The Zimbabwe Open Committee continues to harbour the dream of growing the FBC Zim Open until it attains DP World Tour formerly as the European Tour status.
Named DP World Tour for sponsorship reasons, the PGA European Tour is the leading men's professional golf tour in Europe.
At the moment, the DP World Tour has three sanctioned events in Africa namely the Nedbank Golf Challenge, the Alfred Dunhill Championship, and the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open and the FBC Zim Open to become the fourth.
A couple of years ago, the Zimbabwe Open Committee expressed the desire to have the tournament on the DP World Tour by 2024 and are still to achieve that dream.
Zimbabwe Open Committee chairperson Livingstone Gwata, who is credited for reviving the Zim Open in Zimbabwe, challenged the government and the corporate world to help the country’s flagship golf event reach the Promised Land.
“It's grown quite significantly and we are very pleased with the progress. It is a brand on its own and raising money from sponsors becomes easier because it is something that they have seen over many years being run successfully and expertly and because of the transparency that goes with it,” Livingstone Gwata said of the tournament.
“However, every Open tournament for any country requires rising to the highest international levels. As it is right now, it is the Zimbabwean tournament and it is co-sanctioned by the Sunshine Tour. The Sunshine Tour is the biggest Tour on the continent and certainly a very significant Tour worldwide.
“But the next step, obviously, will be to have it co-sanctioned by what is called the DP World Tour now which used to be called the European Tour. That is how tournaments grow. Just to give you an indication, to be a fully-fledged DP World Tour event, you need a prize fund of 1 million euros minimum. So, that is quite a high amount in terms of what we are raising just now.
- FBC Zim Open chases DP World Tour dream
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“But, it can be done. It is done elsewhere on the African continent. In Kenya, they do have a European Tour co-sanctioned event because of the big corporates with deep pockets in Kenya. And not only that, the Ministry of Tourism in Kenya, through the equivalent of what we call the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, their equivalent there, they control their industry, and they raise 4 million US dollars to put into this tournament.
“So, the prize money is 1 million euro, but the other staging costs and the tournament raise this amount. So, that is the national government doing it (in Kenya). We are still far away from that. It is something that can be done, but I would like to think that the government would have other priorities at the moment. But, it is the government in Kenya, which also has got other priorities that is doing it for their country. So, we need a lot more stakeholders on board to go to that level,” he said.
With FBC Holdings as the title sponsors for the past three years, the Zim Open has continued to grow and has become one of the best tournaments on the Sunshine Tour.
In the meantime, the event enjoys a lot of support from the corporate world in the country with Zimre Holdings Limited coming in as the associate sponsor for the second year running while Golden Pilsener, Huletts, SeedCo and Firstlink Insurance Brokers are anchor sponsors.
Zuva Petroleum, Cimas, Liquid, African Sun, Guard Alert, AMH Media, Rooney's, Lighthouse, Nomads, Speedlink Cargo, Sahwira Events and Lifestyle are also partners of the event.
