American sports

PGA TOUR

The PGA Tour is an organization that is headquartered in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, USA. It operates the USA's main professional golf tours. Its name is officially rendered in all caps as “PGA TOUR” by the organization itself.

The PGA Tour should be distinguished from a number of other golf organizations. Since 1968, it has been completely separate from the Professional Golfers' Association of America (“PGA of America”), which is now primarily an association of club professionals. (Prior to 1968, it was the PGA of America's tournament players division.)

The PGA of America, not the PGA Tour, runs the PGA Championship and the Senior PGA Championship and co-organizes the Ryder Cup with the PGA European Tour. The PGA Tour does not run the women's tours in the United States, which are controlled by the independent LPGA. The governing body of golf in the United States is the United States Golf Association.

Tours operated by the PGA Tour

The PGA Tour operates the following tours, which operate mostly in the USA with occasional events in Canada, and one major championship in the United Kingdom in each of the first two listed:

• PGA TOUR, the top tour
• Champions Tour, for golfers 50 and over
• Nationwide Tour, a second-level tour

The PGA Tour also conducts an annual Qualifying School (known colloquially as Q school), a six-round tournament held each fall; the top 30 finishers, including ties, receive privileges to play on the following year's PGA Tour. Other upper-level finishers receive privileges on the Nationwide Tour.

The top 20 money-winners on the Nationwide Tour also receive privileges on the following year's PGA Tour. A golfer who wins three events on that tour in a calendar year earns what is called a "battlefield promotion" which garners PGA Tour privileges for the remainder of the year, and the following year.

At the end of each year, the top 125 money-winners on the PGA Tour receive a tour card for the following season, which gives them exemption from qualifying for most of the next year's tournaments. However at some events, known as invitationals, exemptions only apply to the previous year's top seventy players. Players who are ranked between 126-150 receive a conditional tour card, which gives them priority for places that are not taken up by players with full cards.

Winning a PGA Tour event provides a tour card for a minimum of two years. Winning a World Golf Championships event provides a three-year exemption. Winners of the major championships earn a five-year exemption. Other types of exemption include lifetime exemptions for players with twenty wins on the tour; one-time one year exemptions for players in the top fifty on the career money list who are not otherwise exempt; and medical exemptions for players who have been injured, which give them an opportunity to regain their tour card after a period out of the tour.

There is no rule limiting PGA Tour players to men only. In 2003, two women, Annika Sörenstam and Suzy Whaley, played in PGA TOUR events; in 2004 and 2005, Michelle Wie did the same. None of the three made the cut, although Wie missed only by one stroke in 2004.

The PGA Tour places a strong emphasis on charity fundraising, usually on behalf of local charities in cities where events are staged. In 2005, it started a campaign to push its all-time fundraising tally past one billion dollars, and it reached that mark one week before the end of the season.

Note also that there is a PGA European Tour, which is totally separate from either the PGA Tour or the PGA of America; this organization runs a tour, mostly in Europe but with events throughout the world outside of North America, that is second only to the PGA Tour in worldwide prestige. There are several other regional tours around the world; click here for details.