Australian Ladies Masters at crossroads

Gold Coast The Australian Ladies Masters is at the crossroads after 27 years, as tournament promoter Bob Tuohy battles to keep the golf tournament afloat.

Tuohy on Wednesday confirmed that agreements with major sponsor and venue owner RACV and the Gold Coast City Council expire after this year’s tournament.

“It is bloody difficult,” Tuohy said on the eve of the 2016 tournament at Royal Pines.

“We’d obviously love to continue with the event but you have to look at a lot of factors. Times have changed,” he said.

Tuohy, the chairman of Tuohy Associates, who have operated 203 golf tournaments in Australia, New Zealand and China since 1975, said RACV and Gold Coast Council had options to extend their agreements and he was hopeful of decisions by April. His agreement with Tourism Queensland extends until 2018.

The 2015 Masters is co-sanctioned by the Ladies European Tour and Australian Ladies Professional Golf and carries minimum mandatory prizemoney of €250,000 ($382,312).

“The key to our sustainability over a long period has been good relationships with our tournament partners,” Tuohy said.

“We’ve chosen to go ahead year by year, but so much is dependent on schedules of other tours, especially the LPGA Tour which now has seven events in Asia.”

The LPGA’s Honda Classic in Thailand, with prizemoney of $US1.6 million ($2.228 million), clashes with this week’s Ladies Masters and has attracted most of the world’s leading players.

“I don’t see any realistic solution in the future,” Tuohy said. “Maybe we could change the status of the tournament and somewhere find $US4-5million to gain LPGA sanctioning.

“Or we could go out and buy three high-profile players and pay them $250,000 each to play this event. But that would be self-destructive. You’d run out of money.”