Like an enjoyable round of golf, we have now reached the turn and are readying for the back nine!
The first half of the year has been very positive featuring excellent collaboration with the European Tour at the start of our strategic alliance, our announcement of a new partnership with the China Golf Association, the formation of our new commercial team at our headquarters in Singapore and three new full-field tournaments added to our schedule with the Thailand Open, Yeangder Heritage and TAKE Solutions Masters.
The TAKE Solutions Masters is the second Asian Development Tour (ADT) event after the Yeangder Heritage to be upgraded to Asian Tour status. We are very proud to welcome this tournament on our Asian Tour Schedule from August 3 to 6.
The TAKE Solutions Masters will offer a prize purse of $300,000 and it will be played at the Karnataka Golf Association (KGA) Golf Course in Bengaluru.
The last time the Asian Tour staged an event in Bengaluru was in 2012 when Thaworn Wiratchant of Thailand won the Hero Indian Open before going on to claim the Order of Merit crown for the second time in his career. After five years, our Asian Tour members are excited to return to Bengaluru to fight for honours at this new tournament.
Did you know that our 2015 Asian Tour No. 1 Anirban Lahiri hails from Bengaluru? In fact, his close friend Chikkarangappa S. won the TAKE Solutions Masters on the ADT in 2014 and 2015. Now that the tournament is of an Asian Tour status, he will certainly be hoping to win the treble!
Looking back at the first half of the 2017 season, we’ve welcomed four first-time Asian Tour winners: Todd Sinnott of Australia, Jazz Janewattananond and Rattanon Wannasrichan of Thailand and Nicholas Fung of Malaysia. These players are still in their early 20s, so it shows the depth of talent that we have on the Asian Tour.
As we prepare for the busiest part of our season, it will be exciting to see if more young guns emerge as champions, or if the more experienced players take the trophies.
On the digital front, our #whereitsAT campaign has been met with resounding success. We are excited to launch phase two of the campaign on August 1 with a series of monologue videos. This time we will look at the success of some of our golfers, including Angelo Que, Liang Wen-chong, Chan Shih-chang, Scott Hend, Carlos Pigem, Pavit Tangkalmoprasert, Gaganjeet Bhullar, Kiradech Aphibarnrat, Siddikur Rahman and Jeev Milkha Singh.
As we round the turn and welcome the second half of the season, thank you for continuing to support the Asian Tour. Our team will continue working hard to keep the good news coming!