GOLFERS WILL ‘POWERPLAY’ THIS SUMMER,
AS CANADIAN GOLF EMBRACES TWO-FLAG REVOLUTION

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

26 May 2009

A new version of golf, which is tipped to boost the game’s popularity worldwide, launches in Canada today

Copetown Woods Golf Club, Ontario, is the country’s first Official Venue for PowerPlay Golf, a shorter form of the game where golfers have two flags to aim for on each green during a high-pressure, nine-hole ‘risk and reward’ competition.

Canada joins nineteen other countries worldwide in the global pilot for the sport, which has received the backing of many of golf’s major governing bodies, tournament organisers, sports agents and TV broadcasters.

The club’s General Manager Barry Forth has created a pilot scheme, in partnership with PowerPlay Golf and the Royal Canadian Golf Association, for clubs in the Greater Toronto Area, which is designed to introduce the sport’s newest format to golfers across the region prior to a nationwide roll-out.

The PowerPlay Golf ‘Golden Horseshoe’ pilot in Southern Ontario runs from June to September 2009 at several golf clubs in the area, including Copetown Woods GC, Braeben GC, Caledon Country Club and Peninsula Lakes GC, with more set to join the pilot during the summer.

Each golf club in the pilot will become a PowerPlay Golf Official Venue, and will host at least two qualifying events. In September, all qualifiers will compete in the “Ontario PowerPlay Golf Championship 2009”, where a shootout format will decide the winner.

There will also be inter-club PowerPlay Golf events, where golf clubs compete to discover whose golfers have nerves of steel, and whose buckle under the extra pressure which PowerPlay Golf brings to the game.

In PowerPlay Golf, which is a nine-hole format using a modified Stableford points scoring system, players must choose between two flags on a green – a Black ‘PowerPlay’ Flag placed in a tough location, and an easier White Flag.

Players who make net birdie or better on a PowerPlay to the Black Flag score double points, but PowerPlays are strictly limited and golfers must choose carefully when to use them during their round.

There is a matchplay variant of the game, and also a special ‘Shootout’ version, which offers a condensed golf tournament (three hours maximum) tipped by many to become a popular TV version of golf for the 21st century.

And golfers can also go online, registering to earn PowerPlay Dollars by playing in both Official Events and in casual play, enabling them to climb World Rankings and also to compete in user-generated PowerPlay Golf Leagues both locally and around the world.

“We hope that hundreds of golfers in Southern Ontario will take their first shots to the PowerPlay Black Flag this summer,” said Barry Forth, who is also PowerPlay Golf’s Official Representative in Canada. “By the end of 2009, over 250,000 golfers will have played PowerPlay Golf worldwide, at over 600 golf clubs in more than 20 countries, so it is important that Canadian golfers have their say on the new format.

“Although individual golf clubs such as Copetown Woods are enjoying strong member and visitor levels, overall golf needs to encourage more participation, and we feel that PowerPlay Golf – which takes less time out of your day, yet which delivers a highly exciting shot of adrenalin – will appeal to both traditional, competition-minded golfers, and also to many who may have drifted away from the game over the last few seasons.

“And for beginners, or youngsters, or families, it is a terrific way to get introduced to golf, as it’s fast, fun, and gives you plenty to talk about afterwards.”

In Canada this week to launch PowerPlay Golf is one of the game’s founders and the most-capped English golfer of all time, Peter McEvoy, whose long and distinguished amateur golf career included the World Amateur Champion title, two-time Leading Amateur status at The Open Championship, and captaining the GB & Ireland Walker Cup team to victory twice against the USA. He remains, through 2009, the only British amateur golfer in history to make the cut at The Masters.

McEvoy, who was awarded the OBE for services to golf by Her Majesty The Queen in 2003, welcomes PowerPlay Golf’s introduction into Canada: “As one of the world’s five leading golf nations, Canada is hugely important to the sport. It is fitting that one of its newest and most progressive golf clubs, Copetown Woods, is the venue for our game’s launch in the country. We believe that PowerPlay Golf will trigger change for the good in the golf industry in many different ways, and we welcome all feedback from Canadian golfers and golf club owners this summer.”

Forth and McEvoy also have plans to introduce PowerPlay Golf at PGA professional level in Canada this year, following the success of 2008 PGA events in Britain, Ireland and South Africa.

Elsewhere in the world, PowerPlay Golf is working with influential global organisation The World Golf Foundation, and will be running new pilot schemes across the USA, Western Europe, Eastern Europe and in Asia in the second half of 2009.

For all details visit www.powerplay-golf.com.

IMAGE: Copetown Woods GC, Ontario, Canada - home of PowerPlay Golf in Canada

FOR OTHER POWERPLAY GOLF IMAGES INCLUDING LOGOS, please click HERE

Notes to editors:

About PowerPlay Golf (www.powerplay-golf.com)

PowerPlay Golf (www.powerplay-golf.com) is a two-flag, nine-hole, ‘risk and reward’ golfing format being rolled out around the world. Players earn extra points for birdies or better when playing to the Black Flag, which is generally in a difficult position on the green. A round of PowerPlay Golf takes half the time of a normal 18-hole round. The format is being taken up by TV broadcasters keen to televise golf in a more compressed time-frame, in the belief that this will increase golfing TV audiences. PowerPlay Golf comprises both ‘superstar golf’ events on TV, and ‘grass-roots’ golf where regular golfers play the same game as the superstars.