The Asian Tour is the principal men's professional golf tour in Asia except for Japan, which has its own Japan Golf Tour, which is also a full member of the International Federation of PGA Tours. Official money events on the tour count for World Golf Ranking points.
The Asian Tour is administered from offices in Singapore. It is controlled by a board with a majority of professional golfers, and a Tournament Players Committee of its player members, supported by an executive team. The Executive Chairman of the Board is the Burmese professional golfer Kyi Hla Han.
History
The first season in the current lineage was played in 1995, although there had been earlier attempts to create an Asian Tour. The Asian PGA was formed in July 1994 at a meeting in Hong Kong attended by PGA representatives from eight countries. In 1998 the Asian Tour became the sixth member of the International Federation of PGA Tours.
In 2002, the tour moved its office from Hong Kong to Malaysia and in 2004 the tour was taken over by a new organisation established by the players, who had been in dispute with the previous management. In 2007 it moved to new headquarters on the resort island of Sentosa in Singapore, which is also the home to what was at that time the tour's richest sole sanctioned tournament, the Singapore Open.
In 2009 a rival tour, the OneAsia Tour, was established. Relations between the two tours are hostile.
Players
Most of the leading players on the tour are Asian, but players from other parts of the world also participate (as of 2007 the country with most representatives profiled on the tour's official site is Australia).
In 2006 the Asian Tour became the most prestigious men's tour on which a woman has made the half-way cut in recent times when Michelle Wie did so at the SK Telecom Open in South Korea.
Among the ways to obtain an Asian Tour card is to be among the top 40 (including ties) at the Tour's qualifying school, finishing in the top 5 of the Asian Development Tour Order of Merit, and placing in the top 60 of the previous season's Order of Merit. The winner of the Asian Tour Order of Merit also receives entry into The Open Championship.
Tournaments and prize money
Each year the Asian Tour co-sanctions a number of events with the European Tour, with these events offering higher prize funds than most of the other tournaments on the tour as a result. While most of these tournaments have been in Asia, the Omega European Masters in Switzerland has been co-sanctioned since 2009; in addition, the two tours sometimes tri-sanction events with the Sunshine Tour or PGA Tour of Australasia in those tours' respective regions. The Asian Tour also co-sanctions tournaments with the Japan Golf Tour.
Since 2008, 50 percent of players’ earnings from the U.S. Open and The Open Championship have counted towards the Asian Tour’s Order of Merit. The two Opens were singled out from the other majors because they have open qualifying which Asian Tour members may enter.
Asia's richest event, the HSBC Champions, was first played in November 2005 with a prize fund of $5 million; it is co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour but did not count towards the money list for its first three years as any high placings by Asian Tour players would distort the money list. However, since 2008, 50% of the prize money, which is now at a total of $9.75 million, has counted towards the Order of Merit. It became a World Golf Championships event in 2009.
Another limited-field event in Malaysia, the CIMB Classic, was launched in 2010 with a $6 million purse. The first Asian Tour event to be co-sanctioned by the U.S.-based PGA Tour, it began as an unofficial event on that tour, but began offering official money and FedEx Cup points in 2013.
In 2016, the tour's richest sole-sanctioned event was the Venetian Macao Open, with a prize fund of $1.1 million. The tour's schedule remains quite unstable, with several in-season cancellations, reschedulings and prize fund alterations along the years.
By year
The table below summarises the development of the tour since 2004, when the current organisation took control.
Order of Merit winners
Leading career money winners
The table below shows the leading money winners on the Asian Tour as of 16 October 2016. The official site has a top 100 list which also shows each player's winnings for 1995 to 2016.
See also
- List of golfers with most Asian Tour wins
- Asian Development Tour
- Ladies Asian Golf Tour
Notes and references
External links
- Official site