Asian Continent deserves a major golf championship
The PGA Tour officials have ruled out the idea that the fourth major title of the year, PGA Championship, should be moved to another continent, such as Asia, for future staging.
The idea was proposed by people who believe that the Asian continent must have its own major championship or the PGA Championship can be relocated there.
However, the officials have clearly rejected the idea, as they believe that the United States is the biggest golf market in the world and it shares 60 per cent of total revenues too.
Therefore, it will not be a wise move to relocate the fourth major in Asia, as it can severely damage the overall revenues generated by the organization.
"America represents about 60 percent of the global GDP (gross domestic product)," said PGA of America CEO Joe Steranka. "A big part of the International Olympic Committee's interest in adding golf to the Olympics was because of the size of the American marketplace
and the television and media viewership”.
"Moving the PGA Championship away from the number one market in the world, that's a real tough thing to justify from a business rationale standpoint," he added.
Lee Westwood from England is among the supporters for staging a major event in Asia. While talking to the media, he said that Asia deserves a major championship because of its support for the game in the past few decades.
Even if the PGA officials do not agree with the idea of moving the PGA Championship to Asia, they must consider adding another major championship to their roster.
For the last few years, the Asian continent has produced some of the biggest names in the world of golf such as KJ Choi, Y.E. Yang, Ryo Ishikawa and many more.
In 2009, Yang became the only Asian player to record a victory in the major championships and took the PGA Championship title home. Therefore, Asians must be given the opportunity to contend in a major championship at their home soil.
Meanwhile, Steranka told that all the current four majors did not get the designation of “major golf championship” from the governing bodies.
In fact, the tournaments themselves were so elite that the participants and people associated with them started naming them as majors.
Naming any event as a major in Asia will create a huge difference between the current and the new major championship’s status.
Therefore, it is now up to the Asian countries how they can come up with a successful event and force the governing bodies and players to name it as the fifth major event of the year.
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