Have we become so besotted by the deeds of Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods, qualification for and results in the Ryder Cup and most recently the organisation with the Roman numerals that is dividing the sport, LIV Golf, that we have overlooked the professional game at lower levels for players who may have lesser ability but harbour no lesser ambition? Perhaps we have.
The European Tour runs the DP World Tour, the Challenge Tour and the Legends Tour. In addition, there are the third-tier circuits which include the Alps Tour, founded in 2001 and sanctioned by France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and Morocco; the Pro Golf Tour, once organised from Germany by Erwin Langer, Bernhard’s brother, and in 2022, its 25th year, staged 16 events in six European countries. Martin Kaymer is its most famous graduate. Finally, there is the Nordic Golf League in Scandinavia founded at the end of the 20th century and existing mainly in Denmark and Sweden.
But if you think that is all, think again. Paul Lawrie, the 1999 Open champion, owns the Tartan Pro Tour, the Scottish-based circuit for men and women professionals. Chris Hanson, a six-year veteran of the EuroPro Tour, runs the 2020 Pro Tour for men and women professionals as well as amateurs, consisting of 15 one-day events predominantly in Yorkshire, England, but soon to expand southwards. There are the Jamega Tour and the Clutch Tour, and some regional PGAs run their own mini-tours.
For the past 20 years, there has been the EuroPro Tour, another in the third tier, started after a conversation between Sandy Jones, a former head of the PGA, and Barry Hearn. Promoted by Matchroom Sport, Hearn’s company, that first came to prominence in snooker and boxing before moving into golf and other sports, EuroPro Tour was run by Danny Godding, its managing director and Hearn’s son-in-law. Its requirements to be recognised by the Challenge Tour were to stage a minimum of a dozen 54-hole events with fields of 156, a 36-hole cut and an annual qualifying school. The five leading competitors at the end of each year would receive the right to play on the Challenge Tour. Each competitor paid an entry fee that started at £245 and now is £290. This was how the prize money and expenses of running the events were raised.
The EuroPro Tour was a highlight of professional golf in the third tier until last Friday when Matchroom ended its sponsorship following the end-of-season Tour Championship at Lough Erne Resort in Northern Ireland. “The loss of the EuroPro is a massive shame,” Hanson said. “It is leaving 160 guys with nowhere to play.”
At the risk of turning this narrative from a long par-4 into a dogleg par-5, let me introduce a young man, an assistant professional, who 22 years ago was standing behind the counter of a professional’s shop at a golf club in England. He interacted with the members well, sold them Mars bars, tees and sleeves of balls and gave them lessons when he could. His mobile phone was never far from his hand, his hair was gelled and a necklace jangled at his neck.
“It is now time to go and do the things I’ve always dreamed of doing … playing with the [big] names and knowing that if I play well I can move to the top,” Ian Poulter, for it was he, said. “I know if I have a nice and good week I should be able to win the tournament. If you believe in yourself and you want it badly enough, provided you work hard, I think it is all achievable.”
“The golf courses were decent, the fields fairly strong, there were proper referees and the events were well run. I enjoyed them."
Stuart Manley
No one should tread on the dreams of the Ian Poulters of today, young men aspiring to become international golf stars who may currently be working at your golf club giving lessons to members as well as selling Mars bars and tees. Golf needs each and every one of them.
Even though there is talk of other sponsors taking over the EuroPro Tour, there is cause for sadness at its demise. “That tour was a place for players to fulfil their dreams,” said Rob Maxfield, chief executive of the British PGA.
For men like Hanson, who played on that tour for six years and won four events in all, and Stuart Manley, a Welsh professional who has competed on the DP World Tour, it gave them an opportunity to progress up to the highest level of the game as Tyrrell Hatton and Marcus Armitage have done. In the U.S. last week, Hatton, another EuroPro graduate, began with a 4-under-par 67 in the PGA Tour’s CJ Cup in South Carolina while Armitage, another EuroPro Tour graduate, led after a course-record first round of 63 in the Mallorca Golf Open in Palma that ended yesterday. Others who passed through the ranks of the EuroPro Tour are Louis Oosthuizen, the 2010 Open champion, and 2011 Masters winner Charl Schwartzel.
“The golf courses were decent, the fields fairly strong, there were proper referees and the events were well run,” said Manley, who played perhaps 20 events on that tour down the years. “I enjoyed them. You went away on a Tuesday, were home again on a Friday and were able to get some quality family time. The fields were 156 every week and were very popular at the start of the year when everybody had lots of money. They tended to peter out towards the end of the season as people ran out of money. I’m sad to see it go. It was a gateway to the Challenge Tour. I hear rumours though other bodies are interested in taking it over in order to get those five spots at the end of a season on the Challenge Tour. That could be good.”
Jamie Hodges, head of the Challenge Tour, said last week that he has yet to decide how to allocate the five cards in the future that would have been awarded to the leading five graduates of the EuroPro Tour. “Is there a new model that we ought to be developing?” Hodges said on Friday. “We will decide in a few weeks’ time.”
“It seems as though it is another development tour that is not financially viable,” said Rhys Davies, a DP World Tour winner who played once as an amateur and once as a professional. “It can be difficult for someone who hasn’t made a huge impression as an amateur yet intends to turn professional to find a way to the top.”
“It was not just the difficulty in getting sponsors, not just that the audience figures are declining and not just the general economic market,” the EuroPro Tour’s Godding said. “Our outlay had just become too big. We were getting in £45,000 (about $50,700) in entrance fees and paying out £51,000 (about $57,400) in prize money. Barry [Hearn] had always helped us out, but recently Matchroom decided we could not make it work any longer.”
Top: Major winners Louis Oosthuizen (front) and Charl Schwartzel are past members of the EuroPro Tour.
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