THE European Tour's 'Race to Dubai' schedule for 2009 will be largely unaffected by the global financial crisis, the tour's director of international policy Keith Waters said yesterday.
While the US PGA Tour's schedule for next year looks certain to be hit hard, the new-look 'Race to Dubai' schedule, with tournaments offering around 140 million in prize money, could have been saved by negotiations carried out over a year ago.
"The two real major pillars in terms of confirming financial support for the 2009 season, television rights and a huge input from Dubai, were all worked out about 12 or 14 months ago," Waters explained. "We have been very lucky considering how the world's financial situation has developed.
"I think we are confident that our schedule will go ahead as planned. There are no assurances, of course, because we are in the throes of something that is pretty well unprecedented.
"We have also worked pretty hard in the last two or three weeks to make sure everything will go ahead."
Where the European Tour gains over its counterpart over the Atlantic, where several tournaments sponsored by banks and motor companies are threatened, is in its spread of sponsors, Waters said.
"We do have a different model to the PGA. We have more diverse sources of income than in America. And I think that diversity, not just promotions but diversity in a geographical sense, will make a difference."
When the tour's schedule was released on Monday, ten events were pencilled in but had venues still to be announced and one slot, 29 October-1 November, is without a tournament as yet.(
That slot was held by the long-running Volvo Masters, which will be played for the last time this season. Waters is confident all the tournament negotiations will be completed, with no gaps. "Once again we can't guarantee all the tournaments not complete yet on the schedule will go ahead but we hope to finalise all of them soon," he said. "Negotiations on the Irish Open and British Masters are going on but in a lot of these 'TBA' spots it's because the sponsors and promoters want to announce the venues themselves.
"Over the next few weeks there are going to be more announcements and, we hope, more good news to come."
Next year's prize fund will depend on the fluctuating financial rates, Waters added. "We anticipate in the region of 140m prize money.
"With exchange rates changing all the while and many of our events in dollars it's difficult to predict but generally we are hopeful of providing that kind of figure for our players.."
The full article contains 448 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
