The European Tour has announced a number of changes to its Final Series following last year’s criticism of the inaugural format.
Former Open champion Ernie Els was among those annoyed at the regulation which required players to compete in two of the first three events to be eligible for the season-ending DP World Tour Championship.
The South African did not fulfil that criteria along with Sergio Garcia and Charl Schwartzel and was therefore not in Dubai last November as European Tour chief executive George O’Grady promised a review of the regulations.
As expected, that review has led to the playing requirement being scrapped, while the bonus pool has been increased from $3.75 million to $5m and will be shared among the top 15 players after the DP World Tour Championship rather than the top 10.
The field for that event has also been changed to feature the leading 60 available players from the Race to Dubai after the preceding Turkish Airlines Open, rather than only those finishing inside the top 60. With Els, Garcia, Schwartzel and the injured Alex Noren missing, only 56 players competed last year.
The Tour has also introduced an enhanced points system for 2014. At the end of the Perth International the final regular event of the season prize money on the Race to Dubai will be converted into points (one euro equalling one point).
Each Final Series event will then carry a total of 10 million points, with the winner receiving 1,666,600.
The changes were made after discussions with the Tour’s tournament committee and welcomed by committee chairman Thomas Bjorn.
“The new regulations and the new points system are a good move,” Bjorn said.
“It means if you miss some of those events it will be difficult to win the Race to Dubai, so there is an incentive to play in as many Final Series events as possible.”