Ladies European Tour

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1 Schedule
- 1.1 Past tour schedules
2 Yearly award winners
3 See also
4 External link

The Ladies European Tour is a professional golf tour for women which was founded in 1979.

The U.S. based LPGA was founded in 1950, but women's professional golf was slower to get established in Europe. In 1978 the Women's Professional Golf Association (WPGA) was formed as part of Professional Golfers' Association of Great Britain and Ireland and a tour was established the following year. In 1988 the tour members decided to form an independent company, the Women Professional Golfers' European Tour Limited. This new company moved away from the PGA's at The Belfry and set up its own headquarters at the Tytherington Club in Cheshire. In 1998 the Tour changed its name to European Ladies' Professional Golf Association Limited and again in July 2000 to its current name, Ladies European Tour Limited. Like many UK-based sports organisations it is a company limited by guarantee, a legal structure which enables it to focus on maximising returns to its members through prize money, rather than on making profits for investors. The tour is run by a Board of Directors and a Players' Council. Most of the players on the tour are European, and the largest non-European contingent by far comes from Australia.

In July 2005 the tour dismissed its fifth chief executive in eight years as it continued to find it very difficult to compete effectively against the LPGA Tour for players and media attention, even in its home continent. However 2006 schedule showed some improvement in the situation, with an increase from eighteen official money events to twenty-one, and an uplift in prize money. The two richest events by far are the Evian Masters and the Women's British Open, which are co-sanctioned by the LPGA Tour and have prize funds of over €2.5 million and over €1.5 million respectively. The other eighteen events consist of five with prize funds of approximately €500,000 (three in 2005) and thirteen with prize funds of between €165,000 and €400,000. The five half million euro events are in Australia (co-sanctioned with the ALPG Tour), Switzerland, Sweden, Wales and Dubai. The 2007 schedule shows further improvement, with 23 events that count towards the Order of Merit and over €11 million in prize money.

Unlike in men's golf, the European and American tours do not share a common set of majors, although the Women's British Open is co-sanctioned by the Ladies European Tour and the LPGA Championship is recognised as a major by both organisations. The only other event on the Ladies European Tour with "major" status is the Evian Masters, which is played in France. The Evian Masters is not recognised as a major by the LPGA, but the LPGA co-sanctions the event as part of its regular schedule. The significance of this is limited as the LPGA Tour is so dominant in global women's golf that "women's majors" usually refers to the LPGA majors, even in Europe. In fact, the Ladies European Tour tacitly acknowledges this reality by not scheduling any of its tournaments to conflict with the three LPGA majors played in the U.S.

[edit] Schedule

The table below shows the 2007 schedule. The numbers in brackets after the winners' names show the number of career wins they had on the Ladies European Tour up to and including that event. This is only shown for members of the tour.

Dates	Tournament	Host country	Winner	Notes
19-21 Jan	Women's World Cup of Golf	South Africa	Julieta Granada and Celeste Troche (N/A)	Team event co-sanctioned by the five main women's tours; unofficial prize money
1-4 Feb	MFS Women’s Australian Open	Australia	Karrie Webb (N/A)	Co-sanctioned with the ALPG Tour
8-11 Feb	ANZ Ladies Masters	Australia	Karrie Webb (N/A)	Co-sanctioned with the ALPG Tour
3-6 May	Tenerife Ladies Open	Spain
10-13 May	Open De España Femenino	Spain
17-20 May	Ladies Swiss Open	Switzerland
23-26 May	BMW Ladies Italian Open	Italy
1-3 Jun	Northern Ireland Ladies Open	Northern Ireland
8-10 Jun	KLM Ladies Open	Netherlands
15-17 Jun	Catalonia Ladies Masters	Spain
21-24 Jun	Vediorbis Open de France	France
6-8 Jul	Ladies English Open	England
13-15 Jul	Ladies Central European Open	Hungary
25-28 Jul	Evian Masters	France		Co-sanctioned by the LPGA Tour
2-5 Aug	Women's British Open	Scotland		Co-sanctioned by the LPGA Tour
9-12 Aug	Scandinavian TPC hosted by Annika	Sweden
16-19 Aug	Wales Ladies Championship of Europe	Wales
24-26 Aug	SAS Masters	Norway
31 Aug-2 Sep	Finnair Masters	Finland
6-9 Sep	Nykredit Masters	Denmark
14-16 Sep	Solheim Cup	Sweden		Team event; no prize money
21-23 Sep	De Vere Ladies Scottish Open	Scotland
27-30 Sep	Austrian Ladies Open	Austria
5-7 Oct	Madrid Ladies Masters	Spain
6-9 Dec	Dubai Ladies Masters	United Arab Emirates

Major championships in bold.

For the latest version of the tour schedule on the Ladies European Tour's website, including links to full results, click here.

[edit] Past tour schedules

This list is incomplete.

Year	Number of tournaments	Countries	Total purse
2006 Tour	21	17	€10,604,080

[edit] Yearly award winners

The Order of Merit is awarded to the leading money winner on the tour, though for some years in the past a points system was used. The Player's Player of the Year award is voted by the members of the Tour for the member they believe has contributed the most to the season on the Tour. The Rookie of the Year (known as the Bill Johnson Trophy from 1999 to 2003 and now the Ryder Cup Wales Rookie of the Year) is awarded to the leading first-year player on the Order of Merit rankings.

This list of winners is incomplete.

Year	Order of Merit		Player of the Year	Rookie of the Year
2006	Laura Davies	€471,727	Gwladys Nocera	Nikki Garrett
2005	Iben Tinning	€204,672	Iben Tinning	Elisa Serramia
2004	Laura Davies	777.26 pts	Stephanie Arricau	Minea Blomqvist
2003	Sophie Gustafson	917.95 pts	Sophie Gustafson	Rebecca Stevenson
2002	Paula Marti	6,589 pts	Annika Sörenstam	Kirsty S. Taylor
2001	Raquel Carriedo-Tomas	10,661 pts		Suzann Pettersen
2000	Sophie Gustafson	8,777 pts	Sophie Gustafson	Giulia Sergas
1999	Laura Davies	£204,522		Elaine Ratcliffe
1998	Helen Alfredsson	£125,975	Sophie Gustafson	Laura Philo
1997	Alison Nicholas	£94,590	Alison Nicholas	Anna Berg
1996	Laura Davies			Anne-Marie Knight
1995	Annika Sörenstam			Karrie Webb
1994	Liselotte Neumann			Tracy Hanson
1993	Karen Lunn			Annika Sörenstam
1992	Laura Davies
1991	Corinne Dibnah
1990	Trish Johnson	£83,043
1989	Marie-Laure de Lorenzi			Helen Alfredsson
1988	Marie-Laure de Lorenzi			Laurette Maritz
1987	Dale Reid			Trish Johnson
1986	Laura Davies
1985	Laura Davies			Laura Davies
1984	Dale Reid
1983	Muriel Thomson
1982	Jenny Lee Smith			Val Skinner
1981	Jenny Lee Smith
1980	Muriel Thomson
1979	Catherine Panton-Lewis