Golf: Sponsorship hunt opens rift

New Zealand Golf has some fences to mend with an equally influential stakeholder in the sport.

Chief executive Larry Graham has some explaining to do after leaving the New Zealand Professional Golfers' Association feeling aggrieved.

NZ Golf has been involved in protracted negotiations with a number of companies in a fruitless search to secure a naming-rights sponsor for the $1.5 million New Zealand Open on November 23-26 at Gulf Harbour.

The search for a principal sponsor has led it to ING, leaving the pro association open-mouthed because ING is the primary sponsor of its own event, the $920,000 New Zealand PGA Championship in Christchurch.

ING is assessing whether that arrangement will enter a third year in 2007, and marketing general manager Steven Giannoulis suggests the status quo is likely to be retained.

He said NZ Golf approached his company several months ago.

"They have approached us. We have considered their offer, but we have come to no arrangement with them," he said. "We're progressing with what we've got unless they've got plans to come up with something amazing in the coming few weeks."

Pro association chief executive Garth Stirrat said yesterday that it was fair to say some of his members were livid when they learned of NZ Golf's approach to ING.

NZ Golf and the pro association have historically had a strained relationship, separated by a demarcation line as the former protects the interests of the amateur game and the latter promotes those who make a living from the sport.

The latest episode has hardly improved that relationship, with Stirrat saying some NZPGA members felt as though NZ Golf went behind their backs to poach their primary PGA Championship sponsor.

Stirrat said that in an ideal world the two groups would work together to ensure the success of both tournaments.

Graham said the search for New Zealand Open sponsorship was "going all right but nothing's across the line yet".

He would not comment on NZ Golf's approach to ING, other than to say that was an option.

The tournament purse was more than doubled to $1.5 million last year after NZ Golf agreed to a five-year deal for the Open to enjoy co-sanctioning status on the European and Australasian circuits.

That has resulted in the costs associated with the championship escalating to about $4.5 million, which has to be found through sponsorship.

- NZPA