After facing a lot of flak over eligibility conditions of its inaugural Final Series last year, the European Tour have tweaked a few things for 2014's four-tournament climax, culminating in the Race to Dubai (R2D).
Most notably, there will no longer be a requirement for the members to participate in a minimum number of Final Series events to qualify for the DP World Tour Championship at Dubai's Jumeirah Golf Estates.
However, they must still fulfil their minimum overall event obligation to be eligible for the season-ending championship.
The R2D Bonus Pool has also been enhanced and, as of this year, the leading 15 players will share a bonus pool of $5 million – raising the winning pool by a third from $3.75 million and rewarding an extra five players for their seasonal performance compared to last year.
Another change is to the field structure. It will now feature the leading 60 available players from the R2D at the conclusion of the Turkish Airlines Open, rather than only those finishing inside the top 60.
The Final Series of the European Tour will again comprise the BMW Masters and the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai, followed by the Turkish Airlines Open before the Tour's curtain-raiser in Dubai from November 20-23.
Reigning European Tour No1 Henrik Stenson, Sergio Garcia and Charl Schwartzel – two of the players to pull out of the DP World Tour Championship last year because of the minimum requirement – were among those who welcomed the change.
Stenson said: “It’s good to evaluate and make tweaks to any system. These changes are for the better and won’t cut anyone out if they don’t want to play all of the Final Series events.
“It’s down to yourself, but if you do play all, you are giving yourself an even better chance of winning the Race to Dubai. It’s always nice to see an increase in the Bonus Pool as well, so I think the announcement is a good move all round.”
Garcia added: “I’m very happy with the changes and I’m looking forward to the Final Series. At the end of the day, we are all working together. I’m very happy to see that we’ve reached a middle ground which should help make us all happy.”
“I will always try to support the European Tour when I can and it’s great to see that they are also trying to look after us with these new rules," said Schwartzel. It looks like the Final Series is moving in the right direction, to help the guys come and play in as many events as possible.”
