It’s a shot-in-the-arm for the European Tour that our star players want to get involved in the staging of tournaments.
The 2015 schedule was announced last week and it’s great to see Paul Lawrie and Rory McIlroy putting their names to events.
And there are high hopes the British Masters can return in October, with Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood, Justin Rose and Luke Donald taking it in turns to be the host.
Success on the European Tour has given these players the lives they enjoy and now it’s their turn to give something back.
Big names make things happen. Sponsors are more likely to get on board if a top player is already involved.
Take the Irish Open. The event has stumbled along in the last few years, looking for a main sponsor and just about surviving.
Now Rory McIlroy’s charitable foundation will become the official tournament host. With the World No.1 so heavily involved, it’s a much easier sell to potential investors.
He’s got US star Rickie Fowler to commit to coming over, and you can bet there will be others.
A strong field at Royal County Down should mean more spectators and suddenly you have a big event on your hands.
Paul Lawrie already has his foundation in Aberdeen, but he wants to do more and he’s set up a new matchplay event at Murcar Links next summer.
Paul’s status as a past Open Champion opens doors for him in terms of sponsorship and he will have seen how well received the Scottish Open was at Royal Aberdeen this year.
More importantly, it gives us a new matchplay tournament that we’ve wanted for a long time, and fills a space in the calendar for the Tour’s rank-and-file.
It’s three events in four weeks in Scotland next July and it creates a real ‘Scottish swing’ on tour.
That has prompted the English players into action and hopefully we’ll have the British Masters again in the south of England.
The PGA Tour began this trend years ago with the Byron Nelson tournament. Now both Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer have their own events, and the Memorial and Bay Hill are two big weeks on the calendar.
Hopefully this could be the start of a new era in Europe where star players give something back and leave a legacy for years to come.
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