The US PGA Tour are here and they mean business as presence in Asia grows
October 2017 will see three events played in Malaysia, South Korea and China with a total prize fund of US$26 million, while the China Series is seeking further growth following this week’s Clearwater Bay Open
There are only 52 weeks in a year. That is a fact. A fact that the US PGA Tour might like to change, but for now it is still a fact. There are also now 26 million reasons for golf’s top players to use three of those weeks in 2017 to take in Malaysia, South Korea and China after the PGA Tour recently used one of those seven day stretches to add an event to their already bulging calendar on picturesque Jeju island next year.
Golf tour’s adding events is not an unusual thing, take this week’s PGA Tour China Series Clearwater Bay Open as an example, but for the PGA Tour it is a rarity with a schedule that simply can’t accommodate any more events.
It is unusual that it is one of only three, with the others in Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia that make up the ‘Asian Swing’, that the PGA Tour operates in Asia.
The World Golf Championship-backed US$9.5m HSBC Champions in Shanghai was only fully recognised by the PGA Tour in 2013, the same year the US$7m CIMB Classic in Malaysia was added to the schedule.
They had visited the region in the past with the World Cup event from 1995 up until 2011, but the European Tour has been in the region since either the 1989 Dubai Desert Classic or the 1992 Johnnie Walker Classic in Bangkok depending on your definition of Asia.
