The Benson & Hedges International Open was a men's professional

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

tournament which was played in

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. It was founded in 1971 and for its first five years it was called the Benson & Hedges Festival of Golf. It was sponsored by

Benson & Hedges Benson & Hedges is a British brand of cigarettes owned by American conglomerate Altria. Cigarettes under the ''Benson & Hedges'' name are manufactured worldwide by different companies such as Rothmans, Benson & Hedges, Philip Morris USA, British ...

, a cigarette company. It was part of the

European Tour The European Tour, currently titled as the DP World Tour for sponsorship reasons, and legally the PGA European Tour or the European Tour Group, is the leading men's professional golf tour in Europe. The organisation also operates the European ...

's annual schedule from the tour's first season in 1972 until the tournament ceased in 2003, following the introduction of a ban on

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and sponsorship of sporting events by the British government. The prize fund for the final edition of the tournament was

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1,596,861, which was mid-range for a European Tour event at the time.

Winners

References

External links

Coverage on the European Tour's official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Benson and Hedges International Open Former European Tour events Golf tournaments in England British American Tobacco