The Challenge Tour is the second-tier men's professional
golf
Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible.
Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...
tour in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
. It is operated by the
PGA European Tour
The European Tour (currently known as the DP World Tour for sponsorship reasons), legally the PGA European Tour is the leading men's professional golf tour in Europe. The organisation also operates the European Senior Tour (for players aged fift ...
and, as with on the main
European Tour
The European Tour (currently known as the DP World Tour for sponsorship reasons), legally the PGA European Tour is the leading men's professional golf tour in Europe. The organisation also operates the European Senior Tour (for players aged fift ...
and the
European Senior Tour
The Legends Tour is the current branding of the European Senior Tour, a professional tour for male golfers aged 50 and over, run by the PGA European Tour. The tour was branded as the Staysure Tour for the 2018 and 2019 seasons after UK-based insur ...
, some of the events are played outside Europe.
History
The tour was introduced in 1986 and was initially called the ''Satellite Tour''. The Order of Merit was introduced in 1989, with the top five players on it winning membership of the European Tour for the following season. The following year the tour was renamed the Challenge Tour. Up to 1993 the Challenge Tour rankings were based on each player's best several results, but since 1994 it has been a straightforward money list, with all results counting.
Players who are successful on the Challenge Tour qualify for membership of the European Tour the following year. Twenty players earn direct promotion to the European Tour. Players finishing 21–45 may also gain qualification for occasional low-prize-money European Tour events, but can improve their status through European Tour Qualifying School. Players who win three Challenge Tour events in a season are fast-tracked onto the main tour immediately and are fully exempt the following season, similar to that of the US-based
Korn Ferry Tour
The Korn Ferry Tour is the developmental tour for the U.S.-based PGA Tour, and features professional golfers who have either not yet reached the PGA Tour, or who have done so but then failed to win enough FedEx Cup points to stay at that level. Th ...
.
World ranking points
World ranking points are awarded for high finishes in Challenge Tour events. Most events give 12 OWGR points to the winner, with European Tour dual-ranking events awarding 18 points. The
Challenge Tour Grand Final
The Rolex Challenge Tour Grand Final is the season-ending tour championship on the Challenge Tour. The field currently consists of the top 45 players on the Challenge Tour rankings vying for fifteen European Tour cards. It has been played annually ...
gives 17 points to the winner.
In 2014, a number of events received slightly higher points totals, with three events earning a minimum of 13 points and the Challenge Tour Grand Final winner receiving 17 points, up from 16.
Satellite tours
One competitive level down from the Challenge Tour are four third-level developmental tours, the
Alps Tour
The Alps Tour is a developmental professional golf tour for men which is sanctioned by the national golf associations of France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and Morocco. Established in 2001, it is a third level tour, the highest level of men's gol ...
, the
Pro Golf Tour
The Pro Golf Tour, formerly the EPD Tour (European Professional Development Tour), is a developmental professional golf tour based in Germany. It is a third-level tour, the highest level of men's golf in Europe being the European Tour, and the sec ...
, the
PGA EuroPro Tour
The PGA EuroPro Tour was a men's developmental professional golf tour. It was created in 2002 by the merger of two development tours, the EuroPro Tour and the PGA MasterCard Tour, as the Professional Golfers' Association and Barry Hearn's Matchr ...
(ceased in 2022) and the
Nordic Golf League
The Nordic Golf League is one of the four PGA European Tour-recognised third-tier men's professional golf tours that are known as the Satellite Tours. The top five players on the rankings list at the end of each season earn a place on the second t ...
, each of which is based in a different part of Europe. These circuits are known as the satellite tours. Each season the top five players (not otherwise exempt) from the Order of Merit of each of these tours earn status on the Challenge Tour for the following season. The Challenge Tour also has an annual
qualifying school
In professional golf, the term qualifying school is used for the annual qualifying tournaments for leading golf tours such as the U.S.-based PGA and LPGA Tours and the European Tour. A fixed number of players in the event win membership of the ...
.
In December 2022, it was announced that the
Clutch Pro Tour and the
Tartan Pro Tour would become official feeder tours to the Challenge Tour; in place of the now defunct PGA EuroPro Tour. The Tartan Pro Tour would offer Challenge Tour status to the leading player on the Order of Merit, whereas the Clutch Pro Tour would offer Challenge Tour status to the top two players on the Order of Merit.
Schedule
Challenge Tour Rankings winners
The Challenge Tour Rankings have been calculated in
Euros
The euro (symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . T ...
since 1999. Prior to that they were calculated in
British pounds
Sterling (abbreviation: stg; Other spelling styles, such as STG and Stg, are also seen. ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound ( sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, and t ...
.
Schedules by year
Originally, the Challenge Tour events were held in Western Europe. In 1991, the five
Safari Circuit
The Safari Circuit, or Safari Tour, was a small professional golf tour based in West and East Africa that ran from the 1970s through into the 1990s. From 1977, the tour was organised by the PGA European Tour and from 1991 the tournaments were inclu ...
events in Africa were added. Only the
Kenya Open
The Kenya Open, titled as the Magical Kenya Open for sponsorship reasons, is a professional golf tournament in Kenya founded in 1967.
History
The Kenya Open was an associate event on the Far East Circuit in 1967 and 1968, after which it became a ...
(until 2018) remained a regular event on the tour for more than a few years, although the
Zambia Open
The Zambia Open is a men's professional golf tournament played in Zambia, that has been part of the Sunshine Tour since 1996, and was co-sanctioned by the European-based Challenge Tour from 2001 to 2004. It was also an event on the Challenge Tour ...
returned to the tour between 2001 and 2004 as the first
Sunshine Tour
The Sunshine Tour is a men's professional golf tour based in Southern and East Africa. For much of its early history it was known either as the South African Tour or Sunshine Circuit; through sponsorship deals, it has also been known as the Vod ...
co-sanctioned event. Another African tournament, the
Moroccan Golf Classic, was held from 2002 to 2010. The Challenge Tour featured tournaments co-sanctioned with the
Tour de las Américas
The Tour de las Américas (TLA) was the principal men's professional golf tour throughout Latin America and the Caribbean from 2000 through to 2012 when it was superseded by PGA Tour Latinoamérica.
History
Top level tournament golf in Latin Ameri ...
in
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
from 2003 to 2011. In 2011, the tour added its first events in Asia, the
Gujarat Kensville Challenge
The Gujarat Kensville Challenge was a golf tournament on the Challenge Tour and the Professional Golf Tour of India, played in India. It was held for the first time in January 2011 at Kensville Golf and Country Club in Ahmedabad, Gujarat
Guj ...
in India and the
Kazakhstan Open
The Kazakhstan Open was a men's professional golf tournament on the Challenge Tour, the official developmental tour of the European Tour. First played in 2005, it was held at the Nurtau Golf Club in Almaty, Kazakhstan for the first four editions b ...
.
The table below summarises the development of the tour since 1999, which was the year that the
euro
The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...
became the currency of record for the tour. Individual tournaments have purses fixed in a mixture of British pounds, euro and U.S. dollars, so year on year changes in the total prize fund reflect exchange rate fluctuations as well as prize fund movements in constant currencies.
See also
*
List of golfers with most Challenge Tour wins
This is a list of golfers who have won four or more official money events on the Challenge Tour since it was established in 1986 as published in the tour's media guide. Many of the players on the list have won events on other tours and unofficial ...
*
Notes
References
External links
*
{{Men's Professional Golf Tours
Professional golf tours
European international sports competitions