Professional golf tours are the means by which otherwise unconnected professional golf tournaments are organised into a regular schedule. There are separate tours for men and women with each tour being based in a specific geographical region, although some tours may hold tournaments in other parts of the world.
Golf is one of the more lucrative sports in the world for both men and women, but has a very different structure from other sports (especially team sports). Almost all (at least 95%) professional golfers make their primary income as club or teaching professionals rather than 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 can make up to 8-figure incomes in U.S. dollars from tournament play alone. If endorsement income is taken into account, Tiger Woods was the highest earning sportsman in the world for much of the first decade of the 21st century according to Forbes magazine. He lost this status in 2011 after losing many of his endorsement contracts following his 2009 sex scandal.
For the less successful professional, trying to make a living from tournament golf can be challenging as tournaments have entry fees and the associated costs of travel and lodging, plus the hire of a caddy. Moreover, most tournaments have a "cut" after the second of four rounds in which a minimum aggregate score is selected to eliminate roughly half the field and advance the remaining golfers into the final rounds. Of those players remaining, only some will take home significant winnings and those that missed the cut do not earn any prize money at all. Thus, after costs are taken into account, the lesser-known golfers struggling to make cuts and lacking endorsement contracts to supplement that income may find making a living off of tournament play to be a challenging task.
The golf tour system evolved more by trial and error than by design. In the early days of professional golf in each region of the world each professional tournament was established by a separate golf club, golf organisation or commercial sponsor. As the number of tournaments increased the most talented professional golfers concentrated mainly on playing in tournaments rather than on club professional and golf instruction work. Once a good number of tournaments were being played in a region each year they were formalised into a "tour", which was supervised by a single organisation, although individual tournaments continue to be run by separate bodies in many cases.
- the China Golf Association
- the Korea Professional Golfers' Association
- the Professional Golf Tour of India
- organizers of the six major Ladies tours (see below)
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