Asian Tour: Hong Kong, Macau and Shenzhen all in frame for International Series events as part of China push
- Greater Bay Area push comes as tour boss reveals China Golf Association has opened talks about renewing partnership
- Hong Kong will host 2 tournaments this year, with newly named World City Championship first in March
The Asian Tour’s expansion of its flagship International Series is likely to include a trio of events in the Greater Bay Area, with Hong Kong, Macau and potentially Shenzhen all hosting stops.
With 10 tournaments already on this year’s schedule, officials have discussed making the Hong Kong Open in either November or December part of the series, where events typically have US$2 million in prize money, as they eye eventually reaching a 25-stop calendar.
And Cho Minn Thant, the tour’s CEO and commissioner, revealed the China Golf Association had approached his organisation about the possibility of working with the tour again.
The return of tournaments in Macau, and Shenzhen, which has seen the Volvo China Open and Shenzhen International played at the Genzon Golf Club, would add another two high-profile cities to the series, which starts next week in Oman before going on to Qatar.
“China has just opened up again, and very recently they’ve reached out to the Asian Tour and said they’d like to work together with us again,” Cho said.
“Obviously we’re going to concentrate on building the areas around Hong Kong as well. We haven’t been to Macau in a few years, we haven’t been to China for a few years because of Covid.
“If we can build that triangle of events, where we have Hong Kong, we get Macau back and we potentially get something in Southern China, that would be great for us.”
