Starting this season, the PGA TOUR has announced that there will be what they are calling Designated Tournaments. They called them something else for a few months, but finally settled on the “Designated” moniker as a way to describe them.
The Designated events are special because they have more money in the tournament purses that will be shared with golfers who make the cut. And we’re not talking a few pennies here. It’s more than a doubling of most purses. We’re talking giant bags of cash. Millions. That gets everybody’s attention.
In all honesty, these high-paying opportunities were created to keep the great players on the PGA TOUR playing on the PGA TOUR. It was a way to stave off the threat from LIV Golf, which has poached several players from the PGA TOUR by offering them big bags of Saudi money.
In an effort to figure out how to handle what we could call the LIV problem, 20 or so top players met on their own last summer and then told Commissioner Jay Monahan what they had decided. First of all, they agreed to play in high-purse events, as many as 19 or 20 of them as it turned out. That was pretty surprising. If you are in any group, you know how hard it is to get everybody to agree to the same thing, much less a bunch of gazillionaires who are used to getting their way a lot of the time.
This was only the second player meeting of its kind in the history of the PGA TOUR, according to the commissioner. Strangely, both were as a result of Greg Norman trying to start a competing tour. Enough about Norman. (And believe me, the TOUR has had enough of him at this point.)
After the player meeting, the PGA TOUR bean counters went to work and assured the membership that because of the new TV contracts, it would be possible to pay out the higher purses.
But it might not have been. The pandemic, according to Monahan, actually created some scenarios where the TOUR could have collapsed from lack of funds. They did some belt-tightening to be able to continue. Fortunately, the PGA TOUR survived, and golf became the first sport to return to live competition after the pandemic started.
The other upshot of the player meeting was that a few tournaments became “Designated” in the years ahead, while others will rotate in and out of this new elite status. But we don’t really know yet how it will work in future years. We only know which tournaments are affected this season.
Tournaments that are in this core category this season are Sentry Tournament of Champions, The Genesis Invitational (Tiger Woods’ event), Arnold Palmer Invitational (Arnold Palmer’s family is still involved), THE PLAYERS, WGC-Dell Match Play, the Memorial Tournament (Jack Nicklaus’ event), FedEx St. Jude Championship, BMW Championship and TOUR Championship.
The prize money for Sentry became $15 million. For THE PLAYERS, it became $25 million. For the TOUR Championship, it became some number so high we can’t count. And all the rest of the tournaments in this category have $20 million purses to pay pros.
In addition to each of these events, the TOUR promised to add another four upgraded tournaments, which would also have $20 million purses. These would rotate among the rest of the schedule. For 2023, the upgraded or wildcard events are WM Phoenix Open, RBC Heritage, Wells Fargo Championship and Travelers Championship. While we expect four different ones to be selected for 2024, that announcement has not been made.
In case you wondered, for all non-designated PGA TOUR tournaments to have a chance to be in the $20 million purse category, it would take five years if no tournament repeats and if it’s four new ones each season.
As a result of these changes, one long-time sponsor has reportedly gone away mad because they were sandwiched between two upgraded events. But maybe they were going away anyway. These things happen in golf and life.
We are not privy to all the PGA TOUR’s business, but the history of the TOUR is that sponsors and tournaments come and go. Right now, there are more tournaments wanting to be in the regular season than there are weeks in the regular season, January to August. That is a good situation for the PGA TOUR.
Meanwhile, the player-created, designated-event situation, basically a 20 or so players for 20 events deal, is a pact that the players made with their organization to help keep it strong in the future. Even that has some issues.
A few golfers who have dual tour memberships asked for the “Mother May I Opt Out of One,” which Commissioner Monahan can approve at his discretion. And he’s likely to approve.
If it were me, I’d find out the commish’s favorite brand of golf balls and preferred cookies and see that they are both delivered often. Never hurts to be nice to the commish, just to stay on his good side when looking for a favorable decision.
So, which is it, Jay? Peanut butter? Oatmeal raisin? White chocolate chip and macadamia nuts? Regular chocolate chip?
What happens if a player opts out of two events? He’s likely to lose out on his PIP (Player Impact Program) money, which is a bonus pool of $100 million that gets shared between the top 20 players. No. 1 gets $15 million extra and No. 16-20 get $2 million. Not a bad bonus for mostly doing what you were going to do anyway.
The top 20 are measured by the positive impact that they bring to the PGA TOUR. They had one set of measurement metrics in the first year of PIP, and those will be different for this year and beyond. Who won in 2022? Last year, Tiger Woods was No. 1 in PIP and Rory McIlroy was No. 2. Since Woods hardly played, this measure demonstrates that yes, it’s about playing, but it’s also about great legacy and personal impact.
