New WGC event to start in 2012

[MrElculver2424]

Starting in 2012, a new World Golf Championship tournament will take place in South Africa in December. It will be the 5th WGC event, and with a purse of US$10 million, it will be the richest golf tournament in the world.

It is scheduled to take place the first week of December...the same week as Tiger's Chevron World Challenge. I would think Tiger would want to play in this new WGC event, so the Chevron will either get moved or it will be removed from the schedule entirely.

I'm excited for this tournament, sounds like a really big event! What are your thoughts??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tournament_of_Hope

[Kieran123]

Nice.

"Tournament of Hope"

Eh. Hope they find a better name for it though

[Gioguy21]

more:

http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/news/story?id=6335667

[topspin4hand]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gioguy21

more:

http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/news/story?id=6335667

This Gareth Tindall is not afraid of making strong & provocative quotes:

Quote:

"They will have to move it [the Chevron Challenge], unfortunately for them," he said. "They moved the Tiger Chevron Challenge to the same date as the Nedbank Golf Challenge without any consultation, so I suppose it's a bit of payback time."

* * * *

"the prize money is too good to turn down."

[jamo]

Sounds good. The scheduling during December is a little annoying for the PGA Tour's schedule (same with the HSBC WGC tournament), but that's late spring for South Africa and it fits with the Euro Tour's schedule as part of the next year (I think), so I guess it makes sense. Also good to see that with this and with the HSBC in China, the WGC events are becoming worldwide. In 2007 and 2008, after the World Cup stopped being a WGC, after what is now the Cadillac settled at Doral, and before the HSBC started, all of the WGC events were held in the U.S. Tiger will probably move his tournament up or back a week. Even he would have a tough time skipping a WGC event, if healthy. Also, I'm a little surprised Trevor Immelman wasn't mentioned in that ESPN article. He won the Masters just a few years ago (2 of the last 4 Masters have been won by South Africans), and his father used to be the Sunshine Tour commissioner.

[Deryck Griffith]

It's nice to see another "BIG tournament being held across the pond.  I hope it is successful.

[Stretch]

Originally Posted by topspin4hand

This Gareth Tindall is not afraid of making strong & provocative quotes:

He's a stroppy bastard, but fights the good fight for his tour. You should have heard what he said about the scheduling of the Presidents Cup up against the South African Open! I think the reality is that with half of the current reigning major champions being South African, the local structures need to make hay while the sun shines.

My guess is that the event will end up being held at Leopard Creek, which is probably the best and most uniquely African course we have to offer. Nicklaus keeps a house there and allegedly went over the original design with Gary Player to come up with something they both thought a good test. It's in the deep bush with some truly out-of-the-ordinary hazards (depicted below) and from what I hear the Euros love playing the Dunhill Champs there. Not sure what would happen to that event.