As a testament to "how much the landscape in golf is changing," the PGA Tour schedule for the '17-18 season features an Asia swing in October with as "many tournaments as the Florida swing in March," according to Doug Ferguson of the AP. The PGA Tour last week it "had a 10-year deal with South Korean conglomerate CJ Corp. to sponsor an event in South Korea" starting in '17. The Tour last week also "celebrated the opening of a new Asian office in Tokyo." A week's worth of Asian developments "got the attention of the players," as they "now have the option of playing" for $26M over three straight weeks. The presence in Asia "simply is recognizing where the growth is, and the tour would be foolish to ignore that." Japan is the "second-largest golf market in the world." PGA Tour Exec VP/Int'l Affairs Paul Johnson said that the Tour has 14 sponsors that have "significant business in Japan, and so a Tokyo office makes sense." Johnson: "As sponsors globalize, we want to be in a position to work with them." Ferguson noted no one is "making players travel to Asia in October," but players "might feel a need to go to Asia so they don't fall too far behind at the start of the season" (AP, 11/1).
ONE TO KEEP AN EYE ON: ESPN.com's Jason Sobel wrote observers would be "hard-pressed" to find many people who had Japan's Hideki Matsuyama "in their Big Eight or Big Nine or Big Ten or whatever it was earlier this year, but the man is good." The 24-year-old Matsuyama, who won last week's WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai by seven shots, also is "several years younger than 'young guns'" Jason Day and Rory McIlroy. Sobel: "All of which suggests Matsuyama should be in the conversation about the best players right now" (ESPN.com, 10/31).
