Hearn Enters Golf Management

Barry Hearn, the Essex-based entrepreneur who helped to popularise snooker during the 1980s, has turned his attention to golf.

With £250,000 of backing from bookmakers Victor Chandler International over the next two years, Hearn has launched a partnership with sports agent Jonathan Barnett to create Matchroom Golf Management.

The first signings to their eight-man team of European Tour professionals are Mansfield's Greg Owen, 64th on last year's Order of Merit, Wales' former Walker Cup player Bradley Dredge and Scot Greig Hutcheon.

Five more names are expected to be unveiled within the next few weeks, and Hearn promised: "We will be bringing a breath of fresh air to golf management. I've already sent my first fax to Mark McCormack. It says simply 'you have been warned'."

Neither Owen, Dredge nor Hutcheon, who are all in their mid-twenties, are exactly household names. But Hearn is backing their potential and Victor Chandler have already opened a book on whether any of them can win a tournament this year or, even more ambitious, whether they can either win or finish in the top-10 of a major before the end of 2004.

"I am confident I have the right raw material to work with and that golf is going to be a major, major force in the world of sport in the coming years," said Hearn, who plays off a handicap of 21 and has caught the golf bug since hanging up his cricket boots.

"I'm already feeling a buzz about this. I feel like I'm back in 1982 when I had eight snooker players and we said we were going to take over the world. Within three years we were earning 76 per cent of the prize money. Golf in three or four years from now is going to be huger than huge and we want to be part of that."

Hearn, whose other sporting interests include boxing promotion and the chairmanship of Leyton Orient Football Club, has warned his new clients that "at some stage in your careers I'm going to embarrass you" in his bid to attract sponsorship and do deals on their behalf.

And he jokingly does not rule out standing on the first tee humming 'Simply The Best' as he watches them drive off.

"Barry is going to bring a whole new dimension to golf," said 27-year-old Owen. "His enthusiasm is way beyond anything I have ever been involved in."

Owen, who was previously managed by Chubby Chandler's International Sports Management stable which includes Lee Westwood and Darren Clarke, switched last year to the London Events Agency run by former Olympic swimming champion Duncan Goodhew.

But LEA have now dropped out of golf, releasing not only Owen to Matchroom Golf Management but also one of their young executives - Hearn's son Eddie who will look after the Victor Chandler squad on a day-to-day basis along with talent-spotter Martin Fryer.

Even though Hearn says he wants to establish himself as a manager of players before extending his horizons, he does not deny that he is interested in golf's television future and in attracting new sponsors to the game.

But Barnett, whose stable of clients includes footballers Kieron Dyer, John Hartson and Jody Morris as well as West Indian cricketers Brian Lara and Courtney Walsh, said: "It's absolutely imperative that golf gets more media exposure to heighten public awareness."