Activities Sports & Athletics What You Need to Know About Golf's Symetra Tour Share PINTEREST Email Print Lorena Ochoa pictured in 2002, the year she won the Symetra Tour Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year awards. Scott Halleran/Getty Images Sports & Athletics Golf Golf Tournaments Basics History Gear Golf Courses Famous Golfers Baseball Basketball Bicycling Billiards Bodybuilding Bowling Boxing Car Racing Cheerleading Cricket Extreme Sports Football Gymnastics Ice Hockey Martial Arts Professional Wrestling Skateboarding Skating Paintball Soccer Swimming & Diving Table Tennis Tennis Track & Field Volleyball Other Activities Learn More By Brent Kelley Brent Kelley is an award-winning sports journalist and golf expert with over 30 years in print and online journalism. our editorial process Brent Kelley Updated January 31, 2020 The Symetra Tour is the second-level professional golf tour for women in the United States, ranking behind the LPGA Tour but ahead of other, regional mini-tours. The Symetra Tour is the official developmental tour of the LPGA and is nicknamed "the road to the LPGA." Female golfers from around the world make up the fields in the tour's tournaments. While the money earned playing in Symetra Tour events is not lucrative, the big prize is the possibility of a golfer player her way onto the LPGA through the Symetra Tour. The tour has existed under multiple names during its history, which dates to 1981 and what was then a Florida-based circuit called the Tampa Bay Mini Tour. In 1983, "Futures Tour" became the commonly used name for the circuit, whose official names over the years include Futures Golf Tour, Duramed Futures Tour and LPGA Futures Tour In 2011, Symetra, an insurance and financial services company, became the tour's title sponsor, and since then the tour's name is Symetra Tour. Relationship of Symetra Tour and LPGA Tour The LPGA Tour has, since July 2007, owned the Symetra Tour. (LPGA commissioner Michael Whan is also the Symetra Tour's commissioner, although Symetra Tour operations are directly overseen by a chief business officer.) Since 1999, the Symetra Tour (then called the Futures Tour) has been designated as the LPGA's official developmental tour, and each year a small number of the Symetra Tour's top golfers "graduate" to the LPGA: They earn LPGA Tour membership for the following year based on high-enough finishes on the Symetra Tour money list. At the current time, the golfers who finish in the Top 10 on the Symetra Tour's year-end money list earn LPGA membership. The next 12 golfers on the money list earn exemptions into the final stage of LPGA Q-School. (These numbers are occasionally tweaked by the LPGA.) Any golfer who wins three times in a single season on the Symetra Tour is automatically advanced to the LPGA Tour. Symetra Tour Schedule The Symetra Tour's schedule is a calendar-year slate that typically begins in February or March and concludes in late September or early October with the Symetra Tour Championship. The opening dates are flexible, but the end date is pretty firm: The season must end around that time (late September/early October) because of the LPGA Q-School qualifying schedule. In lean year the tour has had 15-18 tournaments in a season, in better years 20-25 and climbing. Recent years have been better years — the tour's number of tournaments and payouts have increased since the LPGA Tour acquired ownership. For the current year's schedule, see the Tournaments section of the official Symetra Tour website. Symetra Tour Award Winners The tour has named a Player of the Year every year since 1984, and began awarding a Rookie of the Year in 2000: Year Player of the Year Rookie of the Year 2019 Perrine Delacour Patty Tavatanakit 2018 Ruixin Liu Linnea Strom 2017 Benyapa Niphatsophon Hannah Green 2016 Madelene Sagstrom Madelene Sagstrom 2015 Annie Park Annie Park 2014 Marissa Steen Min Lee 2013 P.K. Kongkraphan Giulia Molinaro 2012 Esther Choe Mi Hyang Lee 2011 Kathleen Ekey Sydnee Michaels 2010 Cindy LaCrosse Jennifer Song 2009 Mina Harigae Mina Harigae 2008 Vicky Hurst Vicky Hurst 2007 Emily Bastel Violeta Retamoza 2006 Song-Hee Kim Song-Hee Kimg 2005 Seon-Hwa Lee Sun Young Yoo 2004 Jimin Kang Aram Cho 2003 Stacy Prammanasudh Sun Young Moon 2002 Lorena Ochoa Lorena Ochoa 2001 Beth Bauer Beth Bauer 2000 Heather Zakhar Jamie Hullett 1999 Grace Park 1998 Michelle Bell 1997 Marilyn Lovander 1996 Vickie Moran 1995 Patty Ehrhart 1994 Marilyn Lovander 1993 Nanci Bowen 1992 Jodi Figley 1991 Kim Williams 1990 Denise Baldwin 1989 Jennifer MacCurrach 1988 Jenny Lidback 1987 Laurel Kean 1986 Tammie Green 1985 Tammie Green 1984 Penny Hammel All-Time Bests: Symetra Tour Records Let's start with a few of the all-time scoring records for the Symetra Tour. For a four-day tournament (72 holes), the lowest winning score in tour history is 261, set by Jennifer Song in 2010. For a three-day tournament (54 holes), the record is 198. That record is shared by Vicky Hurst (2008) and Christine Song (2010). The 18-hole Symetra Tour scoring record is 61, recorded twice in tour history, and both in the same tournament. The tournament was the 2010 Tate & Lyle Players Championship at Hickory Point Golf Club in Decatur, Ill. The two golfers who posted 61s there are Rachel Connor and Jennifer Song. And yes, that's the same tournament where Song set the 72-hole record. The lowest 9-hole score in tour history is 28, established by Sue Ginter-Brooker in 2002. Most wins in a single season on the Symetra Tour? Laurel Kean won nine tournaments in 1987. Most career wins on the Symetra Tour? Tammie Green won 11 times total before moving up to the LPGA Tour. The record for longest winning streaks — winning the most starts in a row — is three. Lynn Connelly (1983), Tammie Green (1986), Jennifer MacCurrach (1989) and Vicky Hurst (2008) all won three consecutive tournaments. And the youngest winner in Symetra Tour history is Hannah O'Sullivan, who was 16 years, nine months and 11 days old when she won the 2015 Gateway Classic.