The 2003 European Tour was the 32nd season of

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 ...

tournaments since the

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 fi ...

officially began in 1972. The season was made up of 45 tournaments counting towards the Order of Merit, which included the four major championships and three

World Golf Championships The World Golf Championships (WGC) are a group of annual professional golf tournaments created by the International Federation of PGA Tours as a means of gathering the best players in the world together more frequently than the pre-existing four ...

, and three non-counting "Approved Special Events". The Order of Merit was won for the first time by South African

Ernie Els Theodore Ernest Els (; born 17 October 1969) is a South African professional golfer. A former , he is known as "The Big Easy" due to his imposing physical stature (he stands ) along with his fluid golf swing. Among his more than 70 career victor ...

Changes for 2003

There were four new tournaments to the European Tour in 2003, the Nordic Open and three dual-ranking events, the Aa St Omer Open,

BMW Russian Open The Russian Open was a golf tournament on the European Tour. The event was established in 1993, and was first held at the Moscow Country Club in Nakhabino, just outside Krasnogorsk, Moscow Oblast, Russia. History Originally contested over the fi ...

and Mallorca Classic. Lost from the tour schedule were the

English Open The English Open was a professional golf tournament held in England. First played in 1988, it was an annual event on the European Tour until 2002. After several aborted attempts at reviving the tournament, it returned to the tour schedule in 20 ...

, Great North Open and the dual-ranking

North West of Ireland Open The North West of Ireland Open was a golf tournament which was played annually from 1999 to 2002. It was a "double-badge" tournament that featured on the schedules of both the European Tour and the Challenge Tour. In 2002 it was played at the Bal ...

Schedule

The following table lists official events during the 2003 season.

Unofficial events

The following events were sanctioned by the European Tour, but did not carry official money, nor were wins official.

Order of Merit

The Order of Merit was based on prize money won during the season, calculated in

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 . ...

Awards

Notelist

References

External links

2003 season results on the PGA European Tour website
{{European Tour Seasons European Tour seasons