KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand Open golf championship has been dropped from the European Tour's calendar.
But NZ Golf chief executive Bill MacGowan said the move was anticipated and NZG was pushing ahead with negotiations for a four-year deal with the United States' second tier Nationwide Tour.
"We are not
disappointed to have lost European Tour sanction for the NZ Open," MacGowan said today.
The European Tour today unveiled a 53-event schedule for 2009, culminating in the US$20 million ($32.15 million) Dubai world championship at Jumeirah next November.
The "Race to Dubai" sees events in 26 venues, starting this November with the HSBC Champions event in Shanghai.
Five tournaments were added to the 2009 schedule but the NZ and Asian Opens and Volvo Masters do not feature.
"The European Tour offered us a couple of dates which weren't satisfactory from our point of view," MacGowan said.
"The other key point was that it was only for a one-year term (so) we have taken the position we would rather negotiate with the Nationwide Tour for a longer-term deal and get some security and surety going forward for the NZ Open.
"We always knew we would have some problems with a European sanction when they introduced their Race to Dubai, but it came a little bit earlier than expected.
"We are not disappointed with our exclusion from the European Tour and there will be no great effect on the NZ Open.
"One of the things (in the past) that was disappointing was that we didn't get the number of players we were expecting (from Europe) with that co-sanctioning."
For the last three years the NZ Open has been co-sanctioned with the Australasian and European tours, but other than Michael Campbell, leading European players generally passed it by.
The Nationwide Tour was a good part of the world to be because of the potential field for the NZ Open and its international television audience in terms of NZG's commercial arrangements, MacGowan said.
Discussions on the NZ Open, to be held at The Hills course in Arrowtown, were progressing and NZG would be able to make an announcement on final details at the end of the month.
The board had met tournament promoter Tuohy and Associates over the weekend which helped resolve some issues.
MacGowan indicated that a likely date for the NZ Open would be a week after the NZPGA championship, set for March 5-8.
The US$650,000 NZPGA championship is an established stop on the Nationwide Tour.
- NZPA
