PGA TOUR golf

Professional Golf Association (PGA) TOUR is one of the most elite tours in all of sports. It just not very easy to get on the tour, and once you are there its pretty hard to stay there. To turn pro at golf you really need to be an elite player. It takes years of dedication, hard work and practice to make it on the PGA.
The PGA has its headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. The official way to spell the name of the tour is “PGA TOUR,” with capital letters for both PGA and Tour.
In 1968, the PGA TOUR split from PGA of America. That latter became for club pros, while the former took a while to reach its current status. For a while, professional golfers played in the APG, Association of Professional Golfers, which eventually became part of the “Tournament Players Division” of the PGA. In 1975 the PGA TOUR was officially recongized.
There are several Tours operated by the PGA Tour:

  • The PGA TOUR, which is the top golf tour in the country
  • The Champions Tour, which is for golfers that are over 50, and the
  • Nationwide Tour, which is for younger golfers still in development.

To decide which players are eligible to participate in PGA events, the PGA sponsors the Q-School, which is a six round tournament for players wanting to get on the tour. Those who finish in the top 25 are eligible to play in the following year’s PGA Tour events.  At the end of each year, the PGA Tours top 25 money makers are awarded a tour card, signifying that they do not have to qualify to play in the following year’s tournaments, they are allowed to enter by virtue of their money making on the course.

The FedEx Cup

Because the four majors take place between June and August, in prior years the end of the season was a bit anti-climactic, as some of the biggest players did not compete in as many PGA events, or were though not to be competing as hard. In answer to this, the PGA Tour developed the FedEx Cup, which acts as a sort of playoff for golf, similar to the Nextell Cup in NASCAR. From January through August takes on a “regular season” type feel, as players earn points based on their performance on the PGA Tour events. When the regular season is over, the top 144 players are eligible to compete in “post-season” golf tournemnts. These are four golf tournaments that take place through mid-September. As the torunements progres, the initital 144 players are whittled down to 120, 70, and the best 30 golfers who are eligible for the Tour Championship. The golfer who has the most points at the end is crowned the season champion.