The European Tour is shrinking its Race to Dubai Final Series by one event starting in 2016, the tour's chief executive Keith Pelley announced Tuesday in Dubai.
For its fourth season, the Final Series will reduce from four events to three, with the WGC-HSBC Champions removed from the series. Its exemption requirements bring in far too many non-European Tour members to make it a fair piece of a critical series to the tour, and its removal from the Final Series coincides with a change in the tour's membership requirements, which now leaves out the majors and WGCs.
The BMW Masters will not be on the 2016 European Tour schedule, and it will be replaced in the Final Series schedule by the South Africa-based Nedbank Golf Challenge, which will grow in size from 30 to 72 players and increase in purse to €7 million.
The Nedbank will be sandwiched between the Turkish Airlines Open and the season-ending DP World Tour Championship.