
the schedule.
"We are currently in final negotiations with the relevant
associations to bring on board the Thailand Open and Korean Open,
plus the ROC PGA Championship, among others."
Meanwhile in Jacksonville, Florida, the group pushing for
female members at Augusta National took its battle into
cyberspace Tuesday with a Web site that vilifies corporations
whose chief executives belong to the golf club.
"We think it is important for women to know that some of
America's largest corporations maintain a double standard when it
comes to sex discrimination," said Martha Burk, head of the
National Council of Women's Organizations.
The site - www.augustadiscriminates.org - officially was to go
online Tuesday night to coincide with Burk's appearance on HBO's
"Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel."
The main page, headlined "Hall of Hypocrisy," will display
logos of corporations with ties to Augusta.
Each corporate link will show a photo of the chairman or CEO,
the company's diversity statement if it has one, and the goods
and services it provides. A headline proclaims that the company
supports discrimination.