The 2008 European Tour was the 37th golf season since the European Tour officially began in 1972. The 2008 season consisted of 50 official money events, a drop of two from the previous year. This included seven major championships and World Golf Championships, which are also sanctioned by the PGA Tour. 27 events took place in Europe, 11 in Asia, six in the United States, four in South Africa, one in Australia and one in New Zealand. There were four new tournaments, the Emaar-MGF Indian Masters in India, the Ballantine's Championship in South Korea and in Spain the Madrid Masters and the Castelló Masters Costa Azahar.
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The Order of Merit was won by Robert Karlsson, the first Swedish golfer to do so. The Player of the Year award was given to Pádraig Harrington. The Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year was Pablo Larrazábal from Spain.
Main tournaments
For details of what happened in the main tournaments of 2008, including the major championships and the World Golf Championships, see 2008 in golf.
Table of results
The table below shows the 2008 schedule. There are 50 official money events, of which the first six events take place in late 2007. 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 two 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, 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.
For the official version of the tour schedule on the European Tour's website, including links to full results, see here.
Order of Merit
In 2008, 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 2008 were:
Note that Tiger Woods earned more money in European Tour events in 2008 (€2,759,558 in five events) than any other golfer, but was not a member of the European Tour so was not eligible for the Order of Merit.
Golfer of the Month
The winners of the European Tour Golfer of the Month Award were as follows: