OneAsia Tour ready to dominate region

Last week's cluttered schedule of golf events across Asia and Australia, including Tiger Woods' appearance in Melbourne, highlights the critical need for the controversial OneAsia Tour.

That's the opinion of Seamus O'Brien, the boss of a sports marketing company that has just signed a multi-year, multi-million dollar deal to become the global media and marketing manager of the burgeoning tour.

O'Brien is chairman and chief executive of the World Sport Group, which is already heavily involved in Asian football and cricket and further solidifies the OneAsia Tour through the new partnership.

While Tiger was creating headlines in Australia en route to his Masters victory at Kingston Heath, the Asian Tour's $A2.69 million Hong Kong Open and Japan's $A1.8 million Taiheiyo Masters were also being held.

"Last week was a great example of the issue the region has faced," O'Brien told AAP from Singapore.

"You had Tiger Woods in Melbourne, the Hong Kong Open in Hong Kong and an event in Japan basically diluting the market in its entirety.

"If you put all of those together, you'd have had a $US5 million golf tournament with the whole world watching.

"That's the philosophy about what the parties are trying to achieve."

OneAsia was established between the PGA of Australia, the China Golf Association, the Korean Golf Association and the Korean Golf Tour.

It has met stern opposition from the Asian Tour, which has threatened its players with possible bans and fines if they compete on the new tour.

The Japan Tour has also been hesitant to join, although O'Brien understands they will add their first event to the schedule in 2010.

And O'Brien is clearly confident OneAsia will ultimately reign supreme in the area.

"A lot is being made of whether there's a rivalry or not, at the end of the day if you speak to any of the founding parties barely does that issue ever get mentioned," he said.

"If the Asian Tour wants to go on putting on their events at their level in their market, the more the better, no problem.

"But I'm fairly sure this platform of events will stand out in the crowd and will start to consolidate the market, which is what it's all about."

O'Brien said talks are underway to add more events in Australia and possibly New Zealand and the long-term vision is to eventually rival the US and European Tours.

"It isn't going to happen tomorrow, but the issue has always been in the region that the top players have to go to Europe and America where the opportunities for big money existed," O'Brien said.

"This market was split three or four ways and couldn't harness the critical mass to get the prizemoney to the level it needs.

"When we've got an average of $US2 million ($A2.15 million) to $US3 million ($A3.23 million) a week, which I don't think will take long, and 25, 30 events a year, I think a lot of the guys will think 'I can play here, I don't need to go over there'."

- AAP