The old South Australian Open will be played in March under the banner of the Jacob's Creek Open for A$1m, while a new tournament, the A$1m Clearwater Classic in Christchurch, New Zealand, has emerged.
Both will be co-sanctioned by the US PGA Tour as part of its secondary Buy.Com Tour.
The A$2m Greg Norman International is missing but, in its place at The Lakes in Sydney is the A$1.75m ANZ Championship, from February 7-10, which joins the A$3m Johnnie Walker Classic in Perth and the A$2m Heineken Classic at Royal Melbourne as one of three events co-sanctioned with Europe.
While there are more tournaments on the Australasian PGA Tour, much of that is because the PGA Tour has abandoned its secondary Development Tour and put those events on the main tour.
Previously, minimum prize money was A$200,000. That has been reduced to A$100,000 and there are five such tournaments on the schedule in New Zealand, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Tamworth.
Part of the announcement was to revert to a calendar-year Order of Merit, which offers considerable benefits on the world stage to the leading players. They include automatic exemption into the British Open and the $5m (A$10m) World Championship of Golf strokeplay event for the top three, and US Open exemption for the top two if they have a world ranking in the top 70.
The PGA is heading towards an all-exempt tour. In 2002, very few tournaments, including those with total prize money of A$100,000, will have Monday pre-qualifying.
