What Is The MENA Tour?

Thanks to a strategic alliance with the MENA Tour, LIV Golf is confident it will finally be able to offer its players Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) points. However, as the MENA Tour has a considerably lower profile than LIV Golf, many may wonder what role it plays in the game’s ecosystem. 

The MENA Tour is a developmental tour that has had OWGR status since 2016, hence the link-up with LIV Golf, which has been pursuing a similar status since its first tournament in June. The Tour can award three OWGR points for its 54-hole tournaments and five for 72-hole tournaments.

MENA, which is an acronym for Middle East and North Africa, was established in 2011 by Dubai organisation Shaikh Maktoum Golf Foundation. The Tour hosts 54-hole events across the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. Five years after it launched, it announced an affiliation with the Sunshine Tour that saw the top five players in MENA’s Order of Merit earn tour cards to it for the following season. Additionally, players finishing between sixth and 15th were entered into the final stages of the Sunshine Tour’s Q School. 

That arrangement held for 2016 and 2017. However, in 2018, the MENA Tour was cancelled, only to return the year after with a 10-tournament season. The outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020 meant only half its proposed 10 tournaments were played in that year, while there were none in 2021. Before the MENA Tour finally returned in May 2022, it entered a strategic partnership with the Asian Development Tour (ADT), and the first results of that were seen with a four-series event, the Beautiful Thailand Swing, in Phuket, co-sanctioned with the ADT. Those tournaments finally concluded the MENA Tour’s Covid-affected 2020 Order of Merit, the Journey to Jordan. 

Following the final event, the Blue Canyon Open, Money List winner Tom Sloman was invited to take part in two ADT tournaments and an International Series event and handed an exemption to the final stage of Asian Tour Q School for 2023. The top 10 Order of Merit players on the MENA Tour also received invites to two ADT events, which means a chance of promotion to the Asian Tour. Meanwhile, they also receive exemptions to the final stage of Asian Tour Q School for 2023.

While the MENA Tour may have fallen under the radar for many, that’s certainly not the case now following the announcement of its strategic alliance with LIV Golf and the co-sanctioning of the LIV Golf Bangkok tournament. Thanks to that, all LIV Golf players will now join the MENA Tour and, according to the Tour’s announcement, “immediately qualify” for OWGR points.