Opinion | Casino backing for Macau golf open is a good start

The announcement that the Macau Open had acquired the backing of a senior player in the gaming industry will come as welcome news to all parties concerned - the Asian Tour, the Macau Sports Development Board and the Macau Golf Association.

In this current climate of financial uncertainty, finding a title sponsor willing to support a sporting event is rare. And when that sponsor is as big as the Venetian Macao casino, it brings added prestige as it opens up all sorts of possibilities surrounding the future expansion of a tournament that has proven to be one of the most popular stopovers on the regional tour.

Over the years, we have never understood why the organisers of the Macau Open had failed to buy into the fact that a casino would be one of the safest bets to back the tournament.

Various theories had been put forward as to why it could not attract one of the big names in the gaming industry. The most popular one was that the tournament venue, scenic Macau Golf and Country Club on Coloane, is owned by Macau gambling kingpin Stanley Ho Hung-sun. Supporting a tournament at a club owned by a competitor, apparently, is not the done thing.

But as Mike Kerr, the chief executive of the Asian Tour, pointed out, it would be difficult for professional sport to exist in Macau without the support of the gaming industry.

Obviously some sort of deal has been struck this year, whereby the Venetian - a rival to Ho's gambling empire - has been able to come in as title sponsor. We are not privy to what happened behind the scenes, but hats off to everyone concerned for putting aside parochial interests and instead looking at the bigger picture, which is the welfare of sport in that tiny enclave.

From the low point of two years ago when organisers had to scrap the tournament because of the failure to attract a sponsor, the event now faces a bright future.