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Melanie Ho

The stakes continue to rise. This November, in the span of a mere 25 days, US$16 million in golf prize money will be distributed on four stops on the Asian Tour, meaning 44 per cent of the tour's annual prize money is awarded in less than a month.

Tournaments have been created and prize money grows because Asia and, in particular, the mainland - where two of the four November tournaments take place - is a wild, untamed market with little history standing in the way of sponsorship dollars.

Asia is an ideal market, because it 'doesn't have the heritage, but has the appetite,' says Giles Morgan, head of sports sponsorship and marketing at HSBC.

Sponsoring a golf tournament gives financial institutions brand exposure to current and potential affluent clients and, if you stretch far enough, it can even serve as a metaphor for the financial institutions.

'It works to explain who we are,' says Oliver Bertschinger, the head of sponsorship, Asia Pacific, at UBS. 'There are words like expertise, professionalism, hard work that we feel are very common to be successful in golf and it's very important for us as well.

'It's appealing because Asia is a blank canvas. You're fighting in a far less cluttered space,' Morgan adds .

First up is the Barclays Singapore Open, a US$4 million tournament in Sentosa. The week after is the HSBC Champions tournament in Shanghai, worth US$5 million, followed by the UBS Hong Kong Open at US$2 million and finally, the Omega Mission Hills World Cup, a US$5 million tournament in Shenzhen.

That golf is growing in Asia and, in particular, the mainland is not a novel statement. More indicative of the golf sponsorship is the level of investment some financial institutions have made and the ways they have gone about it.

After HSBC ended a seven-year agreement with Formula One, they shifted to golf, signing a 10-year agreement to sponsor the World Match Play tournament in Britain. Halfway through the contract they decided to end the partnership, concentrating instead on the HSBC Champions, a tournament started in 2005.

Morgan explained that when HSBC first moved into golf they were looking at making a 'big statement', but after creating their own tournament format - in the form of the HSBC Champions tournament - the company saw a way to be more efficient and effective. It was no longer sponsoring and lending a name to a tournament, but creating and controlling it.

'It's our tournament,' Morgan says about the format. 'We can do what we want.'

Late last month, HSBC announced it would create a women's version of its tournament, to be held in Singapore next winter and worth US$2 million, the largest prize money for a women's tournament in Asia.

The prize money at the UBS Hong Kong Open amounts to half or less than half of each of the other three November tournaments. Bertschinger says his company doesn't feel the pressure to follow suit. Unlike the other three, Bertschinger says, the Hong Kong Open has history.

'We're not the bank that comes in and makes a new tournament and puts in hundreds of millions and just tries to be the biggest,' Bertschinger says. 'We are happy to take on something that has heritage, that already is important to the people and develop it and make it even more important, instead of coming and creating something totally new.'

The Singapore Open has confirmed Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh and defending champion Adam Scott for its tournament and is among the top-10 richest Opens in the world.

'While the purse is an important part of making the [tournament] the 'Major of Asia' there is much more to it than that,' Robert Morrice, chairman of Barclays Asia, said, noting that their tournament would take place on a course that has recently undergone a HK$61 million upgrade.

In 2006, the prize money was US$3 million; in 2008, it will be US$5 million.

In the end, whatever superlatives are offered, the goal is to be the tournament that  creates the most excitement and for lack of a better buzz word, becomes Asia's 'Major'. Both the HSBC Champions tournament and the Barclay's Singapore Open have laid claim to the title. The tournaments are played consecutively.

To Bertschinger, whose company can neither boast the largest prize money nor of being able to lure Tiger Woods (HSBC has done so twice), those words are a created term, not a real one.

'I mean, which tournament will be the major? I can't comment. There are some tournaments that say they're the major of Asia but that's a marketing term. Just because you put the most prize money in doesn't make you the major of Asia at all and so I think again, everybody has their own strategy.'

Real or not, the Asian Tour is happy with the pursuit of the word 'major'. 'Ultimately, I believe it will be the tradition of the event, and the feedback from the press and players that will determine the stature of a tournament,' says Asian Tour chairman Kyi Hla Han. 'Of course we view this as healthy competition.'

To be able to speak in superlatives is to be able to differentiate between one tournament and another. Each can point out something that the other does not have and they are all equally involved in different endeavours, sport or otherwise.

Twenty-three years ago, there were no golf courses on the mainland. Ten years ago, there were less than 10. Today, there are 400 with 50 to 80 courses coming on stream in the next 12 months.

In the spirit of raising the stakes, perhaps the biggest coup won't be Tiger Woods or prize money, but whichever tournament can first produce a home-grown champion. Such a feat would mean, of course, that the banks would have to be in Asian golf for a significant amount of time, but at present, each company is involved with junior  programmes. HSBC has partnered with China Golf Association, Barclays works with grass-roots golf in Singapore and UBS started working with the Faldo Series Asia.

There has been some success. Last year, Hong Kong's Jimmy Ko Ming-chak, who played in the Faldo Series Asia, played in the qualifier for the Hong Kong Open and gained one of the five qualifying spots.

With prize money continuing to rise, there is a point when the rate of return on the investment is no longer attractive. Bertschinger admitted the reality of being a sponsor is that there are costs - in prize money, in luring top players with high appearance fees and in the logistics of staging a tournament. This is all measured.

'We don't want to  put our money in things that are not worth it and if the professional golf offering becomes too expensive, UBS will realise this and pull out, but at the moment we feel it's all fine,' Bertschinger said.

The banks were all vague in how they assess the rate of return and at best, they said, they were constantly evaluating their investment. Morgan said that as a sponsor one should never be absolute.

At present, all are publicly happy and so let the purses continue to rise and the debate soar. Is it prize money, is it heritage, or is it who plays? 'For me, the prestige [of] the event is that players want to come and they ask if they've qualified to come,' Morgan said.

Clarity comes in November.

Spreading like wildfire

Ten years ago there were less than 10 golf courses on the mainland

The number of golf courses in China today: 400



Golf sponsors playing for high stakes in wild mainland market