Alps Blog

The Alps Tour is a professional golf tour for men players by the national golf associations of France, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and Morocco.

The Alps golf tour is a third level tour, when the highest level of golf in Europe is the European Tour, and the 2nd level pro tour is the Challenge Tour. This tour was created to give young golf
professionals the opportunity to play and also to get a category on the European Challenge
Tour or/as well as exemptions from Stage 1 of the European Tour Qualifying School.

Other 3rd level golf tours in Europe are the United Kingdom based PGA EuroPro Tour and also the German based EPD Tour.

The Alps Golf Tour events takes place in the home countries of 5 sanctioning countries. There are about twenty events per season and the total prize money are around one million Euros. Most of the tour players come from the tournament hosting countries. The top tour players on the Alps tour Order of Merit can win places at the Stage 2 of European Tour Qualifying School (there are total 3 stages), and the top 5 also win limited playing Challenge Tour privileges.

Official website of the Alps Golf Tour is here

The Patrouille Suisse is a famous aerobatic stunt team of the Swiss Air Force. This team fly six Northrop F-5E Tiger II fighter - bomber jets. They are one of the most spectacular and skilled flying teams of the world.

Patrouille Suisse history:

1960s

The Patrouille Suisse was founded as a part of Swiss Air force on 8 August 1964 . Their name was taken from similar group - the French Patrouille de France.

They started with 4 British Hawker Hunter Mk.58s at the EXPO 1964 exhibition in Lausanne and another training for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Swiss Airforce in 1964. Next year they already had a scheduled season.

1970s

In 1970 the Patrouille Suisse acquired another plane. Their performances remained confined only to Switzerland due to its neutrality. This changed in the year 1978 when they travelled to Salon-de-Provence, invited by the French, with their new sixth aircraft.

1990s

In 1991, the Patrouille changed their paint scheme to incorporate the national Swiss flag colors (red and white) and the new logo for 700th anniversary of the Swiss Confederation. In the year 1994 the Patrouille Suisse flew their Hawker Hunter Mk.58s aircraft last time and transferred to the faster Northrop F-5E Tiger II. In 1996 they installed smoke systems to increase the teams visual appeal.

Below you can see the Patrouille Suisse video of their exhibition, also flying above Swiss Alps.