Pro golf tour
The Pro Golf Tour was founded in 1997 as EPD Tour (European Professional Development Tour) by the Canadian Wayne Hachey and is part of the Satellite Tour, which also includes the Alps Tour , the Nordic League and the PGA Europro Tour. After the European Tour and the Challenge Tour , the tournament series of the Satellite Tour represent the third level of performance in professional golf .
With the start of the 2013 season, the EPD Tour was renamed "Pro Golf Tour".
The 2018 season of the Pro Golf Tour will be played with 22 tournaments in seven countries: Egypt, Morocco, Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, the Netherlands and Germany. For the first time, a Pro Golf Tour tournament will also take place in the Netherlands, namely the Broekpolder International Open in Vlaardingen near Rotterdam.
history
The Canadian Wayne Hachey, a self-trained PGA teaching professional, came to Germany in 1989 and worked as a trainer in Erlangen until 1994. In 1995 and 1996 he tried himself on smaller professional tours in the USA. This is where the idea for the EPD Tour arose: “I thought we needed something like this for our professionals in Europe too.” The EPD Tour has continued to develop since its early years. Players from 45 countries have participated in the tournaments since the tour was founded in 1997. In the 1997 opening season, six tournaments were held between Munich and Hamburg and DM 15,000 in prize money was paid out. The lucky winner, Austrian Pepi J. Ebner, qualified for the One Million Dollar Tour in California. In 2001 the tour was officially recognized by the European Tour. Today the EPD tour is the “springboard” for the next generation of professional golfers . The German players Marcel Siem and Martin Kaymer also started their careers on the EPD tour. How has the EPD Tour developed in recent years?
In 2006 Martin Kaymer shaped the tour. In his first season as a professional, he celebrated five wins. Kaymer qualified directly for the Challenge Tour and finally marched through the ranking for the European Tour. Robin Swane, Benjamin Miarka, Manuel Kempe, Lasse Jensen and Richard Treis made it to the Challenge Tour 2007. The Pro Golf Tour is now paying out almost half a million euros in prize money. The takeover by the PGA of Germany and the participation of Langer Sport Marketing GmbH are guarantees that the success story of the series will continue.
As he admits, tour founder Hachey found it "not easy" to sell the series that he launched in 1997 with six tournaments and a total of 15,000 marks in prize money.
At the beginning of the 2013 season, it was renamed "Pro Golf Tour". "The Pro Golf Tour remains unchanged as a satellite tour of the European Tour and thus a direct qualification opportunity for the Challenge Tour." On July 15, 2015 it was announced that the Pro Golf Tour will be included in the OWGR (Official World Golf Ranking) along with the Alps Tour Golf , the EuroPro Tour and the Nordic Golf League .