European Tour Unveils 2009 Schedule
The European Tour has unveiled a 53-event schedule for 2009, culminating in the £11.3m Dubai World Championship at Jumeirah next November.
The ‘Road to Dubai’ sees events in 26 venues, starting this November with the HSBC Champions event in Shanghai.
Five tournaments are added to the 2009 schedule but the New Zealand and Asian Opens and Volvo Masters do not feature.
The events will be spread out over a 13-month period starting at the end of 2008, with the HSBC Champions event and the UBS Hong Kong Open being staged twice at either end of the Tour.
The shake-up of the Tour has come about as an attempt to redress the balance of the world’s biggest names playing on the more lucrative US PGA Tour.
However the European Tour has upped the minimum number of events a player must play to be a member to 12, and some players have expressed doubts as to whether big-name American players would be willing to travel that much.
