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PGA Tour Tickets!
The PGA Tour is an organization that is headquartered in Ponte
Vedra Beach, Florida, USA. It operates the USA's main men's professional golf
tours. Its name is officially rendered in all caps as “PGA TOUR” by the
organization itself.
The PGA Tour should be distinguished from a number of other golf organizations.
Since 1968, it has been completely separate from the Professional Golfers'
Association of America (“PGA of America”), which is now primarily an association
of club professionals. (Prior to 1968, it was the PGA of America's tournament
players division.) The PGA of America, not the PGA Tour, runs the PGA
Championship and the Senior PGA Championship and co-organizes the Ryder Cup with
the PGA European Tour. The PGA Tour does not run the women's tours in the United
States, which are controlled by the independent LPGA. The governing body of golf
in the United States is the United States Golf Association.
Tours operated by the PGA Tour
The PGA Tour operates the following tours, which operate mostly in the USA with
occasional events in Canada, and one major championship in the United Kingdom in
each of the first two listed:
PGA TOUR, the top tour
Champions Tour, for golfers 50 and over
Nationwide Tour, a second-level tour
The PGA Tour also conducts an annual Qualifying School (known colloquially as Q
school), a six-round tournament held each fall; the top 30 finishers, including
ties, receive privileges to play on the following year's PGA Tour. Other
upper-level finishers receive privileges on the Nationwide Tour.
The top 20 money-winners on the Nationwide Tour also receive privileges on the
following year's PGA Tour. A golfer who wins three events on that tour in a
calendar year earns what is called a "battlefield promotion" which garners PGA
Tour privileges for the remainder of the year, and the following year.
At the end of each year, the top 125 money-winners on the PGA Tour receive a
tour card for the following season, which gives them exemption from qualifying
for most of the next year's tournaments. However at some events, known as
invitationals, exemptions only apply to the previous year's top seventy players.
Players who are ranked between 126-150 receive a conditional tour card, which
gives them priority for places that are not taken up by players with full cards.
Winning a PGA Tour event provides a tour card for a minimum of two years.
Winning a World Golf Championships event provides a three-year exemption.
Winners of the major championships earn a five-year exemption. Other types of
exemption include lifetime exemptions for players with twenty wins on the tour;
one-time one year exemptions for players in the top fifty on the career money
list who are not otherwise exempt; and medical exemptions for players who have
been injured, which give them an opportunity to regain their tour card after a
period out of the tour.
There is no rule limiting PGA Tour players to men only. In 2003, two women,
Annika Sörenstam and Suzy Whaley, played in PGA TOUR events; in 2004 and 2005,
Michelle Wie did the same. None of the three made the cut, although Wie missed
only by one stroke in 2004.
The PGA Tour places a strong emphasis on charity fundraising, usually on behalf
of local charities in cities where events are staged. In 2005, it started a
campaign to push its all-time fundraising tally past one billion dollars and it
expects to reach that milestone in 2006.
Note also that there is a PGA European Tour, which is totally separate from
either the PGA Tour or the PGA of America; this organization runs a tour, mostly
in Europe but with events throughout the world outside of North America, that is
second only to the PGA Tour in worldwide prestige. There are several other
regional tours around the world; click here for details.
Tournaments sometimes change venue, and quite often change name,
especially when they get a new sponsor, but the principal events have fixed and
traditional places in the schedule, and this determines the rhythm of the
season. The PGA Tour's year begins with the Mercedes Championships, whose field
is limited to tournament winners from the previous year.
Three of the four majors take place in eight weeks between June and August. This
threatens to make the last two and a half months of the season anti-climactic,
as some of the very top players compete less from this point on. Interest is
sustained by the following factors:
The race to top the money list. However, quite often this is clinched well
before the end of the season.
The race to finish in the top 30 of the money list, so as to qualify for the
lucrative and prestigious finale to the season, the Tour Championship, whose
winner earns a three-year exemption.
The scramble of the less successful members of the tour to make the top 125, in
order to retain their Tour card for the following season. Players who are on the
margins of the top 125 often play every week at this time of year.
The last several events are known collectively as the "Fall Finish". Points are
awarded for top ten places in these events and the player who accumulates most
points receives additional prize money.
There are 48 events in 44 weeks, including one team event with no prize money,
so there are 47 events with prize money. Most members of the tour play between
20 and 30 tournaments in the season. The geography of the tour is determined by
the weather. It starts in Hawaii in January, spends most of its first two months
in California and Arizona, then moves to Florida. In April it begins to drift
north. The summer months are spent mainly in the Northeast and the Midwest, and
in the fall the tour heads south again.
As of 2005 there is speculation that the Tour is looking to make significant
changes to its schedule. These might include moving The Players Championship to
May so as to have a marquee event in five consecutive months, and possibly
reducing the total number of events in order to increase the number of events
with top quality fields. Any such changes will not take place before 2007 and no
announcement is expected before negotiations on new television deals in Fall
2005 at the earliest.
The source of this article is
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this
article is licensed under the
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