**Billy Payne Said To Be Resting Comfortably After Two Asians Vault To Top Of Asian Amateur Leaderboard
Granted, as Sean Martin points out, one of the potential Asian Amateur winners of the coveted Masters invite is the reigning Big 10 champ from Northwestern, Eric Chun. But at least he's not Australian!
Chun, 19, is the reigning Big Ten champ. He has lived in South Korea only about six years and played virtually no tournament golf in the country; he had to receive a special invitation to this event after uncertainty about his Korean citizenship. Chun’s family moved to Malaysia when he was 4.
He lived there until he was 14, when his family moved to Australia to help him develop his game. He lived in South Korea for his final two years before leaving for college, but didn’t play tournaments there. Instead, he came to the U.S. in the summer of 2007 to play AJGA events, hoping to get noticed by colleges in the U.S.
Chun is a sophomore at Northwestern. He is wearing his college uniform this week, while the other six Koreans in the field, including Han, are wearing national-team uniforms.
Geoff
Reader Comments (8)
DM
An Asian (not at Northwestern) won the inaugural event and who the heck cares if an Australian had won? An Asian was also 2nd and T3.
Here are the last 5 winners at the US Amateur. The US has been getting its butt kicked pretty regularly at its own amateur championship. Does that mean that the tournament can no longer generate "proper" exemptions into the Masters?
2009 An Byeong-hun (South Korea) 7&5 vs Ben Martin (US)
2008 Danny Lee (New Zealand) 5&4 vs Drew Kittleson (US)
2007 Colt Knost (US) 2&1 vs Michael Thompson (US)
2006 Richie Ramsay (Scotland) 4&2 vs John Kelly (US)
2005 Edoardo Molinari (Italy) 4&3 vs Dillon Dougherty (US)
Golf is played fairly well by those who don't reside in the US. And, as the LPGA is finding, it is played pretty well by those who hail from Asia.
I think Payne and ANGC should be lauded, not skewered, for giving the winner of an asian amateur a path to the Masters - whether the winner comes from Asia, Europe, Australia, NZ or Easter frickin Island. It is not like it is making the Masters field too large.
Also, while the Federation and their use of OWGR has helped broaden many fields over the past decades or so, It is also nice to see that the new HSBC WGC has a lot of individual event winners and money list participants from each of the Federation Tours.
OWGR is pretty much a complete joke when it comes to trying to assess how #1 on a minor tour might compare with #30 on a major tour - or how #2 might compare with #50.
World Championships should give the best - amateur or professional - from around the world a chance to compete against each other. Then the results from those deep and varied fields will give us the best possible measure of how the various top golfers from around the world really compare.
It is a mistake to rely on a half baked formula within OWGR that ofter arbitrarily denies entry to many of the best from minor tours around the world in favor of over rated also-rans on the major tours.
IMO, the creation of additional events, like the new Asian WGC with its different (largely non OWGR based) entry requirements and the new Asian amateur are very positive steps in identifying new rising stars around the world, giving them a shot on the world stage and making the sport more global in nature.
http://www.golfweek.com/news/2009/nov/01/han-wins-asian-am-receives-masters-invite/
Allow me to take a crack at explaining Geoff's point.
I think the point is that the Masters Toonamint Committee, led by Chariman Payne, really DO want an Asian to win the Asian Amateur. They are not favoring Americans; they have not pronounced any superiority of American golf. Nor do they make any claim of superiority for Asian amateur golf.
And yes, you have it mostly right -- the Masters Men really do want an Asian to win the Asian Amateur (Geoff did not say so in so many words, though to do so might have been too obvious) because their whole point in establishing another pathway to a Masters invite, is to open the door to some great human-interest story from Asia, where the Masters telecast ratings are growing by the billion-with-a-B.
Geoff's point, I think, was that the Masters Committe really DO seem to want the winner to be someone who looks like (ando or otherwise "represents") the great mass of the Asian tv market, to whom this whole public relations campaign is aimed. And if the winner of the Asian Amateur turned out to be a blond-haired, blue-eyed kid from Australia or New Zealand who had lived in the US for the past five years while completing his fifth-year redshirt senior eligibility at Augusta State, it would have failed to do very much to serve the real commercial intent behind opening the Asian Am winner to a Masters invitation. (With Geoff's low-level sarcasm being directed to the fact that Eric Chun is sort of close to that hypothetical.)
I think I have that right, but perhaps Geoff might want to explain himself differently.
Actually, my guess is that the Masters Committee would be quite satisfied with the idea that an Asian-born kid, Asian by racial and cultural background, but who happens to play for the Northwestern University Mens Intercollegiate golf team, is just fine.
Whatever your political stance, much credit must go to Bob Cross of Augusta, the R&A's director for Asia Pacific, Dominic Wall and the committee of the Asia Pacific Golf Confederation who were able to bring sponsors and players together for the event.
Long may it live
You've are now officially designated this site's VP of Dealing With Point Missers. Thanks for saving me the effort!
And naturally, as with all of the other VP-level executives at Geoff Shackelford.com, I get a membership at Riviera, right?
Where do I sign?