The Swedish Golf Tour for women is a domestic professional golf touroperated by Svenska Golftourerna AB, owned equally by the Swedish Golf Federation and the PGA of Sweden. The tour is designed to help Swedish golfers to reach the standard of play needed to qualify for the Ladies European Tour. The SGT is on the fourth level of international golf tours, below the Ladies' European Tour, the LET Access Series and the Ladies' Nordic Golf Tour. For 2020, the SGT includes five separate scheduled tournaments in Sweden. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 schedule, as for all tours, has been subject to change. The Swedish Golf Federation and the Swedish PGA decided on June 2, that the 2020 tour will restart. First tournament in Sweden on the Nordic Golf Tour and LETAS after the break is GolfUppsala Open on July 23-25 and first SGT tournament is Johannesberg Open on September 8-9. The SGT for women was named the Lancome Tour 1991–1994, the Telia Infomedia Golf Tour 1995–1997, the Telia Tour 1998–2008, the SAS Masters Tour 2008–2009, the Nordea Tour 2010–2016 and the Swedish Golf Tour 2017–. The Swedish Golf Tour for men is run by the same organization and is from 2020 named the MoreGolf Mastercard Tour.
History
At the beginning of 1979, Kärstin Ehrnlund became the first Swedish female tournament professional. The following year, Ehrnlund became the first Swedish winner on an international professional golf tour, when she won on the Ladies European Tour and by this showed the possibility for talented Swedish female golfers to turn playing professionals. The first professional tournament for women, held in Sweden, was named the Volvo International and took place at Albatross Golf Club in Gothenburg in 1980. At the annual meeting of the Swedish Golf Federation in March 1983, "open golf" was introduced, which meant that, from next year both amateurs and professionals were allowed to enter all domestic competitions, international amateur tournaments excluded. Non-PGA members with a licence, as well as PGA members, were allowed to receive prize money. The new and internationally unique rules, made it possible to transform the traditionally most important amateur tournaments in the country to professional tournaments, attractive to sponsors and players. The first Ladies European Tour tournament held in Sweden, took place at Mölle Golf Club in Mölle in 1984 and was named the Höganäs Ladies Open. The women's Swedish Golf Tour was established in 1986, two years after the men's tour in the country, and consisted the first year of seven tournaments, two of them co-sanctioned with the Ladies' European Tour. Liselotte Neumann was the first Order-of-Merit winner, thanks to second place finishes in both of the two co-sanctioned events. In 2005, the women's SGT became the first official feeder tour for the LET, with the two leading non-exempt players from the ranking gaining LET cards for the following season, and the remainder of the top ten exempted into the final stage of the LET Qualifying School. In 2012, the tour was replaced as the LET's feeder tour by the newly created LET Access Series. For 2020, in cooperation between the Golf Federations of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, the Ladies' Nordic Golf Tour was introduced, with its Order-of merit ranking named Road to Creekhouse Ladies' Open, including eight tournaments in three countries, six of them counted in the LETAS. This meant that the women's SGT remained, but on the level below the NGT.
Note: Until 1996, the SGT Order of Merit standings was decided by money won and since 1997 different point systems, not comparable between years, have been in force. Sources:
