In a PGA Tour Now Ruled By Money, Could Non-Designated Events Buy Their Way Up?

There is precedent to fledgling events on Tour trying to boost their status with a bigger purse, albeit unsuccessfully. Alex Miceli wonders if that would work today.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — The adage that money talks and b.s. walks seems to be the best way to describe the current guiding principal on the PGA Tour.

With 13 elevated events and the four majors in 2023, the top players will be playing for over $300 million in prize money in just 17 events while the others, while not necessarily lesser players, will be still playing for a king’s ransom, just not on the same scale.

When you understand that the PGA Tour is a business, a point that PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan made several times in talking to the media on Tuesday at the Players Championship, and with LIV Golf is nipping at the Tour's heels, money is the only currency to keep the Tour intact.

At least that seems to be the overwhelming conclusion since the Tour not only has bought into this strategy of upping the amount of each purse in the elevated events, but is expanding and growing the idea for 2024.

And all in the name of making the events more compelling for fans and corporate partners.

“When you look at the overall portfolio, the overall presentation of the PGA Tour and what we stand for, I feel confident that we'll be in a really good place as it relates to 2024 because when you deliver what the fans want, ultimately that's what your corporate partners want,” Monahan said of the plans to shrink the fields and make elevated events no-cut. “When you have top players competing together more often, as we've said we're going to do, those same storylines are going to come through ... I think it's going to be extremely compelling and is going to help all of our events grow and succeed.”

Former board member Jordan Spieth buys into the plan outlined by Monahan and agrees that maximizing all its assets makes perfect sense.

“Why would you not maximize what sponsors, networks and the Tour itself can maximize?” Spieth said when asked about the size of the purse increases for elevated events. “I don't remember that being like, 'hey, these have to be at a set number to get there,' but if a tournament sponsor wants to have essentially a major championship at their tournament, we probably—the Tour felt that they would be able to charge a certain premium for that. That's kind of where we've gotten to this year and hopefully for future years.

"I don't see why you wouldn't try and maximize the value that you can from our perspective at all.”

Again, remembering it’s a business and the Tour exists for its members, why not maximize what you can maximize?

Why not let those lesser tournaments—lesser in regard to purse size—compete at a similar or larger level to get the same recognition and better fields?

When the Wachovia Championship (now the Wells Fargo Championship) started in 2003, the bank was based in the Carolinas and not well known.

The plan to sponsor an event on the PGA Tour was to expand its branding reach and become better known to the public, its main constituents.

Oddly, during the first broadcast of the tournament the bank's name was mispronounced numerous times, since few had ever heard the name before.

That first year, the winner’s check was $1,008,000 and was only one of 12 events in a 49-tournament season that paid more than $1 million to win.

During the early years of the Wachovia Championship, Quail Hollow Club President Johnny Harris wanted to increase the purse to an equal if not higher amount than the Players Championship's then-staggering $6.5 million with a rumored purse of $10 million.

Harris knew the value of a good field and toward that goal he made the caddie facilities the best possible on Tour, believing that caddies had some sway over where players played.

He also believed that purse size was another important part of the equation, along with the course.

Harris never got his large purse increase, as PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem said no to Harris’s request.

Would that be the answer today?

Is it possible that those lesser tournaments may have a way to fight back?

“That's a conversation I would be happy to have with our sponsors,” Monahan said. “It's not a conversation we're having right now, but as we get into this, I think there are a lot of different ways these conversations will go, and that may be one of the considerations.”

Only time will tell how big purses can get, but it seems clear any shackles that tournaments or sponsors had around their wallet has been eliminated.