According to Tiger Woods, Melbourne's sandbelt courses are the best in the world although not so great that he's a regular visitor or that he'll come here without some massive financial inducement.
It's just been announced that Tiger will play in this year's Australian Masters at Kingston Heath, generally regarded as Australia's second best course after Royal Melbourne, and one of the top 30 in the world. Tiger is to be paid an appearance fee of $4.5m to compete in a tournament which last year had a first place prize of $270k.
Australian golf is in terrible shape despite the large number of Australians in the top 100. The public seem to be completely disinterested in anybody who isn't Greg Norman; attendances at golf tournaments are embarrassing with few of the top Australians even bothering to come home for the big events; tv ratings, even for the majors, are awful; and golf courses are almost dragging people off the streets to try and get memberships.
Then there's the drought. Many of the public courses I play are in a shocking state with the only green on the course being the greens themselves – fairways are brown or yellow and rock hard. Of course, it's different at the elite sandbelt courses - these championship courses get exemptions from water restrictions (Royal Melbourne is to get a huge extra allocation of water for the President's Cup in 2011 something which has proved to be a PR disaster when kids can't even get to play on their school ovals or complete their sporting leagues). Late last year, I was lucky enough to play Royal Melbourne – I was stunned at how lush and green it was - I'd forgotten golf courses could look like that. It costs thousands to be a member of Royal Melbourne and a few hundred for a round (I was there free on a work related charity day). The public reaction to Tiger's fee, half of which will be paid by the Victorian taxpayer, has already been very negative. It will be interesting to see how much the admision fee is for the event. Last year's special star attraction was John Daly who played in all 3 of the big events on the Australian tour, missed the cut 3 times and smashed a spectator's camera against a tree. At least Tiger should be there for the full 4 days.
It's just been announced that Tiger will play in this year's Australian Masters at Kingston Heath, generally regarded as Australia's second best course after Royal Melbourne, and one of the top 30 in the world. Tiger is to be paid an appearance fee of $4.5m to compete in a tournament which last year had a first place prize of $270k.
Australian golf is in terrible shape despite the large number of Australians in the top 100. The public seem to be completely disinterested in anybody who isn't Greg Norman; attendances at golf tournaments are embarrassing with few of the top Australians even bothering to come home for the big events; tv ratings, even for the majors, are awful; and golf courses are almost dragging people off the streets to try and get memberships.
Then there's the drought. Many of the public courses I play are in a shocking state with the only green on the course being the greens themselves – fairways are brown or yellow and rock hard. Of course, it's different at the elite sandbelt courses - these championship courses get exemptions from water restrictions (Royal Melbourne is to get a huge extra allocation of water for the President's Cup in 2011 something which has proved to be a PR disaster when kids can't even get to play on their school ovals or complete their sporting leagues). Late last year, I was lucky enough to play Royal Melbourne – I was stunned at how lush and green it was - I'd forgotten golf courses could look like that. It costs thousands to be a member of Royal Melbourne and a few hundred for a round (I was there free on a work related charity day). The public reaction to Tiger's fee, half of which will be paid by the Victorian taxpayer, has already been very negative. It will be interesting to see how much the admision fee is for the event. Last year's special star attraction was John Daly who played in all 3 of the big events on the Australian tour, missed the cut 3 times and smashed a spectator's camera against a tree. At least Tiger should be there for the full 4 days.
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