'A Huge Lift': PGA Tour Champions Players Consider Life With Tiger Woods

Ernie Els, Jim Furyk and Davis Love III battled Tiger in his prime. They may get a chance to run it back if Woods joins the 50-and-over circuit in a few years.

LIV Golf is spending billions of dollars to compete against the PGA Tour.

But with every passing year the Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia continues to invest to become a player in professional golf, its ability to move the needle will remain incumbent on the players it has.

No matter whom they sign, LIV Golf will never move the needle like Tiger Woods can.

Woods's career on the biggest stage is not over, but at the very least it's severely limited with his latest ankle surgery. The likelihood that he will be back before his 48th birthday is likely a pipe dream—and even then, he may or may not hobble his way through 18 holes and may or may not be competitive.

However, on Dec. 30, 2025, Woods will turn 50 and all bets will be off as arguably the best to ever play the game could open a chapter to a new career.

Woods will ride a cart all over the senior circuit with a game that should be just as superior as his old one was two decades ago, ironically playing against many of the same cast of characters that he once beat into submission.

It was a game that changed the game and there is no reason to believe Woods can’t do the same thing for the PGA Tour Champions. He'll then be the biggest competition the Tour will have to face, no matter what is happening at LIV Golf.

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“Huge, huge,” is how Jim Furyk describes it. “When he started playing the PGA Tour and the buzz that that created, and then now even not playing that often, it's still a massive deal when he plays.”

Woods is the quintessential needle mover in an era where very few such players exist and none come close to Woods.

Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer were like Woods in their primes, moving the needle with their sheer presence.

When their games deteriorated, again it was their aura that spoke to the masses and even today at the Masters or Memorial Tournament, Nicklaus’s appearance in the interview room is seen as a significant occasion.

What the Golden Bear says or does is news.

That aura is the same for Woods.

“I can tell you this, around the world, wherever we go, people just come out and it feels like the old days,” Ernie Els says of the current PGA Tour Champions. “We've got the PGA Tour of the '90s, early 2000s.”

And then you inject in Woods?

“I think it's going to absolutely be a huge lift,” Els says. “It'll become a PGA Tour event.”

Els continued, talking about the Tour of the old days and how Woods would be salivating to come out and beat up on the same competition he faced years ago.

“Just like when Jack and Arnie played Champions Tour, that was the best crowds they got because people are watching Jack and Arnie,” Davis Love III said. “I think it'd be great.”

If history has taught us anything, it is that Woods's involvement in the 50-and-over tour could only help it grow and prosper.

The question is, would the PGA Tour try to stunt that growth?

With Woods in the equation the dynamics would instantly change, and it is possible that some sponsors will pay what is required to get Woods in the field—whether it's a larger purse or a very expensive dinner or clinic with Woods and other heavy hitters, just like what happens every week on the PGA Tour.

Would Golf Channel change how it broadcasts the over-50 guys when the biggest attraction can be on their air live against a PGA Tour event that has a less-than-advantageous field?

“More TV money, maybe bigger purses, it would only help things I would imagine,” says Brian Gay. “From what I understand, it's been stagnant for a while. I think there's maybe a little bit of a boost this year in prize money. But just being out there last year, kind of part-time, I just hear guys that have been out there for a long time talking about it. So, I don't really know all the ins and outs. I hear them rambling about that the purse has been the same for 20 years at this tournament and things never change.”

In 1999, the Naples, Fla., event on the PGA Tour Champions got a new sponsor, The ACE Group. The purse was $1.2 million and in the last year of the five-year contract, the purse was raised to $1.6 million.

The ACE Group stayed on another 12 years, never raising the purse and then in 2016, insurance company Chubb came on as sponsor and the Chubb Classic was born.

From 2016 to 2021 the purse was still at $1.6 million, then finally raised by $200,000 to $1.8 million for 2023.

Imagine what it could be in another few years with the presence of one newcomer.