Korean Tour
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The Korean Tour is a men's professional golf tour run by the Korea Professional Golfers' Association (KPGA) of South Korea.
Professional golf in Korea dates back to the mid 20th century. The Korean Professional Golf Championship and the Korean Open were launched in 1958 and the KPGA was founded in 1963. Various other tournaments were created over the following decades.
The KPGA's tours serve as feeders for richer tours around the world. Substantial numbers of Korean golfers have played on the Asian Tour and the Japan Golf Tour, and a few have made it onto the PGA Tour or the European Tour, including Korea's most successful male golfer Choi Kyung-Ju, who has won several PGA Tour events.
[edit] Main tour
In 2007 there are eighteen events on the main tour, made up as follows:
- Ten SBS Korean Tour events. This is a series of events with a common sponsor.
- Three events co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour: Maekyung Open, SK Telecom Open and Korea Open.
- Five other tournaments.
In 2007 all of these tournament have prize funds of 300 million to 600 million won (approximately USD 300,000 to 600,000), except the Korea Open, which has a prize fund of 1 billion won (USD 1 million). The Korean Tour does not carry Official World Golf Ranking points, and it is comfortably the richest regular (that is under-50s) tour that does not do so.
[edit] Other KPGA tours
The KPGA launched a developmental tour in 1999. In 2007 there are two developmental tours. Both of them consist of two-day, 36-hole tournaments, and the dates of the tours do not clash. The Bear River Tour consists of ten tournaments with prize funds of 60 million won (USD 60,000) each, and the SBS Golf Calloway Tour has eight tournaments with prize funds of 40 million won (USD 40,000) each.
The KPGA also runs a senior tour and a series of events for teaching pros. The Korean Senior Open Golf Championship was launched in 1996.
Women's professional golf has a high profile in South Korea, due to the immense international success of Korean women golfers such as Se Ri Pak since the mid 1990s. There is a separate LPGA of Korea Tour for women.
[edit] External links
- English-language version of official site
- Korean professionals Shin Yong Jin and Kim Dae Sub play at the Ballantine's Midnight Cup in Orkney, Scotland, stv feature, 19 June 2007.
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