Professional golf is about to get even more lucrative. It emerged last night the European Tour is to stage the richest tournament in the game's history, €13.7 million at stake over four rounds in the Middle East.
Details are to be announced in Dubai this month but the Guardian in London is reporting today that the event, to round off the 2009 season, will have a prize fund of €6.8 million for the tournament itself with the other half to be divided as "bonus" money among the highest-ranked players at the end of the 2009 season.
Golf's most famous tournaments, the British Open and the Masters, carry prestige but their monetary value - with prize funds of €6 million and €5 million respectively - falls short of what will be on offer in Dubai.
The most lucrative tournament on the US PGA Tour has a prize fund of about €4.3 million, although the tour - much to the consternation of stars such as Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods, who would prefer the money paid up front - offers a €6.8 million pension "annuity" contribution to the winner of its end-of-season FedEx Cup series.
The two Americans and others will no doubt find the cash on offer in Dubai to their liking. The organisers will be hoping so.
The tournament is backed by the government of Dubai, which hopes golf will help establish it as the world's premier tourist destination. Woods is a fixture at the Dubai Desert Classic every February and has been paid a reported €27 million after agreeing to make Dubai the site of his first course design.
There have been fears the European Tour faces a precarious future as young stars such as Luke Donald and Ian Poulter base themselves in the US, where financial rewards are far greater and the travelling less arduous.
The new tournament will go some way to alleviating those fears, as will the news that the tour intends to bring in changes aimed at establishing a credible alternative to the PGA Tour. Among the possibilities are more tournaments in Asia and the Middle East, where booming economies and a growing appetite for the game attract western sponsors. Sources also suggest the tour will change its name. "The World Tour" is one possibility.
