World Amateur Tour: Go posh, compete at five-star courses worldwide
The World Amateur Tour provides a luxurious, global golf experience for a wide range of golfers – if you’ve got the money, that is.
Are you jealous of the PGA Tour and European Tour players who get to play wonderful courses at exotic resorts week in and week out? What if you could play highly ranked tracks like Valderrama or the Links at Fancourt and more, in a series of tournaments than spans the globe, from the Caribbean to China, from Scotland to South Africa? You can. All you need is enough money and a middling handicap and you can make it happen. Even better, it’s open to men and women.
The events are part of the World Amateur Golf Tour, created by Jean-Charles Cambon, a professional golfer who has more than 10 years of experience running professional events.
Playing in the World Amateur Tour (WAT for short) is certainly not cheap. The total cost for the season is $41,250 – and that doesn’t even include airfare. However, if you have a handicap between 0 and 20 and the cash, you can enter all the World Amateur Tour events for 2018. You don’t have to enter all of them, of course. You can just enter the ones that appeal to you. Maybe you like Scotland and want to play that venue, but you don’t want to go all the way to China. No problem. Pick your places.
There’s even a bargain rate if you go as a team or a couple where both play. And, of course, there’s an option if you bring a non-golfing friend. They’ve thought of just about everything.
The 2018 series kicks off at The Punta Cana Inaugural Championship from March 28th through the 30th. The course, a Jack Nicklaus signature design, is in the Dominican Republic and was named Best Course in the Caribbean on the World Golf Awards in 2016.
World Amateur Tour could be a hobby for the elite, or a once-in-a-lifetime Tour-experience outing
In addition to participating in the events, contestants have access to coaches from the European Tour, club fitting sessions with experts, ability to play practice rounds and mingle with the rest of the field at tournament events. And if you like the area, you can extend your stay with advance notification (and more money).
Scoring for the tournaments is Stableford, which makes it possible to eliminate the damage from those big numbers on the occasional hole and still reap the reward of good scoring on the rest. Results are tallied for individuals over 36-holes using net score with 60 percent of handicap and the Stableford system. Please don’t ask me to compute that. My brain would short-circuit.
Other golf courses in the 2018 schedule include:
Portuguese Championship: West Cliffs Golf Club, Portugal, May 3-6.
The Links Championship, The Renaissance Club, Scotland, June 14- 17.
The China Championship, Jinji Lake Golf Club, Shanghai, China, September 3-16.
Andalucia Classic Championship, La Reserva & Valderrama, Marbella Spain, October 5-8.
The Tour Championship, The Links at Fancourt, South Africa, November 29-December 2.
The top five in World Tour points in 2017 for men were Gregory Pipkin of Houston, Gilbert DeDecker of Belgium, Jacky Frédéric Casanova from France, Yann Robin of France and Philippe Bucheton also of France.
The top five women in World Tour points for 2017 were Lizanne Heydenrych of South Africa, Stéphanie Viscolo of Switzerland, Nathalie Mary of France, Inès Sastre of Spain, and Elizabeth Agha of The U.K.
Entry to each tournament is limited to 50 players.
Included in the entry fee are five-star hotel rooms, transfers between hotels and airports, caddie fees, and more. Entry fees for single occupancy are approximately $6,875; $11,941 for a two-person team with double occupancy and $8,562 for double occupancy with one golfer and one non-golfing guest.
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Entry forms are available at the WAT website. :
Questions should be directed to Jean-Charles Cambon at the World Golf Tour.