OneAsia drop inaugural tour championship from 2013 schedule

SYDNEY (Reuters) - OneAsia have dropped their inaugural Tour Championship from the 2013 schedule after failing to secure enough big name players for the $2 million tournament. The event was announced in May and scheduled to take place at Mission Hills in Shenzhen, China next month but will now be part of an expanded 2014 schedule, a spokesman for the Asia-Pacific tour said. "The tournament promoters set a high bar for the inaugural championship, but unfortunately several of the targeted players already had commitments, so the first edition has been postponed until next year," he said. "It has been a year of consolidation both for OneAsia and the industry in general, but we expect to shortly announce an outline of our expanded 2014 schedule which already includes a confirmed new tournament, the Fiji International, co-sanctioned with the PGA Tour of Australasia." The decision to postpone the Tour Championship means this week's co-sanctioned Australian Open will be the ninth and final individual event of the year. Australian Matthew Griffin now looks certain to secure the tour's Order of Merit, barring a spectacular collapse over the final two days at Royal Sydney. (Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Greg Stutchbury)