Thoughts and prayers for the players who only kept full PGA Tour cards without guaranteed access to the signature events.
They belong to the other tour in 2024, which still beats working in the lumber yard.
The tour has yet to announce prize money for next year except for the $15 million purse to start the year at The Sentry, $20 million at seven other signature events, $25 million for The Players Championship and a $25 million bonus for the FedEx Cup champion.
But it doesn’t have a history of shrinking purses. Those other tournaments (not including opposite-field events) averaged about $8.5 million last season. And while players won’t get free laundry and dry cleaning, or a menu containing pastured eggs and wild-caught seafood in player dining, they at least get access to cold plunges and courtesy cars.
This isn’t a case of the haves and have nots. It’s the haves and have more.
“If this is an arms race and if the only weapons here are dollar bills, the PGA Tour can’t compete,” Commissioner Jay Monahan said in June 2022, when LIV Golf was just starting to buy top players and Saudi Arabia’s national wealth fund was an enemy instead of a partner.
And now the signature events will have $20 million purses (same as LIV) with $4 million to the winner (same as LIV).
The amount of money and amenities came into view last week when Sports Business Journal obtained a copy of a memo sent to tournaments with a list of requirements — not requests — to deliver “the world-class experience commensurate for a PGA Tour event.”
Along with cold plunges and better nutrition (who knew the tour had a vice president of food and beverage?), tournaments now must have a “flushable restroom” on each nine holes of the course for family members. How did Barbara Nicklaus survive all those years without one?
What got the attention of Nate Lashley was another memo with results of the Player Impact Program that doled out $100 million to the 20 most popular players.
Rory McIlroy finally dethroned Tiger Woods, pipping him by 0.0113 points in the overall score of six metrics. Woods lost too much ground in the “TV Sponsor Exposure” category, perhaps because he played only six rounds, the last one on April 1. No fooling.
That was worth $15 million to McIlroy. Woods had to settle for $12 million, followed by Jon Rahm ($9 million), Jordan Spieth ($7.5 million) and Scottie Scheffler ($6 million). They represent a combined 25 majors, which apparently was lost on Lashley.
“How many golf fans actually know what the PIP on the PGA Tour is?” he wrote on Instagram, postin the results for all to see. “Would love to hear from golf/PGA fans if they think this $100 million was spent well?”
The responses were not what he wanted to see.
“There’s 150-200 members of the PGA Tour and they just spent $100 million on 20 players. Seems a little ridiculous,” he wrote. “Time for new leadership on the PGA Tour. This is an absolute kick in the face to the rest of the PGA Tour players.”
