European Tour - 2019

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New Year, Time for a New Thread.

EuroTour makes it 2019 Debut this week with the Abu Dhabi HSBC Classic Presented by EGA.  Next week is Dubai and the following week is the New Saudi Event

Guessing that the EGA Presentation got Abu Dhabi a promotion to a Rolex Series event.


DJ and BK are playing in Abu Dhabi.  So is Fleetwood, Stenson, Oosthuizen, RCB, Barnrat, Poulter, and Oleson

Despite the the Hired Guns from USA and Rolex Promotion, Abu Dhabi will have its lowest OWGR rating in 10 yrs.  Pelley can't be happy about that.

I wonder how many players will "miss the cut" or withdraw now that Portugal is on the quarantine list - or do they get special exemption

I was just thinking the same...it's a good question

V Dub on a leaderboard, I haven't seen that for a while.

I'm never wrong wrote:I wonder how many players will "miss the cut" or withdraw now that Portugal is on the quarantine list - or do they get special exemption

I really don't see the "quarantine" as that big an issue to individuals like you or i. If you work from home, what's the problem?

super_realist wrote:

I'm never wrong wrote:I wonder how many players will "miss the cut" or withdraw now that Portugal is on the quarantine list - or do they get special exemption

I really don't see the "quarantine" as that big an issue to individuals like you or i. If you work from home, what's the problem?

I wasn't thinking of Joe Public Super, I was thinking of the players. As it turns out it seems players have some sort of exemption, or they have a testing procedure that enables them not to quarantine.

I'm never wrong wrote:

super_realist wrote:

I'm never wrong wrote:I wonder how many players will "miss the cut" or withdraw now that Portugal is on the quarantine list - or do they get special exemption

I really don't see the "quarantine" as that big an issue to individuals like you or i. If you work from home, what's the problem?

I wasn't thinking of Joe Public Super, I was thinking of the players. As it turns out it seems players have some sort of exemption, or they have a testing procedure that enables them not to quarantine.

In regards to yesterday's weather I think people were over playing it. Yes, there was a lot of rain, but I played TOC yesterday and there was virtually no wind only about 40 miles as the crow flies, if that from The Renaissance . Had a pretty good score actually.

Well I hope that was Poulters bad round of the four. Seems like they are doing a two tee start and playing in three balls today. First two groups off at 09.50 and last off at 11.40.

The times we live in. David Howell gets a hole in one at the 14th in the BMW PGA Championship and doesn't win a car. Instead BMW make a donation to the Alzheimers Society to the value of the car. Good for the charity, unlucky on David. Link HERE

After Hatton win, I see the golf twitter is still awash with the hoodie debate. Still some clubs and people having issues. My favourites are people who think that having a dress code stops people turning up in mankini or boiler suits.

beninho wrote:After Hatton win, I see the golf twitter is still awash with the hoodie debate. Still some clubs and people having issues. My favourites are people who think that having a dress code stops people turning up in mankini or boiler suits.

You are allowed to wear jeans on The Old Course or any St Andrews course.
I actually think hats are worse than a hoodie, most of them look just as ridiculous and in the UK most of the time there is simply no need for a cap, visor, wide brimmed hat etc.

Wearing a hoodie on the course is nothing new. I was wearing hoodies on the course in the early to mid 00's.

I have never understood why anyone would be in support of dress codes. I can only assume they are religious types that worry a lot about how other people live their lives.

Although it is always quite fun to wear the knee length socks at The Golf House Club.

McLaren wrote:Wearing a hoodie on the course is nothing new. I was wearing hoodies on the course in the early to mid 00's.

I have never understood why anyone would be in support of dress codes. I can only assume they are religious types that worry a lot about how other people live their lives.

Although it is always quite fun to wear the knee length socks at The Golf House Club.

Elie Mac? Great course and has one of the best par 4's in the country.

beninho wrote:After Hatton win, I see the golf twitter is still awash with the hoodie debate. Still some clubs and people having issues. My favourites are people who think that having a dress code stops people turning up in mankini or boiler suits.

I like the people who think it's the R&A's fault for not enforcing the dress code! As if they are the ones who set out what people can and cannot wear on the course I can't wait to embrace my inner Tyrrell and wear my hoodie when I play tomorrow!

super_realist wrote:

beninho wrote:After Hatton win, I see the golf twitter is still awash with the hoodie debate. Still some clubs and people having issues. My favourites are people who think that having a dress code stops people turning up in mankini or boiler suits.

You are allowed to wear jeans on The Old Course or any St Andrews course.
I actually think hats are worse than a hoodie, most of them look just as ridiculous and in the UK most of the time there is simply no need for a cap, visor, wide brimmed hat etc.

I wear a visor so I've got somewhere to clip my ball marker onto when I don't have any pockets! And believe it or not there's often sun in my part of Fife, and at this time of year it can be quite low and at eye level.

Laurie Canter with a first round 60 today at the Italian Open - been in good form in recent weeks, including a 2nd at the Portugal Masters. Huge opportunity to get over the line for his first win here

Laurie Canter came second. Watched a bit of it and it seemed his chipping let him down. The times I saw he was taking a putter when the commentators were saying he should have used a lofted club. The putts from off the green weren't good. After the tournament Eddie Pepperell sent him a Tweet which consisted of a picture of a chipper. Harsh.

I wouldn't be surprised if Super had a better short game than some of the current ET players.

McLaren wrote:I wouldn't be surprised if Super had a better short game than some of the current ET players.

It is the strongest part of my game Mac. If I was to place a handicap on it I would say that my chipping is around +4. My putting isn't usually so good though, but yesterday holed about 70-80 feet of putts. Guaranteed though that when the green pace changes my pace and line selection will be out of sync.

Your worst putt is never as bad as your worst chip. That also applies for the pros.
Westwood made it to #1 with a mid-hcp chipping game.

super_realist wrote:

McLaren wrote:I wouldn't be surprised if Super had a better short game than some of the current ET players.

It is the strongest part of my game Mac. If I was to place a handicap on it I would say that my chipping is around +4. My putting isn't usually so good though, but yesterday holed about 70-80 feet of putts. Guaranteed though that when the green pace changes my pace and line selection will be out of sync.

Super, the ET is pretty garbage at the moment. You could hold your own.

McLaren wrote:

super_realist wrote:

McLaren wrote:I wouldn't be surprised if Super had a better short game than some of the current ET players.

It is the strongest part of my game Mac. If I was to place a handicap on it I would say that my chipping is around +4. My putting isn't usually so good though, but yesterday holed about 70-80 feet of putts. Guaranteed though that when the green pace changes my pace and line selection will be out of sync.

Super, the ET is pretty garbage at the moment. You could hold your own.

I play with a Europro guy regularly and beat him a lot but I'm under no illusions I could compete. I wouldn't be last though I can be pretty certain of that.
Actual European tour venues would probably be too long for me though.

I was being a bit hyperbolic, but to the eye of the audience I bet you wouldn't look out of place on the ET.

McLaren wrote:I was being a bit hyperbolic, but to the eye of the audience I bet you wouldn't look out of place on the ET.

I'd hope to not do a Kafelnikov.

I'm never wrong wrote:Laurie Canter came second. Watched a bit of it and it seemed his chipping let him down. The times I saw he was taking a putter when the commentators were saying he should have used a lofted club. The putts from off the green weren't good. After the tournament Eddie Pepperell sent him a Tweet which consisted of a picture of a chipper. Harsh.

Was a good afternoon of golf from an entertainment perspective, but yeah, Canter absolutely threw that tournament away with some woeful play on, and around the greens on Sunday. McGowan was all over the place off the tee, but managed to play nicely around the green and putted superbly on the back nine. Not sure Laurie will ever get a better chance to win than that

JAS - the next two weeks on the ET are from Cyprus. Aphrodite Hills. Was this the complex you were involved in?

I'm never wrong wrote:JAS - the next two weeks on the ET are from Cyprus. Aphrodite Hills. Was this the complex you were involved in?

If he hadn't got rid he might have been able to grab a few thousand renting it out.

I was having a look at the Race to Dubai for this year, and having a look at everyone's favourite golfer, Patrick Reed. He has roughly a 450 point lead over Tommy Fleetwood. (No idea how points are calculated). I believe that a player has to play 4 "pure" ET events (as opposed to Majors and WGC's) to keep their membership up. Reed can achieve that by playing the two remaining events in the Middle East.

But Rory doesn't seemed to have played any ET events this year. So will he fall foul of the rules or is there a special exemption this year due to Coronavirus? ......where's Kwini when you need him......?

Didn't McIlroy leave the ET, to focus on the PGA? Presume he'll show more commitment when the Ryder Cup points open again in January

I think it was last year or the year before when he didn't rejoin the ET until several weeks into the season, at which point his points from the early season majors and WGC's didn't count so he was too far behind in thexR2D. Isn't there a rule saying if you don't have continuous membership of the ET you can never be a Ryder Cup captain?

Did some more research and found an article saying that there is no minimum criteria for events and everyone who qualified fir 2020 will keep their card fir 2021. Like the PGA Tour in fact. Alls well.

Wilco Nienaber drove it 439 yards on the par 5 4th in Joburg. He’s a slip of a lad, just 20, but hits it a country mile without doing a Bryson and bulking up. How far will he hit it when he’s finished growing?

LadyPutt wrote:Wilco Nienaber drove it 439 yards on the par 5 4th in Joburg. He’s a slip of a lad, just 20, but hits it a country mile without doing a Bryson and bulking up. How far will he hit it when he’s finished growing?

But it was into the rough. He did get a lot of run, and I wonder if the course is at altitude. See his shot HERE at about 1min 30

Presume he's known as Roger in the dressing room.

Joburg is at 1000 mtrs altitude. I’m sure Bryson could tell you what that means for air density.

Great round of 66 today by Steve Surry (many of you will remember his mum Mary on here a couple of years or so ago) putting him in joint 8th. I'm sure he - and mum - could do with an injection of cash

LadyPutt wrote: could do with an injection of cash

Well he won just over 40,000 euros. Good job.

Does anyone know what you need to earn on the European Tour to make a decent living?
Obviously a nice 40k Euro cheque is great, but I suspect you'd need at least 5 of those a year to put yourself in the position to cover all your costs which will be significant and give yourself a decent standard of living.

My guess is that 300K would be break even (travel expenses, caddy, coaching, management) on the ET.
So 3rd tier players would have to rely on sponsors, or have a rich uncle.

That requires a lot of success at current pay rates. My golf teachers son is in the European tour and has won about 250k this year so it's amazing that the majority are doing far worse and barely making a living.
I've known guys on the Europro tour who make considerable losses every year and just can't accept they don't have it.

I suppose most average caddies are at a fixed yearly salary (vs a weekly) which should be in the range of 50-80K/yr. Travel costs include 30 tourneys per year including in Asia, Africa etc., with flights, hotel, food etc. Let's say it's 5-10K per tourney in avg. (player+caddie). They may have some sponsor deals, but it all adds up.
Anyone who regularly finishes in the year end RtD top 100 should be doing OK. The rest, not so much.

And IMO the Europro and Challenge Tours are just money drains for the players.

I sincerely doubt most caddies on the European tour are on 50-80k unless its someone like Westwood's or some of the bigger names. That seems wildly excessive UNLESS that money is supposed to pay for expenses too. No chance the likes of Warren, Bland,  Jordan etc are paying that   

You are right about the Europro, it's a compete pipe dream for the majority and only 2-3 ever benefit. Biggest winner is Barry Hearn.
If someone of my standard wouldn't be last in the field, there's no way most of those players should be on it.

super_realist wrote:I sincerely doubt most caddies on the European tour are on 50-80k unless its someone like Westwood's or some of the bigger names. That seems wildly excessive UNLESS that money is supposed to pay for expenses too. No chance the likes of Warren, Bland,  Jordan etc are paying that   

I just heard somewhere that a run of the mill caddie on the PGA Tour makes $100K/yr in fixed salary, so I extrapolated from that. But yes, sorry, they would probably have to cover their own expenses from that.

Have you seen the massive difference between the prize fund of the PGA compared to the European Tour?

Let's say someone wins €250k in a year on the European Tour, which would put you at around number 65 in the Race to Dubai, do you expect that player to pay his caddie 25-35% of his winning before expenses? That would probably give the caddie more money than the player after travel, hotels, management, coaching, physio, food, tax, insurance etc is taken into account.

I'm not trying to be a dick but I don't expect 80k to be remotely realistic as a standard salary before win bonuses.

Maybe, but since most caddies are full time, you can hardly make a living of that salary then. The fixed salaries must to a certain degree be correlated to the cost of living/traveling rather than the tour prize funds.

And btw, I don't know where your €250K/year comes from? As I understand the rankings, #65 on last years (2019) RtD made $919K.
https://www.europeantour.com/european-tour/rankings/race-to-dubai/rankings/

That's a fixed salary before winning % added on top though too.
I can't see a position when the caddy could potentially make more or almost as much as the player.

As for European tour figures go, prize funds are massively down this year. That's where the figure comes from. Connor Syme is 65 on the list and has won around 250k this year in Euros. Points no longer equal prize money either.

Has the EuroTour announced a 2021 schedule? I checked the ET website and I couldn't find one.

Drop down menu stops at 2020

https://www.europeantour.com/european-tour/schedule/

The ET could probably do without Fatprick winning the order of merit.

McLaren wrote:The ET could probably do without Fatprick winning the order of merit.

I actually don't mind him as much as many of the others.

Half decent finish to R2D. Hadn't realised that matty pishy pants had gone 2 years without a win. Nice to see him win again. And Lee Westwood, after this does he have that elusive major in him?

Agreed Mac re the finish. Didn't think Reed was gong to fall away. His short game was very good. Pleased for Westwood as he has supported the ET through this difficult year.