Official Money on 1999 European Tour will total more than 52,000,000 euro
Volvo PGA Championship and Smurfit European Open Will Again Lead the Way
Opportunity and Incentive Remains the Tour Policy Approaching the Millennium
The announcement that the 128th Open Golf Championship at Carnoustie on July 15-18 will have a total prize fund of 2,590,000 euro provides additional evidence that the European Tour will in 1999 play on quality golf courses with increasing opportunities and incentives for all Members.
The British Masters will be played at Woburn Golf and Country Club at Bedford, England, where it has not taken place since 1994, and the Volvo Scandinavian Masters is returning to the Bärseback Golf & Country Club in Malmo, Sweden.
New venues include the Saujana Golf & Country Club in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht Club, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and St. Leon Rot in Heidelberg, Germany, which will host the Benson & Hedges Malaysian Open, the Dubai Desert Classic and the Deutsche Bank-SAP Open TPC of Europe respectively.
Carnoustie, which hosted The Scottish Open in 1995 and 1996, has been off the Championship rota since 1975 when Tom Watson won the first of his five Open titles.
With every hole different in character, Carnoustie, stark and severe in outline and flatter than most links courses, is regarded as a true Championship test and the Open triumphs of Tommy Armour (1931), Henry Cotton (1937), Ben Hogan (1953) and Gary Player (1968) prior to that by Watson are testimony to its reputation for producing great Champions.
The prize fund in 1975 was 105,000 euro with Watson receiving 10,500 euro. The 1999 champion will receive 448,000 euro. The Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, organisers of the Open Golf Championship, point out that this reflects the growth of the Open in the 24 years since Watson beat the Australian Jack Newton in an 18-hole play-off at Carnoustie.
Similarly that period has seen enormous growth on the European Tour with Official Prize Money increasing from 599,083 euro in 1975 to 33,778,869 euro in 1998 and Total Prize Money from 855,400 euro to 41,047,703 euro. In 1975 there were 17 Official Events with average Official Prize Money of 35,240 euro per tournament; in 1998 there were 32 Official Events with average prize funds reaching 1,055,590 euro.
In 1999 there will be no fewer than 37 Volvo Order of Merit tournaments with minimum Official Prize Money in excess of 52,000,000 euro and an average prize fund per tournament in excess of 1,400,000 euro.
Both the Volvo PGA Championship, to be played at Wentworth Club, Surrey, England, on May 28-31 and the Smurfit European Open at The K Club, Dublin, Ireland, on July 30-August 2 will continue to offer leading prize funds. Their respective 1998 levels of 1,680,000 euro and 1,750,000 euro will be increased in due course.
Interestingly Wentworth, like Carnoustie, played a part in the early history of the European Tour and other 1970s venues to where the Tour will be returning this year include Le Meridien Penina (Portuguese Algarve Open), El Prat (Peugeot Open de España), Crans-sur-Sierre (Canon European Masters), Woburn (British Masters) and Saint-Nom-La-Bretèche (Trophée Lancôme).
In contrast The K Club, where the 2005 Ryder Cup Matches will be played, is a product of the 1990s which has seen the emergence of such superb facilities such as The Oxfordshire (Benson & Hedges International Open), Sporting Club, Berlin (German Open), De Vere Slaley Hall (Compaq European Grand Prix), Druids Glen (Murphy’’s Irish Open), Loch Lomond (The Standard Life Loch Lomond) and Montecastillo (Volvo Masters).
Other tournaments to significantly increase their prize funds include the Mercedes-Benz-Vodacom South African Open (808,543 euro), which was won by David Frost, the Fiat and Fila Italian Open (700,000 euro to 1,000,000 euro) at Circolo Golf, Torino, Italy, on April 29-May 2; the Deutsche Bank-SAP Open-TPC of Europe (1,540,000 euro to 1,680,000 euro); the Volvo Scandinavian Masters (1,120,000 euro to 1,400,000 euro); and the Canon European Masters (1,120,000 euro to 1,260,000 euro) at Crans-sur-Sierre, Switzerland, on September 2-5.
Ken Schofield, Executive Director of the European Tour, said: "Our policy remains unchanged which is to provide opportunity and incentive for all our Members. In case any Member is under any misapprehension as to what that exactly means then I will explain so that we are all clear as the direction in which we are moving to secure the future for the European Tour in the global game.
"For opportunity read tournaments. We must provide tournament competition for Tour Members on the finest available courses in the most favourable conditions. We seek quality, constantly, and in this, the 28th season of the European Tour, we must continue to look forward and provide greater challenges so that as a Tour we can move into the next millennium by continuing to build on what has been an outstanding sequence of team and individual playing performances by our Members during the 1980s and 1990s.
"For incentive read prize money. The growth of prize money is paramount to the success of the European Tour, the European Seniors Tour and the European Challenge Tour. We congratulate and thank all our sponsors and promoters for their support and commitment in grasping the nettle at this very special time for European Tour Members, and the game, as the globalisation of golf is enhanced by the advent of the World Golf Championships organised by the International Federation of PGA Tours.
"Negotiations will continue with all our other promoters and sponsor partners and further increases may be anticipated in due course.
European Tour purses are very competitive and the introduction of the World Golf Championships will, alongside the major championships, ensure that we have more Members competing in more quality golf tournaments for more prize money with more worldwide coverage than ever before.
"We have refined the Volvo Order of Merit, recognising the importance of the major championships and the World Golf Championships, and our overall set-up is designed to ensure that the Tour is strongly structured with budgets for agronomy, player support services, media support services - indeed in every area needed to give the opportunity and the incentive that have been coined as the twin pillars of the Tour.
"We are moving with each year closer to our vision for all Volvo Order of Merit tournaments to have minimum prize funds of 1,400,000 euro. We have a balanced schedule, but we will never be complacent. We know that golf, like any sport, must serve well existing partners and continually seek new sponsors and new promoters. This will remain top of our agenda as we move forward in what are truly exciting times."
