European Senior Tour

History

The Tour was founded in 1992. In 2008 it had a total prize fund of €7,729,284, so it is much further behind the U.S.-based Champions Tour in relative prize money than the main European Tour is behind the PGA Tour. The highest profile seniors event in Europe is the Senior British Open Championship, which is co-sanctioned by the Champions Tour. The European Tour co-sanctions the Senior PGA Championship and the U.S. Senior Open. Prize money in latter does not count towards the Order of Merit, but from 2007 the former is an official money event.

Schedule

The 2016 schedule included 13 events, although two of these are PGA Tour Champions tournaments in the United States. Of the remaining events, the Senior Open Championship is the most important and is regarded as a Senior major golf championship. The PGA Seniors Championship was a longest-standing event having been first played in 1957, but it was not played in 2016. While the above events were contested over 72 holes, the remaining 10 tournaments were played over 54 holes. The first 9 of these were played in Europe, while the final event, the MCB Tour Championship, was played in Mauritius.

Past tour schedules

The table below summarises the development of the tour since 1999, which was the year that the euro became the currency of record for the tour. Individual tournaments have purses fixed in a mixture of British pounds, euros and U.S. dollars, so year on year changes in the total prize fund reflect exchange rate fluctuations as well as prize fund movements in constant currencies.

Order of Merit winners

The winner of the Order of Merit is awarded the John Jacobs Trophy.

Leading career money winners

The table below shows the top ten career money leaders on the European Seniors Tour as of the end of the 2016 season.

There is a full list that is updated after each tournament on the European Tour's website here.