Mastercard Announces Multi-Year Sponsorship Extension With PGA Tour, Arnold Palmer Invitational

The Arnold Palmer Invitational’s title sponsor is on board with the PGA Tour’s new designated-event structure.

This week Rory McIlroy addressed the PGA Tour’s plan for its 2024 schedule, which will revolve around “designated” limited-field events with increased purses for the top players. The elimination of a 36-hole cut in such events is another proposed tweak, and McIlroy said it's easy to see why.

“It keeps the stars there for four days. You ask Mastercard or whoever it is to pay 20 million dollars for a golf event, they want to see the stars at the weekend. They want a guarantee that the stars are there. So if that’s what needs to happen, then that’s what happens,” McIlroy said.

Mastercard has spoken: The company announced a multi-year extension to their longstanding partnership with the Tour, dating back to 1995.

Whether the 36-hole cut survives or fades away, the PGA Tour is making major changes, and while Honda is dropping out of its Florida event, Mastercard, the title sponsor this week at Bay Hill, clearly has a positive view of the changes.

“We’ve been particularly pleased that, as you know, the Arnold Palmer Invitational event has now been made an elevated event,” said Raja Rajamannar, Mastercard’s Chief Marketing & Communications Officer. “It’s fantastic. Look at the field now, 43 of the top 50 [players in the world]. It is incredible. It’s not a major, but the stature is leaning towards being a major, so we are very excited from that point of view. We compliment the PGA Tour for being so flexible, so thoughtful and so collaborative.”

According to Rajamannar, the PGA Tour has taken a flexible and collaborative approach to the partnership, and that includes its willingness to modernize as the sport’s landscape continues to change.

“Golf I would say is an old sport, it’s been there for a long time, and evolution should be a part of it. And it has been evolving, but I think this is one more good step of its evolution,” Rajamannar said. “If it gives our brand ambassadors presence without being excluded and things like that, it’s very good for our brand visibility and it’s very good for us to be able to connect the fans of the sport to the Mastercard brand ambassadors, so it offers us an opportunity.”

Rajamannar is a golf enthusiast himself—he played with Mastercard ambassador Max Homa in Wednesday’s Pro-Am—and he recognizes the benefits that the PGA Tour offers his company.

At the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Mastercard provided several interactive opportunities for cardholders, including a chance to play Mastercard’s customized PGA Tour 2K23 digital course in the Mastercard Club, located just steps from the practice putting green at Bay Hill.

“We try to find out about what people are passionate about, create and curate experiences for them in those points,” Rajamanner said. “Sports is the biggest passion point, and golf is an important passion. People who are golf fans, they’re addicts. They’re fanatics about the sport. They’re really deeply passionate.”