Victor Chandler On Course, the United Kingdom’’s leading independent bookmaker, has agreed a five year contract with a further five year option to title sponsor the British Masters on the European Tour.
The Victor Chandler British Masters will in 1999 take place on the Duke’’s course at Woburn Golf and Country Club, Buckinghamshire, from September 9-12.
Victor Chandler, the grandson of the company’’s founder, said: “This long-term arrangement with the European Tour meets with our strategy to increase awareness of the company’’s all-sports betting services. We have followed with interest the globalisation of golf, coupled with the increase in sports betting, and consider the European Tour to be at the forefront of the sport’’s expansion programme.
“We were delighted to be offered the opportunity to put the Victor Chandler name to such a prestigious title as the British Masters, and we have entered into a partnership which we intend to further develop well into the new millennium. There has been a dramatic increase in sports betting in recent years, and The Victor Chandler British Masters will provide us with the scope to expand our business in this arena and, specifically, to progress our association with golf.”
Prize money for the 1999 Victor Chandler British Masters, co-promoted by the European Tour and IMG (UK) Ltd, will be 1,000,000 euro (£714,286) with a first prize of 166,660 euro (£119,047). Colin Montgomerie, winner of a record six successive Volvo Order of Merit titles, won the 1998 British Masters.
Ken Schofield, Executive Director of the European Tour, said: “We are delighted to welcome Victor Chandler On Course as the new title sponsor of the British Masters, and particularly excited that they will be starting with us a long term partnership which coincides with the tournament returning to Woburn Golf and Country Club for a minimum period of ten years.”
Woburn Golf and Country Club has hosted twelve of the 52 editions of the British Masters and with the opening of The Marquess course in June, 2000, the club will become one of the few 54-hole venues in the United Kingdom.
WOBURN GOLF AND COUNTRY CLUB
The 1999 Victor Chandler British Masters will be played on the Duke’’s course at Woburn Golf and Country Club, Bow Brickhill, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, on September 9-12.
The Duke’’s course, designed by Cotton, Pennink, Lawrie and Partners and opened in 1976, has been described as the finest inland course in Europe and first hosted the British Masters in 1979. In total twelve of the 52 editions of the tournament have been held at Woburn Golf and Country Club with Greg Norman (1981), Lee Trevino (1985), Seve Ballesteros (1986 and 1991), Sandy Lyle (1988), Nick Faldo (1989) and Ian Woosnam (1994), all winners of major championships, among those to have triumphed at Woburn.
Located on the Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire borders on the Bedford Estate, Woburn Golf and Country Club has two 18-hole championship courses, the Duke’’s and the Duchess, and will become one of the few 54-hole venues in the United Kingdom following the opening of The Marquess course in June, 2000.
Designed by Peter Alliss and Clive Clark, in conjunction with European Golf Design, The Marquess course has, like the Duke’’s and Duchess, a compelling setting with magnificent oak trees, pine, silver birch and chestnut framed among tumbling masses of rhododendrons, set amid a sea of heather, bracken and gorse and, in spring time, carpets of bluebells.
Over a comparatively short lifetime, Woburn’’s Duke’’s and Duchess courses have hosted no fewer than twelve European Tour tournaments, eight Women’’s Open Championships and 14 Women’’s Tour Events’’ and a host of Amateur Competitions. This year the Weetabix Women’’s British Open will be played at Woburn Golf and Country Club on August 12-15.
It was in the early 1970s that the Marquess of Tavistock and the Trustees of the Bedford Estate were first struck with the thought that the land north-west of Woburn Abbey seemed ideal golfing country. The established architectural company, Cotton, Pennick, Lawrie and Partners, were commissioned to undertake the work. Charles Lawrie, sadly, died before the playing of the first British Masters at Woburn in 1979.
European Tour Courses plc, who announced in April, 1997, that the company had entered into an agreement with The Bedford Estate and acquired a 50 per cent interest in Woburn Golf and Country Club Limited, has agreed with the European Tour and IMG (UK) Limited, two of its shareholders, for the British Masters to be staged at Woburn for a period of at least ten years.
The Marquess of Tavistock said: “My family and I look forward to welcoming The Victor Chandler British Masters this year and through the first decade of the new millennium. The British Masters is one of the most important weeks on the European Tour calendar, and we believe the tournament to be synonymous with the Woburn Golf and Country Club.”
