A World Golf Championship for Africa

Hello everybody, this is Matt here and every week I will be publishing a blog about the world of golf.

I have played golf since 1995 and attended Myerscough College to study for a Foundation Degree in Golf and Leisure Management from 2003 to 2006. I have also worked as a caddie at Royal County Down Golf Club for two seasons in 2004 and 2006, and in 2007 I worked as a Golf Retail Assistant at the Gleneagles Hotel, and most recently as a caddie at St Andrews Links including caddying in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship in 2011.

Along with Volunteering at the 2004 and 2006 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship and 2006 BMW PGA Championship, as well as attending the 2005 HSBC World Match Play Championship, 2006 European Open, 2007 Open Championship and 2010 Ryder Cup as a spectator, and watching golf on television every weekend of the year I am well placed and have the knowledge to provide a unique view on the world of golf.

In a little over twelve months from now The Tournament of Hope will be played for the first time, an event designed to raise money and awareness for World Aids Day, and bring the world's best to South Africa on an annual basis. 12 months ago when the initial announcement was made by the Sunshine Tour the intention was that The Tournament of Hope would be a fully fledged fifth World Golf Championship, further enhancing the global nature of the WGC series. Then in a further announcement in February it was decided that the tournament would be “a major international competition for the world's best professional golfers with eligibility similar to that of the four World Golf Championships, based primarily on the Official World Golf Ranking and supplemented by the individual money lists and Orders of Merit of the various Tours that make up the International Federation of PGA Tours”.

And now confirmation has come that The Tournament of Hope will not be a World Golf Championship, but will still be one of the richest events in the world, offering a prize fund of $8.5million. It was also originally intended that the tournament was to be played in the week of World Aids Day, around December 1, but now it will be played 21-24 November, suggesting that it will form part of a new South African finale to the European Tour season prior to the DPWorld Tour Championship, which looks like being played in the first week of December, ensuring a calendar year schedule for the European Tour, and putting South Africa in the spotlight.

But the lack of WGC status will undoubtedly hurt the chances of attracting the likes of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and several leading Europeans to South Africa, regardless of the massive prize fund, as has been proven by the removal of the World Cup of Golf from the series. WGC status was no guarantee to securing all of the world's best, as is shown every year in China at the WGC-HSBC Champions. But Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson etc. have all played multiple times in “Asia's Major” since its establishment in 2005 and elevation to WGC status in 2009. The HSBC Champions started life as a co-sanctioned tournament that launched the European Tour season, sanctioned by five tours including the European Tour, Sunshine Tour, Asian Tour, Japan Golf Tour and the PGA Tour of Australasia, and after four editions was elevated to WGC status, although until now the winner does not get credited with an official PGA Tour win, or earn money towards the PGA Tour money list or FedEx Cup points.

From PGATour.com

Ty Votaw, the PGA TOUR's vice president of international affairs, compared the event to the World Cup of Golf, which is held every two years and sanctioned by the international federation but not given WGC status. The first Tournament of Hope will run from Nov. 21-24 next year and adds to a cluttered end-of-season calendar. "It's (Tournament of Hope) something that has been discussed by the federation for several years now," Votaw said. "But in light of where it is in the schedule, it's difficult to make it a World Golf Championship. But it's something that's recognized by the federation. All the tours are putting it on their schedules."

But why should its position on the schedule make it difficult for it to be a World Golf Championship?

Why does the WORLD of golf have to run its schedules in a time-frame that suits the PGA Tour, based in the United States?

Just because golf played outside of the United States may not fit with the television schedules of the American network broadcasters and the schedules of American based golfers, shouldn't stop the WORLD Golf Championships from being played around the world, and equal billing being given to tournaments in Europe, Asia, Australasia and Africa to that of the ones played in the United States of America. It is the only way golf will grow on a global basis, and in the long run that is vital to the future of the PGA Tour, because the more occasions the people in South Africa etc. are exposed to world class golfers the more people will watch the PGA Tour on television, and the more interest there will be from businesses around the world in sponsoring PGA Tour events.

Aside from the Tournament of Hope not being given the WGC status it was hoping for, the date on the schedule also looks set to hurt the organisers hopes of attracting the best possible field. The European Tour, which the Tournament of Hope will count for, will end its 2013 Race to Dubai in the week preceding the Tournament of Hope, not following it, meaning the Tournament of Hope will follow the DPWorld Tour Championship as the first event of the 2014 Race to Dubai. Potentially the 2013 Race to Dubai will end with the $7m BMW Masters, $7m WGC-HSBC Champions, $7m Turkish Open and $8m DPWorld Tour Championship, with the $8.5m Tournament of Hope following the end of the European Tour season.

Add in the $5m Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at the start of October and you potentially have 7 events out of 9 with prize funds of $5m and more. Will the best golfers in the world really want to travel thousands of miles to South Africa for yet another mega-money tournament, especially as the majority of them will have played all four of the PGA Tour Playoff Tournaments, each having an $8m prize fund, and coming off the back of the $8m PGA Championship and the $8.5m WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.

13 massive events with huge prize funds out of 16 weeks, so it is a fair question to ask whether the top 50 golfers in the world will want to end their years in South Africa.

So we will see how The Tournament of Hope develops over the coming years, and whether or not Africa will have its own World Golf Championship, this was the dream of the organisers and it may still yet come true. However I would argue that it isn't necessarily that important for WGC status to be granted to The Tournament of Hope for it to become one of the world's greatest golf events. The World Golf Championship events are part of one branded series, and lose their individual identity, having trophies made by the same company on a similar theme, and each have a similar field composition, determined primarily by the PGA Tour, under the umbrella of the International Federation of PGA Tours. And each event on the series has its own section on the dedicated World Golf Championships website, rather than their own website like The Masters, US Open, Open Championship, PGA Championship, Ryder Cup or many other events worldwide.

Being out-with of the WGC series enables the organisers SAIL, the Sunshine Tour and sanctioning tours to shape the event and brand it in their own unique way. It enables the tournament to have its own dedicated website and to grow as an event in a way that isn't dictated to by an organisation based in Florida.

At present the field will be as follows:

• 72 of the world’s top players who will be drawn from the top 50 players on the Official World Golf Ranking
• The top eight available players from the European Tour Race to Dubai
• The top eight available players from the previous season’s final PGA Tour FedExCup points list
• As well as those with eligibility similar to that of the Majors and four existing World Golf Championship events, and supplemented by the individual money lists and Orders of Merit of the various Tours that make up the International Federation of PGA Tours.

A host course has yet to be announced, but with the dates now being 21-24 November it is highly likely that the Nedbank Golf Challenge will remain to be played in the first week of December at Sun City, making the Gary Player Country Club an unlikely at best option. The Durban Country Club, Humewood and Fancourt are courses which have been talked about as possible host courses, but for me The Tournament of Hope should move around, and not just move around South Africa, the event should be a “World Golf Championship for Africa”.

Aids is not just a South African problem, it is an African problem, with 69% of all people in the world with HIV AIDS living in the continent, so The Tournament of Hope should tour Africa, raising money for World Aids Day and raising awareness of golf and increasing participation in the sport out-with of South Africa. And the region most affected in the World by AIDS includes Swaziland, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Zambia and South Africa, and the Sunshine Tour has staged tournaments in Swaziland, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia and South Africa, so golf has a foothold in these countries and taking the Tournament of Hope to these countries will raise money directly for AIDS in those countries, as well as exposing the population to the world's best golfers.

Kenya has the second highest rate of AIDS in East and Central Africa, and has hosted the Barclays Kenya Open since 1967 which has been a Challenge Tour event for the last 21 years. Ivory Coast and Nigeria have the two highest rates of AIDS in West Africa, and both have hosted professional tour events (the Ivory Coast Open and Nigerian Open) in the early 1990's. So The Tournament of Hope could raise money and awareness of the AIDS pandemic across Africa in each specific country, exposing the scale of the problem to a truly worldwide television audience, as well as exposing the people of those countries to world class golf, with the best golfers in the world competing for the title in a different African country each year, or at least once every few years.

Whatever course or country eventually settles on hosting the Tournament of Hope, the very fact such an extraordinary event is being staged in South Africa is the culmination of the co-sanctioning programme between the Sunshine Tour and European Tour, which began in 1995.

Launched at the Lexington South African PGA Championship, at the Wanderers Country Club in Johannesburg, the co-sanctioning programme has seen the South African Open, Dimension Data Pro-am, FNB Players Championship, Alfred Dunhill Championship, Joburg Open, Africa Open, Tshwane Open and Nelson Mandela Championship all included on the European Tour International Schedule over the last 17 years, as well as the European Tour's Volvo Golf Champions being played twice in the country.

These events have complimented the annual Nedbank Golf Challenge, played at Sun City near Rustenburg each December, and now the country's golfing prowess comes into even greater global focus with the Tournament of Hope, an event which intends to raise millions of dollars for World Aids Day and bring all of the world's best golfers to Southern Africa ever year. The result of 17 years of co-sanctioning tournaments with the European Tour and years of hard work from the Sunshine Tour as a member of the International Federation of PGA Tours. Following the worldwide successes of their golfing icons such as Gary Player, Bobby Locke, Nick Price, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Trevor Immelman, Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel, Tim Clark and Branden Grace, South Africa's professional circuit and tournaments are shining on the global stage. 2013-2022 is the time to “Inspire a Generation” of South Africans to take up golf and reach for the stars, an escape from poverty to the riches of the worldwide golf tours.