Golf Tours - Overview
Introduction
Professional golf is one of the more lucrative professional sports in
the world for both men and women, but it is has a very different
structure from other sports, especially team sports. A large majority of
professional golfers (at least 95%) make their main income as club or
teaching professionals, rather than from competition. "Touring
professionals", also known as "Tournament golfers", who make their
income from prize money and endorsements, are a small elite within the
profession. The very best golfers make seven and even eight figure U.S.
Dollar incomes; Tiger Woods is one of the two highest earning sportsmen
in the world according to Forbes Magazine.
But for the less successful, tournament golf can be an unstable
profession. It is also an expensive one to participate in: tournaments
have entry fees and practical costs such as travel and lodging expenses
as well as paying for a caddy. Moreover, most tournaments have a "cut"
midway through, in which the bottom half of players with the worst
scores are eliminated. Only those players remaining after the cut earn
any prize money at all. Thus, after costs are taken into account, lesser
known tournament golfers who are playing erratically and do not have a
steady income from endorsements, can make a large loss in a bad year.
Structure of tour golf
Professional golf is organised into a number of regional "tours", each
of which stages a sequence of weekly tournaments. There are at least
twenty professional golf tours, each run by a PGA or an independent tour
organisation, which is responsible for arranging events, finding
sponsors, and regulating the tour. The larger tours have a tournament
almost every week during a season that lasts for most of the year.
Each tour has "members" who are entitled to play in as many of its
events as they wish. A golfer can become a member of a leading tour by
succeeding in an entry tournament, usually called a "Qualifying School";
or by achieving a designated level of success in its tournaments when
competing as an invited non-member; or much more rarely, by having
notable achievements on other tours which make them a desirable member.
Membership of some of the lesser tours is open to any registered
professional who pays an entry fee.
There are enormous differences in the financial awards offered by the
various golf tours, so players on one of the lesser tours always aspire
to move up if they can. The PGA Tour, which is the first tier tour in
the United States, offers nearly a hundred times as much prize money
each season as the third tier NGA Hooters Tour. The hierarchy of tours
in financial terms is as follows:
* Clear 1st: PGA Tour
* Clear 2nd: PGA European Tour
* Others in the top 5 (in alphabetical order): Champions Tour; Japan
Golf Tour; LPGA Tour.
The last three have probably shuffled in the rankings, and this depends
partly on exchange rates. The Japan Golf Tour was at its relative peak
in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the Japanese economy was also at
its peak, the Champions Tour (then the PGA Senior Tour) reached a
relative peak in the mid to late 1990s, and the LPGA Tour seems to have
strengthened its relative position slightly since the turn of the
millennium.
With the partial exceptions of the Ladies European Tour and the LPGA of
Japan Tour, all of the other tours are effectively "feeder" tours: any
player who succeeds on them will move to a higher ranked tour as soon he
or she can.
Men's tours
International Federation of PGA Tours
The International Federation of PGA Tours is the trade body of the main
men's professional golf tours. As at 2005, there are six members:
* Asian Tour (for Asia excluding Japan)
* Japan Golf Tour (ranks third by prize money)
* PGA European Tour (ranks second by prize money)
* PGA TOUR (based in the United States; ranks first by prize money)
* PGA Tour of Australasia
* Sunshine Tour (Southern Africa - mainly South Africa)
These six tours co-sanction the Official World Golf Rankings.
Other Men's Professional Tours
Official World Golf Ranking points are also awarded for good placings in
events on three other tours:
* Canadian Tour
* Challenge Tour (second tier tour to the European Tour)
* Nationwide Tour (second tier tour to the PGA Tour)
Below this level, the tours do not offer ranking points, and the prize
money on offer will be at a level that allows only a few of the members,
or perhaps none of them at all, to make their main income from playing
on that tour alone. Some of the players will also play on other tours
when they are able to and others will be club or teaching professionals
who play tournament golf part time.
Other regional tours include the Tour de las Americas, which aspires to
gain world ranking points status in the near future, and the Indian Golf
Tour. The third tier tour in the United States is the NGA Hooters Tour.
Men's senior tours
Upon reaching age 50, male golfers are eligible to compete in senior
tournaments. Golf is unique among sports in having high profile and
lucrative competitions for this age group. Nearly all of the famous
golfers who are eligible to compete in these events choose to do so,
unless they are unable to for health reasons. A number of players win
more than a million dollars in prize money each season, and once
endorsements and other business activities are taken into account, a few
of the "legends of golf" in this age group earn more or less as much as
any of the younger PGA Tour pros, other than Tiger Woods. The two main
senior tours are:
* Champions Tour (based in the United States}
* European Seniors Tour
Women's tours
Women's professional golf is also organised by independent regional
tours. Leading women golfers make incomes well into seven figures,
meaning that they are beaten in this regards by few other sportswomen
apart from top tennis players. The women's tours include:
* LPGA Tour (based in the United States)
* Ladies European Tour
* LPGA of Japan Tour
* LPGA of Korea Tour
* ALPG Tour (based in Australia)
The second tier women's professional tour in the United States is called
the Futures Tour.
A senior tour for women was founded in 2001:
* Women's Senior Golf Tour
From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_golf_tours
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