[PHOTO: Stuart Franklin]
Delayed by the June declaration that the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund are discussing the possibility of joining forces, the DP World Tour has belatedly announced its 13-month-long 2023-2024 schedule. In all, the former European Tour will be made up of 44 events in 24 countries across five continents, underlining the Old World circuit’s long-held claim to be golf’s most international tour. In all, players will be competing for a record prize fund of $US148.5 million, which does not include the purses from the four major championships.
Those bland figures only disguise some sweeping internal changes, however. Between November 2023 and August 2024, the Race to Dubai will feature five Global Swings followed by a month-long Back 9 in September and October before two DP World Tour playoffs in November. What will not change is the presence of five Rolex Series events – January’s Dubai Desert Classic, the Genesis Scottish Open in July, September’s BMW PGA Championship and, both in November, the Abu Dhabi Championship and the season-ending DP World Tour Championship in Dubai. (Click here to view full schedule.)
The five Global Swings each have their own title and share of the season.
The Opening Swing will take up November and December this year and comprise six tournaments (including three national championships), starting with the Australian PGA Championship and ending with the Mauritius Open.
After the Christmas and New Year holidays, the seven-event International Swing will begin with a new tournament, the Dubai Invitational, and continue through the Jonsson Workwear Open in South Africa in early March.
The Singapore Classic is the first of seven events in the Asian Swing that, somehow, includes both the Masters and the PGA Championship.
The European Swing begins with the Soul Open in Belgium in late May and concludes with the BMW International Open in early July. Again illogically, the US Open is part of this phase.
One week before the Open Championship at Royal Troon, the Genesis Scottish Open kicks off the Closing Swing that runs through the Danish Golf Championship in late August.
Points accrued in the major championships will count on the Race to Dubai but not in the Swing Rankings that will each pay $US200,000 to their own champions. At the conclusion of the Global Swings phase, a further $US1 million bonus pool will then be shared among the leading 10 players on the Race to Dubai (who have played a minimum of eight regular Global Swing events outside the major championships and Genesis Scottish Open).
The five different swings will also offer qualification into the first three Rolex Series events.
The leading member (not otherwise exempt) from the Opening Swing will qualify for the Hero Dubai Desert Classic. The leading member (not otherwise exempt) from each of the International Swing, Asian Swing and European Swing will qualify for the Genesis Scottish Open. And the leading member (not otherwise exempt) from the Closing Swing will qualify for the tour’s BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth.
At the end of all of the above, the tour will move into Phase Two, the Back 9, which will begin with the Betfred British Masters and end with a late-October tournament still to be confirmed. In addition to exempt DP World Tour members, the leading 15 non-members from the top 70 on the FedEx Cup will be eligible to play in these events and qualify for the DP World Tour Championship. And the top 110 players on the Race to Dubai Rankings at the conclusion of this phase in October will earn their DP World Tour cards for 2025 while the top 70 qualify for Phase Three, the DP World Tour Playoffs.
That third and final phase will comprise the two final Rolex Series events of the season: the Abu Dhabi Championship and DP World Tour Championship. At its conclusion, the leading 10 players on the Race to Dubai will share a $US6 million bonus pool.
Amid this plethora of changes and restructuring, one exemption will remain in place and a couple of others will be added.
As is the case at the end of the current 2023 season, the top 10 DP World Tour members on the final 2024 Race to Dubai Rankings (not otherwise exempt) will earn PGA Tour cards for the 2025 season.
The leading DP World Tour member who earns the first of the 10 PGA Tour exemptions for 2024 via the current 2023 Race to Dubai Rankings will also be exempt into the Players Championship and the Charles Schwab Challenge in 2025.
And finally, the leading finisher from the current 2023 Race to Dubai, not otherwise exempt through the top 50 of the 2022-2023 FedEx Cup standings, will earn a spot into two PGA Tour signature events in 2024: the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and Genesis Invitational at Riviera.
