Peter Williams: PGA has China in its hands

The first golf club outside Britain was in Asia so it's fitting the game's new horizons are now in that overpopulated and rapidly developing sector of the planet.

Royal Calcutta, established in 1829, is the oldest club outside the land of the R&A. The game has been played not just in India but throughout Asia, by the moneyed classes, for generations.

But with the emergence of a spectacularly large middle class in the last 20 years, especially in India and China, the Asian golf market has become irresistible to many from more mature environments in the US, Europe and Australasia.

The effective demise of the Australian and New Zealand Tour as a main player in world golf coincides with the rapid expansion of the Asian PGA Tour, where this year six New Zealanders have qualified to play for their share of $US26 million over 25 events.

The catch is that many of those events, and all the rich ones, are co-sanctioned with the European Tour.

So this week Richard Lee, Mahal Pearce and Eddie Lee had starts in the Qatar Masters in Doha. That's because they all had top 50 finishes on the Asian Tour money list last year.

Earlier this month Bradley Iles, Matthew Holten and Kevin Chun were among 46 players to earn their playing privileges in Asia through the Tour's qualifying school. But, unless they can secure some sponsors' invites to the co-sanctioned events, the rookies will have to start their Asian Tour careers in the bevy of events worth between $US200,000 and $US700,000, which comprise the majority of the schedule.

However, one decent finish can open up all sorts of possibilities. Last year Richard Lee won the Thailand Open, which earned him the bulk of his annual total of $US103,000 and placed him 32nd on the money list. Similarly Eddie Lee won most of his $US85,000 by finishing 4th equal at the Asian Open in Shanghai.

The Asian Tour as an entity only came into existence in 1995. In 11 years, the prize money's quadrupled and the number of tournaments has increased 25 per cent.

The economic driver is China. This year six Asian Tour events, five of them co-sanctioned with Europe, are in China, offering $US10.5 million in prize money.

This week the US PGA Tour appointed an executive vice-president for international affairs. He's Ty Votaw, the former Commissioner of the LPGA Tour. His appointment surely signals golf's major league, operating in a saturated American market, has its eye on Asia, especially China.

 - HERALD ON SUNDAY