The MENA Golf Tour has announced that it is to return later this year under the leadership of former DP World Tour Chief Operating Officer Keith Waters, who will serve as its new Chairman and Commissioner.
The relaunched 2025/2026 MENA Golf Tour, which is being backed by the Arena Group and a private investor, will feature a 12-event schedule, commencing in Portugal this autumn. The opening event will follow a Qualifying School in November designed specifically for non-exempt players.
Based in Dubai, the MENA Golf Tour – short for Middle East and North Africa – organises a schedule of tournaments for professional golfers from the region and around the globe in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. It was recognised by the Official World Golf Ranking in 2016, after which time its 54-hole tournaments began awarding world ranking points.
Initially designed to provide a pathway for players into the Asian Tour and Asian Development Tour, the MENA Golf Tour announced in 2022 that it had formed a strategic alliance with LIV Golf. This was seen as attempt by LIV Golf to enable its players to earn world rankings points through competing in the Asian Tour’s co-sanctioned invitational events, which was subsequently turned down by the OWGR.
The addition of Waters is being seen as a positive step towards re-establishing the MENA Golf Tour, which has endured significant upheavals in recent times, with the tour, which was founded in 2011, having being halted for a season in 2018, and then again in 2020 for two years, following the financial impact of the pandemic. The last non co-sanctioned MENA event took place in April 2023 in Malaysia.
The re-booted MENA Golf Tour is currently in discussions with both the DP World Tour and the HotelPlanner Tour (fomrely the European Challenge Tour) to establish a new pathway that would give leading MENA Golf Tour players the opportunity to advance directly to DP World Tour Qualifying School and the HotelPlanner Tour.
Keith Waters, the MENA Golf Tour’s new chairman and commissioner
“I’m delighted to be involved in the relaunch of the MENA Golf Tour,” said Waters, who only last year announced his retirement following an 18-year tenure as COO of the European Tour Group, before which he served as the European Tour’s Director of International Policy, “This Tour has tremendous potential and serves as a crucial pathway for golfers, not just from the Middle East, but internationally.”
He added: “We’re pleased the MENA Golf Tour will remain an eligible Official World Golf Ranking tour as well as prize money of $100,000 per event. Each tournament will be contested over 54 holes, featuring a 36-hole cut to the top 60 players and ties, with the winner taking home $18,000.”
For more details, visit www.menagolftour.com
