Good News For Sharvin With Tour To Honour All 2020 Tour Members For 2021 Season.

Good news for Ardglass golfer Cormac Sharvin with the European Tour to follow in the footsteps of the PGA Tour and afford full 2021 membership to those who qualified automatically for the 2020 Tour season and regardless should those players fall outside the end-of-year qualifying cut-off mark.

That is to be the decision in a leaked European Tour report that is understood was sent to all members.

The PGA Tour recently advised that those who obtained full 2020 Tour membership would retain their Tour status for 2021 given the cancellation of so many events this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Irish golfer Cormac Sharvin

Sharvin, 27 who now lives close to Open champ, Shane Lowry, secured his main Tour card at the end of 2019 brilliantly finishing inside the top-20 on the secondary Challenge Tour.

At the suspension of the Tour in March he was lying 164th from just five events on the Race to Dubai money list standings.

However, it’s not good news for Cormac’s trio of countryman in  Jonathon Caldwell (129th on the money list), Gavin Moynihan (222nd) and Paul Dunne, who has not contested a main Tour event this year, and with each now probably having to wait to the end of 2021 if they are to work their way back to join the likes of Rory McIlroy, Lowry, Graeme McDowell, Padraig Harrington and Sharvin on the Race to Dubai main stage.

And the stipulation of having to play a minimum number of events will also be waived given the vast number of cancellations already this year and the expectation of ongoing international travel restrictions.

Also, the return of European Tour ‘Race to Dubai’ 2020 schedule looks likely to include four UK events in succession with three to be hosted in England and one in Wales and each boasting multi-room on-course hotels.

The Tour, and according to the Golf Channel, seems ready to soon announce a ‘bubble’ with the events to be hosted on UK courses boasting an on-course hotel to accommodate those teeing-up.

The event locations, including three new touranments but boasting just Euro 1m in prizemoney, will include:

  • July 30th to August 2nd Lee Westwood hosted BedFred British Masters at Close House on the outskirts of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
  • The Forest of Arden Marriott Hotel and Country Club located between Birmingham and Coventry
  • Hanbury Manor Marriott Hotel and Country Club at Ware in England and
  • Celtic Manor in Wales and venue for the 2010 Ryder Cup.

The three new events will have to be scheduled in a way to include two major back-to-back events in the U.S. – the July 30th to August 2nd WGC – FedEx St. Jude Invitatonal in Memphis and the following week’s August 6th to 9th PGA Championship in San Francisco.

The European Tour has also issued a similar ‘Health and Safety’ report to all European, Challenge and Staysafe Senior Tour members out-lining the strictest of strict testing guidelines to be in place when golf does resume.

The PGA Tour released a similar 37-page document to all their members but then the sight of both Dustin Johnson and Matthew Wolff spitting often into a cloth to wipe their golf clubs, and with Rickie Fowler continually wiping his face with his shirt during last Sunday’s Seminole event was clearly not the ‘stay safe’ image the PGA Tour sought.



Comments are closed.