The MENA Golf Tour has introduced that it’s to return later this 12 months underneath the management of former DP World Tour Chief Working Officer Keith Waters, who will function its new Chairman and Commissioner.
The relaunched 2025/2026 MENA Golf Tour, which is being backed by the Area Group and a non-public investor, will function a 12-event schedule, commencing in Portugal this autumn. The opening occasion will observe a Qualifying Faculty in November designed particularly for non-exempt gamers.
Based mostly in Dubai, the MENA Golf Tour – quick for Center East and North Africa – organises a schedule of tournaments for skilled golfers from the area and across the globe within the Center East, Africa and Asia. It was recognised by the Official World Golf Rating in 2016, after which period its 54-hole tournaments started awarding world rating factors.
The appointment of Waters is being seen as a optimistic step in direction of re-establishing the MENA Golf Tour, which has endured vital upheavals in latest occasions, with the tour, which was based in 2011, having being halted for a season in 2018, after which once more in 2020 for 2 years, following the monetary impression of the pandemic. The final non co-sanctioned MENA occasion happened in April 2023 in Malaysia.
Initially designed to supply a pathway for gamers into the Asian Tour and Asian Improvement Tour, the MENA Golf Tour introduced in 2022 that it had fashioned a strategic alliance with LIV Golf. This was seen as try by LIV Golf to allow its gamers to earn world rankings factors via competing within the Asian Tour’s co-sanctioned invitational occasions, which was subsequently turned down by the OWGR.
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The re-booted MENA Golf Tour is presently in discussions with each the DP World Tour and the HotelPlanner Tour (fomrely the European Problem Tour) to determine a brand new pathway that may give main MENA Golf Tour gamers the chance to advance on to DP World Tour Qualifying Faculty and the HotelPlanner Tour.
Keith Waters, the MENA Golf Tour’s new chairman and commissioner
“I’m delighted to be involved in the relaunch of the MENA Golf Tour,” mentioned Waters, who solely final 12 months introduced his retirement following an 18-year tenure as COO of the European Tour Group, earlier than which he served because the European Tour’s Director of Worldwide Coverage, “This Tour has tremendous potential and serves as a crucial pathway for golfers, not just from the Middle East, but internationally.”
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He added: “We’re pleased the MENA Golf Tour will remain an eligible Official World Golf Ranking tour as well as prize money of $100,000 per event. Each tournament will be contested over 54 holes, featuring a 36-hole cut to the top 60 players and ties, with the winner taking home $18,000.”
For extra particulars, go to www.menagolftour.com
