Disgraced champ welcome in Victoria
The Victorian Government has not ruled out trying to lure Tiger Woods back to Melbourne later this year for the Australian Masters.
Woods received $3.25 million, $1.5 million which came from the Victorian Government, to play at Kingston Heath last November. Sports Minister James Merlino said the world No.1 would be welcomed back with open arms despite the recent controversy surrounding his personal life.
"It's early days at the moment, so we will see how we go over the course of the next few months," Merlino said, adding it would be bizarre not to chase Woods because of moral objections about his behaviour away from the golf course. "I think we're going into very dangerous territory if we start thinking of ourselves as the morality police."
Event owner and organiser IMG, which also represents Woods, said the Government's position was clear and it would be premature to speculate about Woods returning so soon after his comeback to tournament golf.
"They would welcome Tiger Woods back in Melbourne," IMG Australia vice-president David Rollo said. "Whether this year, next year or some time in the future, no one knows. We don't have any visibility at the moment of what his schedule is going to be and it would just not be right to have that kind of discussion at the moment. It would be premature to speculate."
Rollo said the event had never been all about one player, despite Woods' presence last November. It was revealed yesterday that Australia's leading player, world No.13 Geoff Ogilvy, Colombia's Camilo Villegas (12) and Spaniard Sergio Garcia (18) already had committed to this year's event at the Victoria Golf Club from November 11-14.
"We will be working with other players and their agents over the coming months but feel we are in a terrific position as it stands to have players of the likes of Garcia, Ogilvy and Villegas committed in early April, which gives us seven months to market the event," Rollo said.
World No.3 Phil Mickelson, whose only previous appearance in Australia was at the Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne, is another IMG will be chasing but Rollo acknowledged that scheduling conflicts between the world's professional tours at the end of the year could be a problem.
"What else goes on in the world is a consideration but there is no question that we want to see the world's leading players on the famous Melbourne courses," he said.
A sell-out crowd of almost 110,000 watched Woods at Kingston Heath, his last tournament before he became embroiled in a sex scandal.
