Schedule driving Volvo crazy

AS Irish Open sponsors “3”continue their search for a suitable date for the Irish Open in 2010 with their preference currently heading towards the August weekend, they may take some consolation from the unfortunate situation in which another big spending European Tour sponsor, Volvo, find themselves.

The car giant is seeking to put together a field worthy of their new-look World Match Play Championship at Finca Cortesin on Spain’s Costa del Sol at the end of the month. Volvo funded the highly prestigious season-ending Volvo Masters from 1988 to 2008 when the Tour announced that it was to be superseded by the more lucrative (although by not quite so much now after the recent announcement of a 25% cut in the prize fund) Race to Dubai.

Undaunted, Volvo instead opted to take up the mantle of the World Match Play Championship which had finally run out of sponsors having been supported since its inception in 1964 by such companies as Piccadilly, Colgate, Suntory, Toyota, Cisco and HSBC. The tournament’s list of champions was like a whose-who of the game: Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Greg Norman, Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh and Mark O’Meara (who beat Tiger Woods in the final).

Moreover, Volvo are putting up €3.5m in prize money with €750,000 for the winner inclusive of Race to Dubai points. So far, so good, except that they were originally allocated a date in September that clashed with the Tour Championship on the PGA US Tour. That would have precluded the presence of many players whose participation was essential if the Volvo event was to merit the ‘world’ tag.

Agreement was duly reached whereby it would move to late October on the week previously occupied by the Volvo Masters. As it so happened, though, the European and Asian Tours were set to announce their joint promotion of the Barclays Singapore Open with a prize fund of $5m over the very same four days.

The European Tour recently announced that Ernie Els, the holder of the Match Play title, and another three times major champion, Pádraig Harrington, would be heading, not for Spain but Singapore and promised that “more marquee names would be announced in the coming weeks”. They were true to their word: Phil Mickelson has also come on board.

Volvo for their part were doing their best to stay in step, sending out a press release highlighting the fact that “Paul Casey, Retief Goosen, Camilo Villegas and Robert Allenby have confirmed that they will play in the Volvo World Match Play Championship finishing as the highest ranked available players from their regions, Europe, Africa & Middle East, South America and Australasia respectively”.

Since then, a number of other illustrious names have confirmed their participation including the American Anthony Kim, Jeev Milkha Singh of India, England’s Lee Westwood, Henrik Stenson of Sweden, Germany’s Martin Kaymer and Spain’s own Sergio Garcia. Over the next day or two, the name of Rory McIlroy will be added thanks to his position on the Race to Dubai order of merit.

All of that and the announcement of the remainder of the field will come as sweet music to Volvo and those with the best interests of the World Match Play Championship while those in Singapore should also be happy. In some ways, the Tour can’t win. They come up with two hugely generous supporters – Barclays and Volvo also sponsor the Scottish and Chinese Opens on the European circuit – and then can’t find different weeks on which to stage the! events.

On this occasion, there’s an embarrassment of riches. Too often nowadays, however, the Tour is forced to reduce the prize funds or even worse, lose tournaments and sponsors as the recession continues to hurt. Here in Ireland, 3 are certainly playing their part in maintaining the status of the national championship and whether they bring it to Killarney, Mount Juliet, Fota Island or wherever next summer, you can rest assured they are doing a great job for Irish golf.