2005 European Tour

The 2005 European Tour was the 34th golf season since the European Tour officially began in 1972.
The Order of Merit race came down to the final tournament, and was won by Colin Montgomerie for a record eighth time, and the first since 1999. The Player of the Year award was given to Order of Merit runner up and U.S. Open champion Michael Campbell of New Zealand. The Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year was Gonzalo Fernández-Castaño of Spain, who won his first title, the KLM Open during his début season.
Major tournaments.
For a summary of the major tournaments and events of 2005, including the major championships and the World Golf Championships, see 2005 in golf.
Schedule.
The 2005 season began with three tournaments held in late 2004 and consisted of 47 official money events, which was a new record total. This included four major championships and three World Golf Championships, which were also sanctioned by the PGA Tour. 27 events took place in Europe, 10 in Asia, six in the United States, two in South Africa and one each in Australia and New Zealand. Total prize money exceeded €97 million, including nearly €40 million in the four major championships and three individual World Golf Championships events.
Changes from the 2004 season included five new tournaments: the Volvo China Open and TCL Classic in China, making a total of five events in the country, the Indonesia Open, the New Zealand Open and the Abama Open de Canarias, as the tour retained a stop in the Canary Islands. The ANZ Championship, Open de Sevilla and The Heritage were lost from the schedule.
Order of Merit.
In 2005, the European Tour's money list was known as the "Order of Merit". It was calculated in euro, although around half of the events had prize funds which were fixed in other currencies, mostly either British pounds or U.S. dollars. In these instances the amounts were converted into euro at the exchange rate for the week that the tournament was played. The top 10 golfers in 2005 were: