Asian Tour
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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 2004 the tour was taken over by a new organisation established by the players, who had been in dispute with the previous management. 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 March 2006 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. In 2005 the total prize fund was 20.215 million U.S. dollars (all purses are fixed in dollars), compared to $12.3 million in 2004. However nine of the ten purses of one million dollars or above are in events co-sanctioned by the European Tour, and European Tour players tend to collect most of the winnings in those tournaments. Prize funds in the Asian Tour's sole-sanctioned events range from $200,000 to $750,000, with the exception of the Singapore Open, which has a $3,000,000 purse. Asia's richest event, the $5 million HSBC Champions tournament, which was first played in November 2005, is co-santioned by the Asian Tour but does not count towards the money list as any high placings by Asian Tour players would distort the money list. In 2006 prize money will exceed $24 million. The initial announcement of the 2007 schedule stated that there will be least 29 tournaments with at least US$26.5 million in prize money. Tour chairman Kyi Hla Han stated that it was hoped to increase the number of events to at least 30 and to negotiate some of the purses upwards. [1]
The Asian Tour became the most prestigious men's tour on which a woman has made the half-way cut in recent times when Michelle Wie did so at the 2006 SK Telecom Open in South Korea. South Korea's Se Ri Pak did so on the Korean PGA Tour in 2003, but that tour is a feeder for the Asian Tour and does not offer World Ranking points. Babe Zaharias made a cut on the PGA Tour in 1945 when many male golfers were in the armed forces.
[edit] Schedule
The table below contains the initial 2006 schedule as announced in November 2005, with a few amendments for subsequent changes. It includes one special event which does not count towards the money list (the HSBC Champions) and one team event (the Royal Trophy). The first event took place in December 2005. Prize funds shown in brackets do not count towards the money list.
The number in brackets after each winner's name is the number of Asian Tour events he had won up to and including that tournament. This information is only shown for Asian Tour members.
Source: [2]
[edit] Leading money winners by year
| Year | Leading player | Country | Earnings (US$) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Jeev Milkha Singh | Image:Flag of India.svg India | TBC * |
| 2005 | Thaworn Wiratchant | Image:Flag of Thailand.svg Thailand | 510,122 |
| 2004 | Thongchai Jaidee | Image:Flag of Thailand.svg Thailand | 381,930 |
| 2003 | Arjun Atwal | Image:Flag of India.svg India | 284,018 |
| 2002 | Jyoti Randhawa | Image:Flag of India.svg India | 266,263 |
| 2001 | Thongchai Jaidee | Image:Flag of Thailand.svg Thailand | 353,060 |
| 2000 | Simon Dyson | Image:Flag of England.svg England | 282,370 |
| 1999 | Kyi Hla Han | Image:Flag of Myanmar.svg Myanmar | 204,210 |
| 1998 | Kang Wook-soon | Image:Flag of South Korea.svg South Korea | 150,772 |
| 1997 | Mike Cunning | Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States | 170,619 |
| 1996 | Kang Wook-soon | Image:Flag of South Korea.svg South Korea | 183,737 |
| 1995 | Lin Keng-chi | Image:Flag of the Republic of China.svg Taiwan | 177,856 |
- Singh is guaranteed to top the list [3], earnings to be confirmed after the final event of the season.
[edit] Leading career money winners
The table below shows the leading money winners on the Asian Tour from 1995 to 7 March 2006. The official site has a top 100 list with each player's winnings broken down by year. [4]
| Position | Player | Prize money (US$) |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Thongchai Jaidee | 2,095,784 |
| 2. | Jyoti Randhawa | 1,560,110 |
| 3. | Thaworn Wiratchant | 1,414,550 |
| 4. | Simon Yates | 1,181,957 |
| 5. | Prayad Marksaeng | 1,146,681 |
| 6. | Charlie Wi | 1,100,953 |
| 7. | Thammanoon Srirot | 1,078,562 |
| 8. | Kang Wook-soon | 1,078,194 |
| 9. | Arjun Atwal | 1,023,194 |
| 10. | Boonchu Ruangkit | 974,242 |
