European Tour Chief Executive Keith Pelley has set out plans for a 6.6 million euro purse tournament to be played at Valderrama in the Autumn.

He said “I believe there is a significant growth opportunity for our tour. I will be disappointed if we only have three or four new big tournaments in thr next year. I hope there will be more. The challenge we face is to encourage our players not to play so much on the US Tour by peoviding world class tournaments regularly in 2017”.

Pelley is hoping that staging the new event in Spain the week after the British Masters at The Grove there eill be a fortnight after the Ryder Cup when European stars will play at home.

The Valderrama Committee faced a lot of criticism after this month’s Spanish Open when the greens were rough and unpredictable due to the coarse poa anna grass. They have decided to dig up and returf 9 greens this summer and re seed with bent grass which is more natural in Southern Spain.