Professional Golf begins to feel impact of Middle East War
- SHANK
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
The Hotel Planner Tour has announced that due to the conflict in the Middle East, next week’s Indorama Ventures Open Golf Championship in Ahmedabad, India will no longer be a co-sanctioned event. In a statement the tour said: Due to the ongoing military action in the Middle East, HotelPlanner Tour staff and players are currently facing significant travel disruption ahead of next week’s Indorama Ventures Open Golf Championship in Ahmedabad, India, with many scheduled to travel via the Middle East. As a result, the decision has been taken with the Professional Golf Tour of India to withdraw the HotelPlanner Tour sanction from this event. The tournament will continue to be staged but will now be sanctioned solely by the Professional Golf Tour of India.
This is an evolving situation that we will continue to monitor very closely, with assessments made on a tournament-by-tournament basis.
The Hotel Planner Tour's next two events are in the United Arab Emirates in April, with the Abu Dhabi Challenge and the UAE Challenge set to take place over two weeks from 16 to 26 April. Depending upon the situation there seems to be a very high chance that both those events will be cancelled, especially if the Iranian threat to places around the Middle East continues.
Sky News reported "Witnesses on the ground in Abu Dhabi reported hearing several loud blasts above" earlier on Thursday as Iran continues to retaliate against US-allies in the region.
Up to 7 LIV Golf players were delayed in travelling to this week's event in Hong Kong due to flight restrictions in the Middle East, arriving on Wednesday evening local time. LIV Golf commentator and former DP World Tour and Ryder Cup star Nicolas Colsaerts has not been able to travel to the HSBC LIV Golf Hong Kong event due to flight restrictions and cancellations. Henni Zuel, host of the LIV Golf worldwide feed has also not been able to travel to Hong Kong from her home in Dubai.
The DP World Tour are scheduled to also be in India in 3 weeks time for the Hero Indian Open, so that has to be under a cloud at present if the conflict continues or escalates.
SHANK, by Matt Hooper
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