Missing The Forest For The Trees

The world's economy is shot to bits. Swine flu is claiming lives in the Americas. And Manchester United, once again, is claiming the top spot in the EPL. Even though this troika of tragedies ought to claim the marquee position in the newspapers, alas, it is the cat fighting at Aware that probably has cornered most of our attention of late.

Who can blame us? Nothing interests the lay person than watching people in high places - at least "high" as perceived by those involved - fall off their perch in a cloud of bickering, and self-serving distraction. Amazingly, the reason why I'm bringing this up is that what's happening in the professional circles in Asia is not too far removed from that which is happening at Aware.

One Asia, the Tour that is rising to challenge the Asian Tour for sponsorship dollars, television air time, and players' attention just kicked off its inaugural tournament at the Volvo China Open. Australian Scott Strange won, by the way, in the event that used to be part of the Asian Tour. Given the contentious nature that One Asia has come about, the snatching of the event from the Asian Tour schedule to the shorter fledgling Tour is not insignificant. For the Asian Tour, they must surely feel like Liverpool fans having to watch the Man U come back from 0-2 down, to win 5-2 and all but clinch the 2008/2009 EPL championship. ,

Where does it leave professional golf in Asia? In a shambles, if you ask me. Remember the old war-time strategy of "divide and conquer"? That seems to be happening over here. (You can practically hear the European Tour officials chuckle in the background.)

Now that One Asia is up and running, and the Asian Tour is scrambling to retain sponsorships, let alone gain new ones to help it survive this economic crisis, the concerted effort to raise the state of the game in our part of the world seems to be fragmented.

The good news presumably is that the players - and it should always be about the players, and the fans - have a plethora of tournaments to aim for. But will they? And who will get this added opportunity? Given that the only champions of One Asia, really is the Australasian Tour, will Asia's professionals have equal chance of playing in that Tour as they had making headway on the Asian Tour? 

In the same way that the women involved in Aware should get their houses in order, and try to see the other side's point of view in resolution of the situation, is the way that both One Asia and the Asian Tour need to adopt in coming together for the good of golf. There is little to dispute that a unified Tour - involving all the various professional bodies in Asia and Australasia - is necessary if we are to lift our game to that of the European Tour and the PGA.

It just means checking our egos at the front door, and looking hard and honestly at what is really good for the game.

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