Johnnie Walker Classic

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Johnnie Walker Classic is a European Tour golf tournament which is played in the Asia Pacific region. Johnnie Walker is a brand name. and the owners have a long history of tournament sponsorship. They also sponsors the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles which is a European Tour event played in Scotland. Before the present tournament was introduced there was an entirely separate tournament of the same name in Australia, and the two actually overlapped by a year or two, but at the point the current event was called the Johnnie Walker Asian Classic.

In 1989 Johnnie Walker sponsored the Hong Kong Open, and it was decided to establish an additional tournament which it would sponsor on an ongoing basis. This tournament was called the Johnnie Walker Asian Classic, and was first staged in Hong Kong in 1990. Subsequently it became a touring event, essentially used by its sponsor as a marketing exercise in the Asia Pacific region. In 1992 it became the first event to be sanctioned by the European Tour in East Asia (the Dubai Desert Classic was the first in Asia as a whole). In 1993 the word Asian was dropped from the title. In 2005 the tournament was held in China for the first time, as part of the European Tour's push into China, which saw four events held in mainland China and one in Hong Kong in the 2005 season.

In 2005 the event was tri-sanctioned by the Asian, European and Australasian tours and the field comprised 60 European Tour players, 60 Asian Tour players, 28 PGA Tour of Australasia players, and 8 sponsors invitees. The prize fund was £1,250,000. This amount is large by Asian and Australasian Tour standards, but not by European Tour or PGA Tour standards. However the tournament attracts a number of the World's leading players each year by paying them large appearance fees. Nine of the first fourteen editions were won by players who have topped the Official World Golf Rankings at some point in their career (Faldo, Els and Woods twice each; Woosnam, Norman and Couples once each).

The years in the table are European Tour seasons rather than calendar years. The season starts late in the previous calendar year, and the Johnnie Walker Classic has sometimes been held at this time of year, for example the "2000" event was held in November 1999. The 2006 tournament was held in February 2006.

Season	Location	Winner	Nationality
2006	Australia	Kevin Stadler	United States
2005	China	Adam Scott	Australia
2004	Thailand	Miguel Angel Jiménez	Spain
2003	Australia	Ernie Els	South Africa
2002	Australia	Retief Goosen	South Africa
2001	Thailand	Tiger Woods	United States
2000	Taiwan	Michael Campbell	New Zealand
1999	Pushed back to following season.
1998	Thailand	Tiger Woods	United States
1997	Australia	Ernie Els	South Africa
1996	Singapore	Ian Woosnam	Wales
1995	Philippines	Fred Couples	United States
1994	Thailand	Greg Norman	Australia
1993	Singapore	Nick Faldo	England
1992	Thailand	Ian Palmer	South Africa
1991	No tournament.
1990	Hong Kong	Nick Faldo	England