Peter Williams: Date change works against NZ Open

Were New Zealand Golf sold a pup when they agreed to the change of date for the New Zealand Open?

The original dates were November 23-26 but the Open has been shifted back a week and now finishes on December 3. The reason given was a potential conflict for Australian TV network, Channel Seven who have the rights for the Australian Masters and the Davis Cup tennis final which were due to finish on December 3.

So Channel Seven pushed the Australasian PGA Tour to get the Australian Masters and the New Zealand Open to swap weeks. On the surface, it seems a reasonable request but, when the decision was made in June, Australia was just a one in four chance to host the Davis Cup final. In the semifinal, they lost 5-0 to Argentina who play the final against Russia in Moscow. Channel Seven won't be showing it.

So the publicly stated reason for the switch, which didn't hold much water in the first place, is non-existent. But the Australian Masters has benefited considerably at the expense of the New Zealand Open.

Those two events are the Australasian leg of the European Tour and follow the opening tournaments of the 2007(!) season in China and Hong Kong. It's believed some European players will go to Melbourne but not to the NZ Open. If Gulf Harbour preceded Melbourne, the prospects of higher profile European Tour players coming here would be better.

The Masters and the Open clash with the opening two tests of the Ashes series, and there's a suspicion the Adelaide Oval could hold more attraction for some English professionals than Gulf Harbour.

But the real killer is that the date change means the NZ Open clashes head-on with the final stage of the US PGA tour qualifying school. That six-round marathon could take out up to half a dozen New Zealand professionals. Players like Phil Tataurangi, Michael Long, Steven Alker, Grant Waite and Tim Wilkinson could all be trying to earn golf's most prestigious work permit when their national open is on.

Clashes of date are a fact of life in professional golf but you get the feeling the Aussies were more awake to the potential difficulties of a December 3 finish and, not for the first time, took it out on New Zealand. While New Zealand Golf say they're happy with the time of year, and the change of date, they must be quietly fuming at the potential damage.

In an ideal world, the New Zealand Open and the New Zealand PGA would play on back-to-back weeks in February - with the Australian Masters before and the South Australian Open after. That would mean four tournaments in four weeks for Australasian players, a two-week swing for European Tour players and two weeks for the Nationwide Tour members.

That would be too convenient for New Zealand... and the Aussies aren't about to let that happen.