FUTURES Tour
Overview
 
The LPGA Futures Tour, previously styled in uppercase as FUTURES Tour and known for sponsorship reasons between 2006 and 2010 as the Duramed FUTURES Tour, is the official developmental golf tour of the LPGA Tour. Tour membership is open to professional women golfers and to qualified amateurs.
The Futures Tour was founded in Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 in 1981 as the "Tampa Bay Mini Tour". It officially became the Futures Golf Tour in 1983 and in 1999 become a national tour designated as the "official developmental tour" of the LPGA Tour (the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 based professional women's golf tour).

Grace Park
Grace Park (golfer)
Grace Park is a South Korean professional golfer on the LPGA Tour.-Amateur career:Park was born in Seoul, South Korea. She moved to Hawaii at the age of 12, and then to Arizona. She received the 1996 Dial Award as top female high-school scholar-athlete in the United States...

, Marilyn Lovander and Audra Burks were the first players to receive automatic LPGA Tour exempt status by finishing one, two, and three on the Futures Golf Tour Money List.

On July 18, 2007, the LPGA announced that it had acquired the Futures Tour effective immediately, "bringing women's professional golf now under one umbrella." Previously the Futures Tour had operated as a licensee of the LPGA.

Duramed, a pharmaceutical company, was the tour's title sponsor from 2006 through the end of the 2010 season.
From 1999 through 2007 the top five leading money winners at the end of each season earned full membership in the following season's LPGA Tour.
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