THE European PGA International Tour next year will comprise 53 events and will culminate in the inaugural US$20 million ($29.3m) Dubai World Championship tournament in November next year.
Formally known as the European Order of Merit, the Tour will now be known as the 'Race to Dubai' reflecting the increasingly international nature of the schedule.
Five tournaments will be added to an already packed schedule which will get underway with the HSBC Champions tournament in Shanghai from 6 to 9 Nov this year.
The upcoming schedule is stretched over a 13-month period with the HSBC Champions and Hong Kong Open being staged twice at either end of the Tour, but it will revert to a more regular calendar-year format in 2010 with the first event in South Africa in January.
There will be tournaments in Asia, the Middle East, South Africa, Europe and in the United States.
The reorganisation of the schedule is aimed at redressing the balance of the world's biggest names playing on the more lucrative US PGA Tour.
Richest
The key to this is the Race to Dubai format whereby the top 60 will qualify for the season-ending Dubai World Championship billed as the richest tournament in the world and held at the emirate's Jumeirah Golf Estates course from 19 to 22 Nov.
This will have a prize fund of US$10m and a first prize of US$1.6 million.
A bonus pool of US$10 million will also be shared by the top 15 players in the Race to Dubai after the tournament, with the race winner taking away another US$2m.
George O'Grady, chief executive of the European Tour, said: 'We are excited about the start of the Race to Dubai and the superb quality of the field for the HSBC Champions in Shanghai, with five of the top seven currently active players in the world all entered.
'The 2009 European Tour International Schedule confirms how the European Tour has become ever more global in its outlook with 26 destinations now featured.'
