2013 Golf: More Great Golf to Come After The Tour Championship
By Les Bailey
If you are a die-hard Golf Fan like myself, the Tour Championship doesn’t really mark the end of the golf season. Because golf is truly a world-wide sport, it’s always summer somewhere, and people will be playing golf year round. The next big event on the schedule is the President’s Cup which tees off in two weeks at Muirfield Village in Dublin Ohio. The Golden Bear’s house. We have LPGA events coming up, as well as Race to Dubai playoffs starting in Shanghai next month. The 2013-2014 PGA Tour starts the week after the Presidents Cup.
The European Tour is up this week for the last big tournament of the year in Scotland with the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. The Alfred Dunhill Links Championship is played on three Scottish Courses and begins on Thursday morning. The Old Course at St. Andrews, Carnoustie, and Kingsbarns will be the sites of the finale for the 2013 season in Great Britain.
The European Tour travels to France, Portugal, and then to Australia before the Race To Dubai playoffs start in Shanghai on the 24th of October. The Race to Dubai is the European Tour compliment to the FedEx Cup, and the four tournament stretch ends at the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai in November. FedEx Cup Champ, Henrik Stenson leads the European Tour in Race to Dubai points, and could be a very rich man when the season finally ends.
The LPGA gets back to work on October 3rd at the Reignwood LPGA Classic in Bejing. The ladies have had some time off since the last major at The Evian, but it will be time to finish the stretch run which includes an extensive tour of Asia. The LPGA comes back to the Continent for the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Guadalajara on November 17th, and the tour finale in Naples, Florida for the CME Titleholders on November 21st.
The PGA Tour’s 2013-2014 schedule starts with the Fry.com Open in San Martin, California on October 7th. All FedEx Cup points have been reset to zero, and this part of the schedule is an opportunity for the lesser named players to pick up some points, and wins prior to the big-boys returning in January. There will be Web.com regulars trying to gain status while the tour regulars are taking time-off.
This part of the 2014 schedule is brutal, as they will have two tournaments on the US Mainland before heading off to Malaysia, China, Australia and Mexico before the holiday break. The new 2014 season starts at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions on Maui in January.