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,^[1] 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 PGA European Tour, in countries such as China, Malaysia and Indonesia, with these events offering higher prize funds than most of the other tournaments on the tour as a result. 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.^[2]

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 reached 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.

2009 schedule

The table below shows the 2009 schedule.^[3]

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.

Dates	Tournament	Country	Prize fund (US$)	Winner	OWGR pts	Notes
Jan 9-11	Royal Trophy	Thailand	N/A	Asia	N/A	Team event, co-sanctioned by the European Tour and Japan Golf Tour
Feb 5-8	Emaar-MGF Indian Masters	India	2,500,000	N/A	N/A	Tournament cancelled.[4]
Feb 5-8	Asian Tour International	Thailand	300,000	James Kamte (1)	14	Rescheduled following cancellation of Indian Masters[5]
Feb 12-15	Maybank Malaysian Open	Malaysia	2,000,000	Anthony Kang (3)	30	Co-sanctioned by the European Tour
Feb 19-22	Johnnie Walker Classic	India	2,500,000	Danny Lee (n/a) (amateur)	32	Co-sanctioned by the European and Australasian tours
Feb 26- 1 Mar	Enjoy Jakarta Astro Indonesia Open	Indonesia	1,250,000	Thongchai Jaidee (11)	20	Co-sanctioned by the European Tour
Mar 5-8	Singha Thailand Open	Thailand	500,000	Jyoti Randhawa (8)	14	New tournament
Mar 19-22	SAIL Open	India	400,000	Chapchai Nirat (3)	14	Co-sanctioned by the Professional Golf Tour of India
Mar 26-29	Black Mountain Masters	Thailand	500,000	Johan Edfors (n/a)	14	New tournament
Apr 23-26	Ballantine's Championship	South Korea	2,900,000	Thongchai Jaidee (12)	32	Co-sanctioned by the European Tour
May 14-17	GS Caltex Maekyung Open	South Korea	600,000	Bae Sang-moon (3)	14	Co-sanctioned by Korean Tour
Jun 18-22	U.S. Open	United States	50% of 7,500,000	Lucas Glover (n/a)	100	Major championship. 50% of prize money counts towards Order of Merit.
Jul 16-19	The Open Championship	United Kingdom	50% of 8,600,000	Stewart Cink (n/a)	100	Major championship. 50% of prize money counts towards Order of Merit.
Jul 23-26	Indonesian President Invitational	Indonesia	400,000	Gaganjeet Bhullar (1)	14
Jul 30- 2 Aug	Brunei Open	Brunei	300,000	Darren Beck (1)	14
Aug 5-8	Worldwide Holdings Selangor Masters	Malaysia	300,000	Rick Kulacz (2)	14
Aug 13-16	Queen's Cup	Thailand	300,000	Chinnarat Phadungsil (3)	14	New tournament
Sep 3-6	Omega European Masters	Switzerland	2,500,000	Alexander Norén (n/a)	32	New event, co-sanctioned by the European Tour
Sep 10-13	Macau Open	Macau	500,000	Thaworn Wiratchant (11)	14
Sep 24-27	Asia-Pacific Panasonic Open	Japan	1,500,000	Daisuke Maruyama (n/a)	20	Co-sanctioned by the Japan Golf Tour
Oct 1-4	Mercuries Taiwan Masters	Taiwan	500,000	Lin Wen-tang (5)	14
Oct 8-11	Hero Honda Indian Open	India	1,250,000	Chinnaswamy Muniyappa (1)	14	Co-sanctioned by the Professional Golf Tour of India
Oct 22-25	Iskandar Johor Open	Malaysia	1,000,000	K. J. Choi (5)	14	Tournament shortened to 54 holes due to rain
Oct 29- 1 Nov	Barclays Singapore Open	Singapore	5,000,000	Ian Poulter		Co-sanctioned by the European Tour
Nov 5-8	WGC-HSBC Champions	China	50% of 7,000,000	Phil Mickelson (n/a)	66	World Golf Championships event. 50% of prize money counts towards Order of Merit.
Nov 12-15	Hong Kong Open	Hong Kong, China	2,500,000	Grégory Bourdy (n/a)	44	Co-sanctioned by the European Tour
Nov 19-22	Johnnie Walker Cambodian Open	Cambodia	300,000	Marcus Both (2)	14
Dec 3-6	King's Cup	Thailand	300,000	Chan Yih-shin (1)	14	New tournament
Dec 10-13	Volvo Masters of Asia	Thailand	750,000	N/A	N/A	Tournament cancelled.[6]

Schedule by year

The table below summarises the development of the tour since 2004, when the current organisation took control.

Order of Merit winners

Year	Leading player	Country	Earnings (US$)
2009	Thongchai Jaidee	Thailand	981,932
2008	Jeev Milkha Singh	India	1,452,702
2007	Liang Wen-Chong	China	532,590
2006	Jeev Milkha Singh	India	591,884
2005	Thaworn Wiratchant	Thailand	510,122
2004	Thongchai Jaidee	Thailand	381,930
2003	Arjun Atwal	India	284,018
2002	Jyoti Randhawa	India	266,263
2001	Thongchai Jaidee	Thailand	353,060
2000	Simon Dyson	England	282,370
1999	Kyi Hla Han	Myanmar	204,210
1998	Kang Wook-soon	South Korea	150,772
1997	Mike Cunning	United States	170,619
1996	Kang Wook-soon	South Korea	183,737
1995	Lin Keng-chi	Taiwan	177,856

Leading career money winners

The table below shows the leading money winners on the Asian Tour as of the end of the 2009 season. The official site has a top 100 list which also shows each player's winnings for the last six years.^[9]

Rank	Player	Country	Prize money (US$)
1	Thongchai Jaidee	Thailand	3,894,770
2	Jeev Milkha Singh	India	2,835,765
3	Jyoti Randhawa	India	2,631,464
4	Thaworn Wiratchant	Thailand	2,488,309
5	Liang Wen-Chong	China	2,438,613
6	Prayad Marksaeng	Thailand	2,267,339
7	Simon Yates	Scotland	1,754,568
8	Lin Wen-tang	Taiwan	1,667,331
9	Anthony Kang	United States	1,651,285
10	Charlie Wi	South Korea	1,461,329

See also

• Golfers with most Asian Tour wins

Notes and references

External links

• Official site