PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Upon seeing the PGA Tour join other tours in trying to stake out a presence in Asia, one high-ranking tournament official said two years ago, “The Far East looks a lot like the Wild, Wild West.”
That appears to be the case with two tournaments next week.
The PGA Tour has its Asia Pacific Classic in Malaysia, which began last year with 25 top players from the FedEx Cup standings as part of a 40-man field playing for a $6 million purse. The winner gets $1 million. The field includes Brandt Snedeker, Lucas Glover, Brendan Steele and Jhonattan Vegas.
It’s up against a new tournament called the Shanghai Masters that IMG put together at Lake Malaren. It’s not sanctioned by a major tour, thus has no set criteria and will get no world ranking points. But it has put together a field that dwarfs Malaysia. And while it has a $5 million purse, it is offering $2 million to the winner, the richest first-place check in golf.
The 30-man field includes three major champions — Charl Schwartzel, Rory McIlroy and Keegan Bradley — along with Lee Westwood, Jim Furyk, Geoff Ogilvy, Hunter Mahan, Anthony Kim, K.J. Choi, Louis Oosthuizen,
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