THE European Tour has announced the initial sector of its 2020 schedule featuring 16 Race to Dubai events in 12 different countries, including the start of the fourth edition of the Rolex Series.

The Hong Kong Open, at Hong Kong Golf Club, and the Alfred Dunhill Championship, at Leopard Creek, in South Africa, will launch the 49^th European Tour season – and the 2020 Race to Dubai – from November 28-December 1.

Those two events will be followed by the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open (December 5-8) and the Australian PGA Championship (December 19-22) before the winter break, which moves from last year’s late November slot when it was played opposite the Mauritius event which moves to the Heritage Golf Club at Bel Hombre, which hosted the event in 2015 and 2017.

The South African Open – hosted by the City of Johannesburg – then kicks off the 2020 calendar year from January 9-12 with a return to Randpark Golf Club – a month later than in 2018.

It will be followed by the Middle East Swing comprising the first Rolex Series event of the season – the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship (January 16-19) – followed by the Omega Dubai Desert Classic (January 23-26) and the second Saudi International (January 30-February 2) after this year’s debut.

February begins in earnest with a return to Australia for the innovative ISPS Handa Vic Open (February 6-9), where men and women will once again compete alongside each other at the same venue.

The first two World Golf Championship events of 2020 – the WGC-Mexico Championship (February 20-23) and WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play Championship (March 25-29) then take place either side of the Oman Open (February 27-March 1), the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters (March 5-8), the Magical Kenya Open (March 12-15) and the Hero Indian Open (March 19-22),.

Tiger Woods will then defend the first Major Championship of the season, when the Masters Tournament, is held at Augusta National, from April 9-12.

The full European Tour 2020 schedule, including the remainder of the Rolex Series events, will be announced later this year.

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