Golf's European Tour will be largely unaffected by the global financial crisis in 2009, the tour's director of international policy Keith Waters said.
Waters told Reuters that the The European Tour's 'Race to Dubai' schedule for 2009, with tournaments offering around 140 million euro in prize money, could have been saved by negotiations carried out over a year ago.
"The two real major pillars in terms of confirming financial support for the 2009 season, television rights and a huge input from Dubai, were all worked out about 12 or 14 months ago," Briton Waters told Reuters. "We have been very lucky considering how the world's financial situation has developed.
"I think we are confident that our schedule will go ahead as planned. There are no assurances, of course, because we are in the throes of something that is pretty well unprecedented. We have also worked pretty hard in the last two or three weeks to make sure everything will go ahead."
