PGA Tour counters LIV Golf menace with new tournaments, elevated prize funds and a return to a calendar-year schedule – Golf Information

Home » PGA Tour counters LIV Golf menace with new tournaments, elevated prize funds and a return to a calendar-year schedule – Golf Information

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The PGA Tour has unveiled a collection of main modifications to its construction, scheduling and prize funds in what’s being seen as a response to the menace posed by the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Sequence.

Talking at a press convention held on the eve of the PGA Tour’s Vacationers Championship, PGA Tour Comissioner Jay Monahan outlined important modifications to the present arrange, with the primary being that the Tour can be returning to a calendar-year schedule from the start of 2024, thus bringing an finish to the ‘wrap-around’ schedule that resulted in September and began up once more in October.

The brand new schedule will run from January by means of to August, with solely the highest 70 gamers qualifying for the primary occasion of the FedEx Cup PlayOffs, the FedEx St Jude Invitational, down from the 125 which have reached the primary of three play-off occasions in recent times. The highest 50 will then qualify for the BMW Championship, with the highest 30 going ahead to the Tour Championship.

The highest 50 finishers within the FedEx Cup may also qualify for a three-event, no-cut worldwide collection to be performed within the autumn, whereas the remainder of the gamers will play in home occasions to protect their standing for the next season among the many high 125.

Different notable modifications embody prize funds for eight occasions being considerably elevated from 2023. These are the Sentry Event of Champions ($15m, up from $8.2m in 2022); Genesis Invitational ($20m, up from $12m); Arnold Palmer Invitational ($20m, up from $12m); Gamers Championship ($25m, up from $20m); WGC-Dell Applied sciences Match Play ($20m, up from $12m); Memorial Event ($20 m, up from $12m); FedEx St Jude Championship, the primary occasion of the FedEx Cup Playoffs ($20m, up from $15m); and the BMW Championship, the second occasion of the playoffs ($20m, up from $15m).

Monahan mentioned that prize fund will increase, a few of which have virtually been doubled, can be funded by sponsor assist and supplemented within the short-term by the tour’s personal earnings.

It doesn’t take an enormous leap of creativeness to grasp that these strikes are a direct response to LIV Golf, whose Invitational Sequence has tempted a rising variety of PGA Tour gamers attracted by the provide of signing-on charges, assured prize cash and fewer occasions.

“We welcome good, wholesome competitors,” Monahan mentioned on the press convention. “The LIV Saudi golf league [sic] isn’t that. It’s an irrational menace; one not involved with the return on funding or true development of the sport. When somebody makes an attempt to purchase the game, dismantle the establishments which are intrinsically invested in its development, and focus solely on a private precedence, that partnership evaporates, and as a substitute we find yourself with one individual, one entity, utilizing countless quantities of cash to direct workers, not members or companions, towards their private objective, which can or could not change tomorrow or the subsequent day.”

“We don’t anticipate to beat this present problem by counting on our legacy and observe document alone,” Monahan added. “We’ve been on a path for various years to strengthen and evolve our product for the good thing about our followers and gamers alike. These plans are clearly accelerated in mild of the present atmosphere.”

“It is a important change, and it impacts each member of the PGA Tour,” Monahan mentioned. “And I believe when folks begin to consider the modifications that we made, they’ll understand that making a tighter schedule for our gamers and our followers, FedExCup schedule January by means of August, and having that consequence on the finish of the 12 months really elevates and lifts each single occasion throughout the FedExCup schedule, is nice for each single member out right here.”