World Curling Tour
The Asham World Curling Tour is a group of curling bonspiels featuring the best male curlers in the world. A Women's World Curling Tour also exists.
The World Curling Tour was created in 1992. In 2001, the WCT introduced a series of Grand Slam events featuring large payouts. Originally, curlers who participated in Grand Slam events were obliged to not participate in their respective Brier playdowns, however this was quickly rescinded.
Most WCT events are held in the Fall, and early Winter to avoid competing with the Brier playdowns.
The WCT is experimenting with length of games in two interesting ways. The first is that the games are only eight ends long with a 4th end break. The second is that the time clocks only count "thinking time", so the clock goes off when the players throws the rock. The reason is that time clocks, an innovation created to speed up the game, would stop as soon as the stone stopped. However, if a team was losing, they would throw more draw shots which take time. The team that is winning throws more hits and thus ends up with more time if needed. So the WCT moved to "Thinking time" to even out this discrepancy.
The team with the most winnings at the end of the year wins the Founders Trophy. The winners in 2007 were Kevin Martin's team who won a total of $176,000.
A Women's World Curling Tour also exists, and is now affiliated with the WCT.
Read more about World Curling Tour: Men's Events, Women's Events, See Also
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