Asian Tour

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. 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.

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, [ [http://www.asiantour.com/story.htm?id=2662 Asian Tour Moves to New Home on Sentosa] , asiantour.com, 14 August 2007.] which is also the home of the tour's richest sole sanctioned tournament, the Singapore Open. Official money events on the tour count for World Golf Ranking points.

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). Each year the Asian Tour co-sanctions a number of events with the European Tour, and these events offer higher prize funds than most of the other tournaments on the tour. From 2008, 50 per cent of players’ earnings from the U.S. Open and The Open Championship will count towards the Asian Tour’s Order of Merit. The two Opens have been singled out from the other majors because they have open qualifying which Asian Tour members may enter. [ [http://www.asiantour.com/story.htm;jsessionid=272AE8266BB31849A484EFD55BB83D03?id=3391 Major Incentive for Tour Stars] , "asiantour.com", 12 February 2008.]

In 2004 the total prize fund was 11.4 million U.S. dollars, and by 2007 it had risen to 27.73 million U.S. dollars (all purses are fixed in dollars apart from those of The Open Championship and the Johnnie Walker Classic, which are fixed in British Pounds). However most of the tournaments with seven figure U.S. dollar purses are in events co-sanctioned by the European Tour, and European Tour players tend to collect most of the winnings in those tournaments. Asia's richest event, the $5 million HSBC Champions tournament, was first played in November 2005, 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, but from 2008 50% of the prize money will count towards the Order of Merit. The tour's richest sole sanctioned event is the Singapore Open, which will also reach the $5 million level in 2008. The tour's schedule remains quite unstable, with several in-season cancellations, reschedulings and prize fund alterations in 2007.

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.

chedule

The table below shows the 2008 schedule.

The number in brackets after each winner's name is the number of Asian Tour events he had won up to and including that tournament. This information is only shown for Asian Tour members.

Leading career money winners

The table below shows the leading money winners on the Asian Tour as of the end of the 2007 season. The official site has a top 100 list which also shows each player's winnings for the last six years.

* [http://www.asiantour.com/careerearnings.htm Source]

Notes and references

ee also

*2006 Asian Tour
*2007 Asian Tour
*Golfers with most Asian Tour wins

External links

* [http://www.asiantour.com Official site]