Southwoods holds rich MB Tour opener

MANILA, Philippines - British Open campaigner Angelo Que and comebacking Gerald Rosales head a a high-powered cast as the Mercedes Benz Tour stages the Mercedes-Benz Masters Philippines at the Manila Southwoods Legend course April 4-17.

The veteran Que will shoot for his fourth tour title while Rosales, a former Philippine Open titlist, will return to competitive golf since undergoing wrist surgery two years ago.

A total of 10 tournaments offering a total purse of $580,000 will be held with the Mercedes-Benz Masters Philippines raising the curtains on the fourth season of the Tour.

Mercedes-Benz, who came on board as title sponsor of the Tour in 2008, is again staging six Mercedes-Benz Masters tournaments in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

In keeping with the tradition of rotating the final event of the year around the region, the Mercedes-Benz Masters Indonesia will be the season ending Tour Championship. This will be played at Emeralda Golf and Country Club in Jakarta ctober 20-23. It will feature the top 60 players from the Mercedes-Benz Tour Order of Merit.

“It promises to be another outstanding year for the Mercedes-Benz Tour, which will once again provide a platform to showcase the tremendous amount of talent that exists in Southeast Asia,” said Wolfgang Huppenbauer,resident and CEO of Daimler South East Asia Pte. Ltd.

“It is very encouraging to see young golfers from the region play with such skill and confidence on the Mercedes-Benz Tour and then move on to achieve greater things. With such a fine line-up of tournaments in 2010, Mercedes-Benz is looking forward to raising the bar even further,” added Huppenbauer.

The Singha Pattaya Open will be the second stop on Tour from April 29 to May 2.

The venues for all the Merdeces Benz Masters have been secured and of particular interest will be the Mercedes-Benz Masters Singapore which will be the first tournament to be played on Laguna National Golf and Country Club’s new World Classic layout.

As an addition to the Tour, a new event called the Kariza Indonesia Championship will be held at Gading Raya Golf Club May 5-8. Having enjoyed a relationship with the Tour as a media partner, Kariza chose to further its involvement by becoming a title sponsor, a move which is also a huge boost to golf in Indonesia.

The Tour also welcomes back the ICTSI Mt. Malarayat Championship in the Philippines and the Singha E-san Open in Thailand.

The Singha E-san Open and the Singha Pattaya Open are both jointly sanctioned with the All Thailand Golf Tour, which is run by two of the country’s most prominent supporters of the game, Singha Corporation and Sport Management Group (SMG).

The official governing body of the Mercedes-Benz Tour is the Asean PGA and their officials have once again lauded the support of Mercedes-Benz.

A.C. Wong, executive chairman, Asean PGA said: “We are in very good shape this year, thanks to our friends in the Asean member countries and the sponsorship of Mercedes-Benz. We launched the Asean PGA Tour in 2007 with five tournaments and that has now doubled.”

The Asean PGA held its annual conference in Singapore at the start of the year with representatives from countries who will be staging events on this year’s Tour as well as delegates from Brunei, Cambodia, and Laos.

“We now have a great organizational structure in place and we are all in buoyant mood and aware that the potential for further expansion is huge,” added Wong.

Thailand’s Namchok Tantipokhakul was the shining star last year, winning twice on his way to claiming the Order of Merit title.