NOT content with claiming the 2011 US Masters, South Africa has announced it will host one of the biggest tournaments in world golf next year with the biggest prize purse in professional golf.
The $10 million event will be a fifth World Golf Championship tournament which will feature the world’s top 70 ranked players.
South African Sunshine Tour commissioner Gareth Tindall returned home from the Masters this week saying he had signed a five year deal that was the “most significant thing that’s happened to South African golf in its history”.
Tindall said no venue or date had been finalised but they were looking at late November and he was confident the world’s top golfers would travel to South Africa if there were no schedule clashes.
He said there was no doubt that the recent success of South African golfers played a big part in the deal being closed.
“I don’t think that we’ve ever had five players in the Presidents Cup side. I think the most we’ve had is two, possibly three,” he said.
“We could potentially have six. It just depends on what happens with the world rankings over the next couple of months.
The other WGC events are the Accenture Match Play Championship in Arizona, the Cadillac Championship in Florida, the Bridgestone Invitational in Ohio, and the HSBC Champions in Shanghai, China.
The new event will be known as the Tournament of Hope and will be aimed at building awareness for HIV/Aids and poverty in the world.
It will be the second WGC event outside of the US.