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Professional Golf is one of the more lucrative 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" or "Pro 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 the highest earning sportsman 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 be in dire financial straits in a bad year. STRUCTURE OF TOUR GOLF Professional golf is organized 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 the season, which lasts for most of the year. Each tour has "members" who have earned their "tour cards", meaning they 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 ("Q-School"); or, by achieving a designated level of success in its tournaments when competing as an invited non-member; or, much rarer, by having enough notable achievements on other tours to 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:
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 Senior PGA 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. The other tours are effectively "feeder" tours: any player who succeeds on them is likely to move to a richer tour as soon he or she can, but may continue to play on his or her home tour a few times a year. 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:
These six tours co-sanction the Official World Golf Rankings . Other men's tours Official World Golf Ranking points are also awarded for good placings in events on three other tours:
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. The official development tour in Japan is the Japan Challenge Tour . 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 . In 2005 the China Golf Association launched the China Golf Tour . The United States and Europe also have third level tours for players who haven't made it onto the Nationwide Tour or the Challenge Tour. These are the NGA Hooters Tour and the Grey Goose Gateway Tour in the United States, and the PGA EuroPro Tour , the Alps Tour and the EPD Tour , each of which is based in a different part of Europe. At this level the prize money is partly funded by entrance fees and only the most successful players will win enough to do more than cover their expenses: the emphasis is very much on moving up to a higher tour. Below the third level tours there are local "mini-tours". At this level there is no possibility of earning a living from the prize money and players compete purely to gain competitive experience. Some are employed as club or teaching professionals and play tournaments part time, some may have sponsors or family backing. There have also been some well known sportsmen from other sports who, after retiring as wealthy men while still at an age when elite golfers are in their prime, have tried their luck as tournament golfers on the developmental tours, but none of them have made it into golf's elite so far. Examples include Ivan Lendl and Roy Wegerle . 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 players of 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:
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:
The second tier women's professional tour in the United States is called the Futures Tour . Sweden, which is the European country where women's golf is most popular, has its own Telia Tour , which serves as a feeder tour for the Ladies European Tour. In 2001 the U.S. based ''Women's Senior Golf Tour'' was founded. In 2006 it was rebranded as the Legends Tour . EXTERNAL LINKS |
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