Hogan/Nike/Buy.com/Nationwide/Web.com Tour Is Now Korn Ferry Tour

For the second time in seven years, the biggest -- by far -- minor league golf tour in the world has changed its name in the middle of the week in the middle of the season. 

As a result, what was the Web.com Tour last week is the Korn Ferry Tour this week, although the PGA Tour website hasn't quite caught up yet. The announcement of the change in name/sponsorship was made on Wednesday, but the website, in its list of tours operated under the aegis of the PGA Tour, was still showing "Web.com Tour" as of Thursday afternoon.

Korn Ferry is a management consulting firm based in Los Angeles, with $1.819 billion in revenue for 2018 and a net income of $1.33 million. It has 106 offices in 52 countries.  

This is the sixth appellative incarnation of the tour that is the primary stepping stone to the PGA Tour. What is now the Korn Ferry Tour came into existance in 1990 -- as the Hogan Tour. That was its name in 1991, when Tom Lehman was the leading money winner, with $141,934, and the Player of the Year. Lehman graduated to the PGA Tour in '92 and won five times out there, including one major, the 1996 British Open, and was also the big tour's Player of the Year that year. His career money total is $21,495,878. Since turning 50 on March 7, 2009, he's made another $12,268,694 on the Champions Tour, and been the senior tour's Player of the Year twice, in 2011 and '12.

Lehman is the only winner of Player of the Year honors for Hogan/Korn Ferry et all Tour, the PGA Tour and the Champions Tour.  

By 1994, when the Hogan Tour had become the Nike Tour, another former Minnesota State Amateur and State Open champion, Chris Perry, was the leading money winner ($167,148) and Player of the Year. He, too, went on to win on the PGA Tour, the 1998 BC Open. His career was effectively ended, however, when he suffered injuries to his left hand and wrist at the 2001 British Open, and the former three-time Minnesota state high school champ has played in virtually no tournaments since then.

There was another name/sponsorship change at the beginning of the 2000 season, when Buy.com took over from Nike. That lasted three years, and then the tour signed a 10-year sponsorship agreement with Nationwide. Maybe Nationwide needed money to pay Peyton Manning in 2012, but for whatever reason, the insurance giant -- and creator of all those annoying TV commercials -- bailed on its agreement with the golf tour in the middle of the last week in June, six months before the agreement was supposed to expire. That was when Web.com became the main sponsor for the Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul of golf tours.

Like Nationwide, Web.com signed a 10-year deal, and so did Korn Ferry. But the concept of 10 years seems to mean different things to different sponsors.

When the Hogan Tour was created, only the top five finishers on the money list were promoted to the PGA Tour for the following season. There are now 50 players who move up each year. The top 25 on the regular season money list are guaranteed PGA Tour status, and the other 25 spots go to the players who finish highest on the formerly Web.com and now Korn Ferry Finals, a four-tournament series following the regular season, for which the top 75 players on the Web.com/Korn Ferry money list are eligible, along with those who finish No. 126 through 200 on the PGA Tour money list.

Before 2013, there was something called the PGA Tour Q-School. It was a four-stage process. Those players who finished in the top 25 at the Final Stage gained immediate access to the PGA Tour. But that Q-School no longer exists. It was replaced by Web.com Q-School, which will now be Korn Ferry Q-School.