Tour de las Américas

The Tour de las Américas (TLA) was the principal men's professional golf tour throughout Latin America and the Caribbean from 2000 through to 2012 when it was superseded by the PGA Tour Latinoamérica.

Tour de las Américas
SportGolf
Founded2000
Inaugural season2000–01
CountryBased in Latin America
Related
competitions		PGA Tour Latinoamérica
TPG Tour

History

Top level tournament golf in Latin America has had an unstable history. Some of the national open championships in the region are long established, but they did not traditionally form a coherent tour. From the late 1950s through to the mid 1970s the Caribbean Tour, which was affiliated with the PGA Tour, comprised only a small number of tournaments but attracted entrants from leading European and American golfers. As interest from PGA Tour players dwindled, the tour eventually withdrew their support and the Caribbean Tour folded. The next attempt was the IMG promoted South American Tour, which began in 1979 with the existing national opens of the five leading Latin American countries and a circuit prize sponsored by Pierre Cardin.[1]

A new circuit was founded in 1991, the Tour Sudamericano,[2] which would become the first long-lived stable tour in the region. In 2000, new owners relaunched the tour under the name Tour de las Américas with the aim of creating a schedule which would cover the whole region from Argentina to the Caribbean, and gain broader media exposure. The tour soon introduced a policy of co-sanctioning some events with Europe's second tier Challenge Tour, and some years later, in 2008, a similar arrangement was agreed with the Canadian Tour. The TLA also co-operated with the Nationwide Tour; whereby some of the leading Tour de las Américas players are given entries to specific Nationwide Tour events.

In the early 21st century, Latin America was the only region of the World which still did not have a professional tour which was a full member of the International Federation of PGA Tours, the Tour de las Américas having joined the federation as an associate member on July 30, 2007. In August 2010, the Governing Board of the Official World Golf Ranking made a provisional announcement that the tour would offer ranking points starting in 2011.[3] The first tournament to receive ranking points was 2011 Abierto de Chile[4]

Order of Merit winners
SeasonWinnerPoints
2012 Marco Ruiz26,884
2011 Joaquín Estévez51,970
2010 Julián Etulain56,593
2009 Peter Gustafsson40,934
SeasonWinnerPrize money (US$)
2008 Estanislao Goya58,105
2007 Miguel Rodríguez60,180
2006 Fabrizio Zanotti68,790
2005 Daniel Barbetti41,514
2004 Rafael Gómez59,220
2003 Eduardo Argiró48,174
2001–02 Rafael Gómez55,987
2000–01 Ángel Romero49,396
South American Tour
1999 Scott Dunlap
1998 Raúl Fretes (2)
1997 Ricardo González
1996 Pedro Martínez
1995 Ángel Cabrera
1994 Raúl Fretes
1993 Carlos Franco
1992 Eric Woods
1991 Ángel Franco

References
  1. Dobereiner, Peter (9 April 1979). "How the various golf circuits may be shorted". Business Times. Singapore. p. 11. Retrieved 6 March 2020 – via National Library Board.
  2. "El Tour de las Américas homenajea al Dr. Humberto Berger". Crónica Golf (in Spanish). 3 June 2010. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
  3. Official World Golf Ranking Board Announces New Directives Archived 2011-09-27 at the Wayback Machine
  4. TLA events count for World Ranking starting this week Archived 2011-07-17 at the Wayback Machine
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