In August, the PGA Tour announced its series of 13 events — including The Players Championship — that will offer purse increases of nearly $100 million for the 2023 season, plus a doubling of the Player Impact Program to $100 million.
The Korn Ferry Tour had previously announced in 2021 that its purses will increase to $1 million for each regular-season event (up from $600,000 for most tournaments) and $1.5 million for the four-event Korn Ferry Finals.
In between is the PGA Tour Champions, whose average purse this season of $2.1 million is only $600,000 more than the Korn Ferry Finals. There will be modest gains next year to an average of $2.3 million but only nine of the 27 events will offer bumps and at this point, the Constellation Furyk & Friends, being played this week at the Timuquana Country Club, may not be one of them.
So while PGA Tour players will have a chance to compete for first-place checks of up to $4.5 million for winning The Players (which exceeds the total purse for every PGA Tour Champions event), and Korn Ferry Tour players can make $180,000 for winning a regular-season event (nearly double the amount from most regular-season events in 2019), why aren’t Champions Tour earnings increasing at a fast pace than the projected 10 percent for next season?
The answer reflects the reality of the economics: Champions Tour purses are more dependent on title sponsorship contracts than TV money, and it’s a tour financially supported by the PGA Tour anyway.
And with the PGA Tour tapping into its reserves and asking for more help from its title sponsors in response to the LIV Golf tour luring players away with mind-boggling, there’s little left in the kitty to throw to the Champions Tour.
Purse bumps depend on sponsors
“We’re in a different situation with the Tour,” said Steve Flesch, one of the members of the Champions Tour Policy Board. “We rely on tournament sponsors to generate our purses so we don’t have as big a piece of pie.”
Champions Tour president Miller Brady said it comes down to the contracts with each title sponsor. For example, the Furyk & Friends purse is $2 million for the balance of the five-year deal, unless Constellation agrees to a bump based on the event’s performance.
Judging from the success of the first two years, it might happen.
“When we sign a contract with a title sponsor, we have to see if the event will sustain itself,” Brady said. “There’s no question this tournament has done…
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