Dunhill issue sponsorship warning

JOHANN RUPERT, chief of the South African company Dunhill, one of the European Tour’s chief sponsors for many years, laid it on the line for players and officials at the annual Tour dinner on Tuesday night.

He reminded them emphatically that these are tough times globally and that the support his company and several others have been providing might quickly dry up unless things quickly improved.

European number one Lee Westwood listened attentively to Rupert’s words and empathised completely. “Sponsors have a lot of options, to go or not to go or just hang on to their money,” he acknowledged. “We are very fortunate to have loyal supporters this week like BMW and others like Barclays, HSBC, Omega and Dunhill themselves who do multiple tournaments and have been doing golf for a long time.