The 2005 European Tour was the 34th golf season since the European Tour officially began in 1972. The 2005 season consisted of 47 official money events, which was a new record total. This included four major championships and three World Golf Championships, which were also sanctioned by the PGA Tour. 27 events took place in Europe, 10 in Asia, six in the United States, two in South Africa and one each in Australia and New Zealand. Total prize money exceeded €97 million, including nearly €40 million in the four major championships and three individual World Golf Championships events.
Contents
The Order of Merit race came down to the final tournament, and was won by Colin Montgomerie for a record eighth time, and the first since 1999. The Player of the Year award was given to Order of Merit runner up and U.S. Open champion Michael Campbell of New Zealand. The Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year was Gonzalo Fernández-Castaño of Spain, who won his first title, the KLM Open during his début season.
Main tournaments
For details of what happened in the main tournaments of 2005, including the major championships and the World Golf Championships, see 2005 in golf.
Table of results
The first three events actually took place in late 2004. The numbers in brackets after the winners' names show the number of career wins they had on the European Tour up to and including that event. This is only shown for members of the European Tour. To give such a number for non-members would misrepresent the amount of time some international golfers spend on the European Tour; as the Tour co-sanctions the major championships and World Golf Championships events, some top players accumulate a significant number of wins in European Tour sanctioned events without really playing on it.
Order of Merit
In 2005, the European Tour's money list was known as the "Order of Merit". It was calculated in euro, although around half of the events had prize funds which were fixed in other currencies, mostly either British pounds or U.S. dollars. In these instances the amounts were converted into euro at the exchange rate for the week that the tournament was played. The top 10 golfers in 2005 were: