“I moved aside because I wanted to get on with my own career but Ken was a natural and I knew the whole business was in safe hands,” he recalled in his 2012 interview. “If you look at where the Tour started when Ken took over and where it was when he left, it is almost unbelievable, and George followed that on by moving things even further forward. Great credit must go to both of them.”
Humility was a trait of Jacobs, but the vision he had paved the way for the modern European Tour. From a starting point of just a handful of tournaments in 1972 and a total prize fund for that season of than £500,000, the European Tour now has 48 tournaments in 26 different countries with prize money of nearly €200million – a journey that was started by Jacobs more than half a century ago.
Jacobs’ remarkable contribution to golf was recognised in 1997 when he was made an OBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours and three years later he was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.
But his legacy will be the impact he had on golfers of all abilities across the world.
• Read John Jacobs’ full three-part 2012 interview to mark the 40th anniversary of the European Tour.
Founding of the Tour:
Background:
Teaching:
The Yorkshireman also had a considerable impact on the professional game as the founding father of what would later become the European Tour.
The seeds of the Tour were first laid in 1954 when a 29 year old Jacobs led the opening charge in what was set to be a 20-plus year battle to revolutionise the sport’s tournament scene, calling for a modernisation of the distribution and size of prize funds; a new vibrancy to attract sponsors and increase awareness; and, crucially, a tournament scene that expanded far beyond the realms of the British Isles.
It proved a long battle, but on October 1, 1971 he took up the role of ‘Tournament Director-General’ of the PGA Executive Committee that governed the game in Britain at the time. As well as immediately increasing prize money, through a European Committee he established a ‘Continental Swing’, embracing the French, German, and Spanish Opens, with the latter becoming the first official European Tour event at Pals Golf Club in Girona on the 12th April 1972.
“I moved aside because I wanted to get on with my own career but Ken was a natural and I knew the whole business was in safe hands,” he recalled in his 2012 interview. “If you look at where the Tour started when Ken took over and where it was when he left, it is almost unbelievable, and George followed that on by moving things even further forward. Great credit must go to both of them.”
Humility was a trait of Jacobs, but the vision he had paved the way for the modern European Tour. From a starting point of just a handful of tournaments in 1972 and a total prize fund for that season of than £500,000, the European Tour now has 48 tournaments in 26 different countries with prize money of nearly €200million – a journey that was started by Jacobs more than half a century ago.
Jacobs’ remarkable contribution to golf was recognised in 1997 when he was made an OBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours and three years later he was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.
But his legacy will be the impact he had on golfers of all abilities across the world.
• Read John Jacobs’ full three-part 2012 interview to mark the 40th anniversary of the European Tour.
Founding of the Tour:
Background:
Teaching:
“I moved aside because I wanted to get on with my own career but Ken was a natural and I knew the whole business was in safe hands,” he recalled in his 2012 interview. “If you look at where the Tour started when Ken took over and where it was when he left, it is almost unbelievable, and George followed that on by moving things even further forward. Great credit must go to both of them.”
Humility was a trait of Jacobs, but the vision he had paved the way for the modern European Tour. From a starting point of just a handful of tournaments in 1972 and a total prize fund for that season of than £500,000, the European Tour now has 48 tournaments in 26 different countries with prize money of nearly €200million – a journey that was started by Jacobs more than half a century ago.
Jacobs’ remarkable contribution to golf was recognised in 1997 when he was made an OBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours and three years later he was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.
But his legacy will be the impact he had on golfers of all abilities across the world.
• Read John Jacobs’ full three-part 2012 interview to mark the 40th anniversary of the European Tour.
Founding of the Tour:
Background:
Teaching:
