The 2007 European Tour was the 36th golf season since the European Tour officially began in 1972. The 2007 season consisted of 52 official money events, breaking the record of the previous year. This included seven major championships and World Golf Championships, which are also sanctioned by the PGA Tour. 29 events took place in Europe, 12 in Asia, six in the United States, three in South Africa, one in Australia and one in New Zealand. There were three new tournaments, the Joburg Open in South Africa, the Open de Andalucia in Spain and the Portugal Masters. The Mercedes-Benz Championship returned after a year-off in 2006. The PGA Tour's introduction of the FedEx Cup prompted the European Tour to extend the season into November and several tournaments moved away from their traditional dates.
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The Order of Merit race came down to the closing holes of the final tournament, and was won by Justin Rose for the first time despite the Englishman playing the majority of his golf in America. Rose overtook Ernie Els and held off the challenge of the defending Order of Merit champion Pádraig Harrington. The Player of the Year award was given to Harrington after his victories at The Open Championship and the Irish Open. The Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year was Martin Kaymer of Germany.
Main tournaments
For details of what happened in the main tournaments of 2007, including the major championships and the World Golf Championships, see 2007 in golf.
Table of results
The table below shows the 2007 schedule. There are 52 official money events, of which the first six events take place in late 2006. The season runs for 52 weeks, with a three-week break over Christmas and the New Year, and one week when the only event is an unofficial money team tournament. There are four weeks when two official money events are played.
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. For example, after his win in the 2007 WGC-CA Championship, Tiger Woods has won more than thirty events sanctioned by the European Tour, but has never played a sufficient number of European Tour-sanctioned events to qualify for membership.
Order of Merit
In 2007, 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 2007 were:
Note that Tiger Woods earned more money in European Tour events in 2007 than any other golfer, but was not a member of the European Tour so was not eligible for the Order of Merit.