New PGA Tour schedule with more prize money than LIV Golf

The PGA Tour announced this Monday its response to the LIV Golf Invitational Series, or what is the same, has released the calendar for the 2022-23 season with record figures. A total of 428.6 million dollars will be distributed in prizes in official events and another 145 million in bonuses, including 75 million for the FedEx Cup.

The 2022-23 schedule, which was released by the PGA Tour on Monday, will include 44 official regular-season tournaments, including all four majors, and three FedEx Cup playoff events.

Last week, LIV Golf, which is being funded by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, announced that it will expand its series to 14 tournaments in 2023, with 48-player teams of four golfers competing for $405 million in prize money.

LIV Golf has attracted top champions like Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed with guaranteed contracts worth between $100 million and $200 million, along with lucrative purses for their events. The response from the PGA Tour has been overwhelming.

The upcoming PGA Tour season will be the last to use a two-year season format, starting in 2022 and ending in 2023. The tour will return to an annual schedule beginning in 2024.

The most significant changes are as follows: only the top 70 FedEx Cup players will qualify for the first Playoff event in the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis, Tennessee; 50 in the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields, Ill.; and 30 in the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta.

“We’ve listened to our fans and the overwhelming feeling was that they wanted more excitement in both the FedEx Cup regular season and playoffs, and further bolster events that traditionally feature the best players competing head-to-head,” said the PGA Tour Commissioner, Jay Monahan, it’s a statement. “We firmly believe that we have achieved all of these goals and more, creating a sequence of compelling drama for each tournament throughout the season.”

Following the FedEx Cup playoffs in August 2023, an undetermined number of official tour events will be played in the fall. While all players with status will be eligible to play in those tournaments, those outside the top 70 will compete for FedEx Cup points and status for the 2024 season. The top 70 players who qualify for the first event of FedEx Cup playoffs will be fully exempt for the following season.

Following the completion of the fall events, the top 50 players in the FedEx Cup points standings, as well as the top performers from the fall, will compete in an international series that will include uncut and limited fields. The dates and locations of the fall events and international series will be announced later this year, according to the PGA Tour. There, in one of those tournaments, is where Valderrama aspires to enter.

Next season’s PGA Tour schedule includes six invitational tournaments – the Sentry Tournament of Championsthe Genesis Invitationalthe Arnold Palmer Invitationalthe Memorial Tournamentthe Players Championship and the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play– who have increased their prize pools dramatically.

The Sentry now has a bag of 15 million, practically doubling what was offered before, just over eight million. Meanwhile, the Invitational (Genesis, Arnold Palmer and Memorial) will distribute 20 million and THE PLAYERS will take up to 25. In 2021 there were twelve and 20 million in these tournaments, respectively. The Match Play is also raised to 20, as well as the first two FedEx Playoffs, while 70 million will be distributed in the Final. In total, the PGA Tour will distribute more money than LIV Golf in prize pools and bonuses, regardless of the fixed contracts that each one has signed. We will see now if there is a response from the Arabs.

On the other hand, the three hybrid tournaments with the DP World Tour are maintained: Genesis Scottish Open, Barbasol and Barracuda. There will be no more next year.