Angelo Que will have to wait until next year to defend his title after the RP Open was cancelled on Thursday.

The Philippine Open, Asia’s oldest golf championship and one of the most prestigious before losing its appeal as a favorite destination because of limited prizes, suffered one more humiliation on Thursday when the National Golf Association announced that the tournament will not be played this year.

The RP Open would have celebrated its 96th year but organizers finally cancelled the event after months of negotiations to convince sponsors to climb aboard failed to get a positive response.

The association had initially planned to hold the Open last March and was postponed several times due to lack of sponsors.

Most sponsors cited “donor fatigue” owing to the huge devastation caused by two deadly typhoons where limited resources of many blue chip companies were funneled for relief operations.

But even before the typhoons wrought their deadly swath, the NGAP had been having difficulty getting sponsors. It has been trying to get them since early this year but met indifference from its regular sources despite the fact that most of the country’s top industrialists and wealthy CEOs play golf.

The NGAP needed to raise at least $300,000, the minimum prize money pegged by the Asian Tour

This marks the second time that the Open has been cancelled by economic reasons in eight years. In 2003, the event was likewise shelved for lack of sponsors and during the Asian crisis of the late 90s, the RP Open was also hit hard by lack of sponsorship, but it proceeded, albeit with a largely scaled down version and an all-Filipino cast and peso cash prizes.

The other cancellations were due to World Wars. The first RP Open was held in 1913.

Last year, the Philippine Open, with a total pot of $200,000, was held at Wack Wack with Angelo Que winning the title.

Que will have to wait until 2010 to defend his title.

Pablo Soon, the NGAP director and tournament chairman, said the association plans to hold a two-day pro-am in December for the benefit of local pros, many of whom, except for a few Asian Tour regulars, had not had a tournament for months.

He said the NGAP will raise P2 million as prize money for the event.