| Sport | Golf |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2000 |
| Inaugural season | 2000–01 |
| Country | Based in Latin America |
| Related competitions | PGA Tour Latinoamérica TPG Tour |
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principal men's professional golf tour throughout Latin America and the Caribbean from 2000 through to 2012 when it was superseded by the PGA Tour Latinoamérica.
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
| Season | Winner | Points | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | .svg.png.webp){kind=small} Marco Ruiz | 26,884 | ||
| 2011 |  Joaquín Estévez | 51,970 | ||
| 2010 | Julián Etulain | 56,593 | ||
| 2009 |  Peter Gustafsson | 40,934 | ||
| Season | Winner | Prize money (US$) | ||
| 2008 | Estanislao Goya | 58,105 | ||
| 2007 | Miguel Rodríguez | 60,180 | ||
| 2006 | Fabrizio Zanotti | 68,790 | ||
| 2005 | Daniel Barbetti | 41,514 | ||
| 2004 | Rafael Gómez | 59,220 | ||
| 2003 | Eduardo Argiró | 48,174 | ||
| 2001–02 | Rafael Gómez | 55,987 | ||
| 2000–01 |  Ángel Romero | 49,396 | ||
| 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
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ "El Tour de las Américas homenajea al Dr. Humberto Berger". Crónica Golf (in Spanish). 3 June 2010. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
- ↑ Official World Golf Ranking Board Announces New Directives Archived 2011-09-27 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ TLA events count for World Ranking starting this week Archived 2011-07-17 at the Wayback Machine