INTERVIEW-Golf-Asian Tour chief hopes meltdown will not impact

By N.Ananthanarayanan

NEW DELHI, Oct 13 (Reuters) - The Asian Tour is closely monitoring whether the global financial meltdown impacts the U.S. PGA Tour but is hopeful it would not hurt its own rapid growth.

"We are fairly worried," Asian Tour executive chairman Kyi Hla Han told Reuters of the downturn.

"It depends on what happens on the U.S. PGA Tour. Their tournaments are bigger budgets, more money, especially the American banks putting in a lot of money.

"We'll have to see."

Both the U.S. PGA and European Tour chiefs have expressed confidence the downturn would not affect their tours, and Han said the big-name sponsorships by financial institutions were still intact in Asia.

"From our side the banks that are putting in money into our tour like Barclays for the Singapore Open, UBS for Hong Kong and HSBC, they haven't really been showing signs they want to back out," Han said.

"Their profile and clientele in Asia are pretty strong and I think they still have to make it better.

"In Asia, in terms of total sponsorships these events are still affordable. So hopefully, I don't think there should be that much of an impact."  Continued...