Volvo Car Australia on par with the Emirates Australian Open

SYDNEY – Dec 5, 2012: As Official Car Partner of the Emirates Australian Open, due to start tomorrow (6 December), Volvo Car Australia is tee-ing up for the start of Australia’s premier golf tournament.

With defending champion Greg Chalmers now a Volvo Cars Ambassador, hopes are high he can repeat his success at last year’s Emirates Australian Open in 2012.

“It’s a treat to play in front of a home crowd,” says Chalmers. “Expectations are high – but I always come home to Australia to win.”

In the days leading up to the Emirates Australian Open, Volvo Car Australia has had unprecedented access to Chalmers and The Lakes golf course, starting with an exclusive closed course game last Sunday.

With the course in pristine pre-tournament conditions, and a swirling wind to make conditions even trickier, Volvo competition winners, dealers from the Volvo network, members of the NSW Waratahs and Queensland Reds, and Volvo Cars Ambassadors like Matt Shirvington, Pia Miller and Rob Horne all drove, chipped and putted their way round – with varying levels of success, it has to be said.

Volvo competition winners also took part in the official Pro-Am event before the start of the Open.

Both groups failed to hit the Volvo hole-in-one on the seventh – thus missing out on the opportunity to win a Volvo S60 – so now it’s over to the professionals to secure the coveted hole-in-one prize.

With the Emirates Australian Open due to take place at the Lakes Golf Club in Sydney, Volvo Cars have a number of pre-event activities taking place, in addition to a range of innovative onsite events.

Chalmers regularly returns home from his base in Dallas, Texas, to compete in these two highlight events of the Australian golfing calendar – having won the Australian Open in 1998 and 2011 – and this year he’ll be sporting a Volvo Cars logo on his shirt.

Chalmers is fast approaching the coveted top 50 list, and hopes that a strong finish to this year will secure top 50 status and, with it, a start in all four majors during 2013.

As Official Car Partner of the Emirates Australian Open, Volvo Car Australia is in the second year of its partnership with Australia’s premier golfing event.

With 67,321 spectators attending the 2011 event, and a domestic television audience of over 3.86 million viewers, the Emirates Australian Open is one of the most popular sporting eventson the Aussie calendar.

“The Emirates Australian Open is the blue riband golf tournament in Asia Pacific and we wish Volvo Car Ambassador Greg Chalmers all the very best in defending his title this year,” said Matt Braid, Volvo Car Australia Managing Director.