European tour schedule has slight boost in money with some PGA Tour concepts
The European tour will feature a 44-tournament schedule for 2023-24 that has various swings in the 12-month season and finishes with a model similar to the PGA Tour.
Among the changes is moving the Abu Dhabi Championship, which had become the signature event of the Middle East Swing, from January to November as part of a two-tournament playoff system for the top performers.
The schedule is broken down into five swings, and players who do the best in each of those chunks of the schedule will earn a $200,000 bonus and qualify for the meat of the season in September and October. That is when most of Europe's heritage events take place, such as the Irish Open at Royal County Down.
Leading players from each swing also will earn a spot in the $9 million Rolex Series events. Money from majors would not count toward the swing standings.
The European tour — commercially known as the DP World Tour — also will start with consecutive tournaments in Dubai as a four-week stretch in the United Arab Emirates.
The prize fund will be just shy of $150 million, a record for the European tour.
“The many new and original enhancements we have introduced will guarantee drama and excitement for our fans, our broadcasters and all our stakeholders across the entire season and means, more than ever, that every week counts," chief executive Keith Pelley said.
The PGA Tour and European tour have an alliance that allows the leading 10 players from the Race to Dubai to earn PGA Tour cards if they are not already members.
In a new twist announced Monday, the leading player from this year's Race to Dubai will earn a spot in the opening two $20 million signature events on the PGA Tour — the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Genesis Invitational at Riviera — if they are not already in them.
The 10 European tour players who earn PGA Tour cards also will have a spot in The Players Championship, with the richest purse in golf, and the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial.
For the end of the year, the playoff system in Europe is similar to the PGA Tour. The top 70 players on the Race to Dubai will qualify for the Abu Dhabi Championship on Nov. 7-10, and the top 50 advance to the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai the following week.
The top 10 at the end of the season share a $6 million bonus pool.
The PGA Tour also starts with 70 players advancing to its “playoffs,” but 50 move on to the second playoff event and the top 30 reach the Tour Championship.
Different from the PGA Tour is the wraparound season. The PGA Tour has returned to a calendar year in 2024 — January through August — with the rest of the year geared toward staying in the top 125 to secure a full card.
Europe's new season starts a week after the old one, on Nov. 23-26, with the Australian PGA Championship and the Joburg Open in South Africa. That's part of the “global swing” through the end of the year.
The “international swing” starts 2024 with events in the Middle East and Africa, followed by the “Asian swing” from the middle of March to the middle of May. The “European swing” goes until early July, and the “closing swing” ends in August.
The “Back 9” swing is the most intriguing, with tournaments that have long been part of the tour — the European Masters in Switzerland, the Irish Open and BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, the Spanish Open, French Open and Dunhill Links around St. Andrews.
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