By IANS,
Perth : The Johnnie Walker Classic golf championship returns to Perth, western Australia, in 2009 for the fourth time and it will be played from February 19 to 22 at the Vines Resort & Country Club.
This year the tournament was played in India for the first time and an Asian Tour player, Mark Brown of New Zealand, won it with India’s Shiv Kapur finishing fifth.
The tournament’s unique status of being tri-sanctioned by the European, Asian and Australasian Tours means that it has a global field of star golfers.
The inaugural tournament was played at the Hong Kong Golf Club, at Fanling, in 1990, when Nick Faldo won it. He went on to win a second time, three years later, at the Singapore Island Country Club.
The Johnnie Walker Classic has been won by some of the best known golfers: Greg Norman in 1994, Fred Couples in 1995, Ian Woosnam in 1996, Ernie Els won the first of his two Classics at Hope Island in 1997 and again at Perth’s Lake Karrinyup in 2003, Tiger Woods in 1998 and 2000, Michael Campbell in 1999, Retief Goosen in 2002, Miguel Angel Jimenez in 2004 and Adam Scott in 2005.
The tournament has been played in eight different countries and at 13 different golf clubs around the Asia Pacific region, including China and India.
The Vines Resort and Country Club golf course, designed by Graham Marsh and Ross Watson, is set in the famous wine growing region of the Swan Valley and framed by the foothills of the Darlings Range. It will be a stern test for all the golfers competing in next year’s tournament for the famous ‘Striding Man’ trophy.
The 2009 Johnnie Walker Classic will be contested by 156 players, with the field reduced to the top 65 and those tied for 65th place after the second round.