A new era of the PGA Tour will begin in 2023. After announcing late this summer that nine of its 2023 tournaments would be elevated events with massive purses, the PGA Tour will reportedly increase that number of elevated tournaments to 13 per season with 12 of those 13 events paying out $20 million or more to golfers.
These big-time, big-money events will feature all the top players in the world, according to multiple reports, with the Phoenix Open, RBC Heritage, Travelers Championship and Wells Fargo Championship being the four newest additions, per Golfweek.
Those events will join the Tournament of Champions, Genesis Invitational, Arnold Palmer Invitational, Players Championship, WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, the Memorial Tournament, St. Jude Championship, BMW Championship and Tour Championship in the elevated category.
In total, 10 of the 13 elevated tournaments will feature purses of $20 million. The only events that have varying purses are the Tournament of Champions ($15 million), Players Championship ($25 million) and Tour Championship ($75 million toward the FedEx Cup overall).
These are the 13 PGA Tour events that all the top players in the world agreed to play together at the now-famous hotel meeting during the 2022 BMW Championship. Additionally, those players will ostensibly play the four major championships to bring the total of guaranteed appearances to 17 per season. It’s possible they may also be required to play three additional PGA Tour events on the calendar as a way to spread out star power across the non-elevated tournaments. That’s a likely total of 20 events during the 2022-23 PGA Tour season for the game’s top players.
Those golfers, defined annually as the 20 players who finished highest in the Player Impact Program, have agreed to play in these elevated events moving forward as a way to combat the newly-launched LIV Golf, which features limited events (14 in 2023) in which all the top players in that league play.
The only top-ranked players that have left the PGA Tour for LIV Golf have been Dustin Johnson and Cameron Smith. Though other big names have departed, none were in the top 20 in the Official World Golf Rankings.
“We need to get the top guys together more often than we do,” said Rory McIlroy earlier this year after the players-only meeting in Delaware ahead of the BMW. “I’m talking about all in the same tournaments, all in the same weeks.”
Functionally, this elevated event path creates two different leagues for the PGA Tour. There will be the 17 elevated tournaments (including the major championships, which are run by non-PGA Tour organizations but are considered PGA Tour events) and then the 30 non-elevated tournaments, most of which will not feature the PGA Tour’s top-drawing stars. However, this consolidates star power in a meaningful way and packs it into fewer events rather than spreading it thin throughout the season.
Also, it appears likely the PGA Tour will rotating some of these elevated event purses across different tournaments so that, for example, perhaps the AT&T Byron Nelson will be an elevated event in 2025 and give those in the Dallas/Fort Worth market an opportunity to see all the best golfers in the world. This is likely to provide a better overall fan experience than the status quo.
“Our top players are firmly behind the Tour, helping us deliver an unmatched product to our fans, who will be all but guaranteed to see the best players competing against each other in 20 events or more throughout the season,” said PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan at the Tour Championship earlier this year.
“This is an extraordinary and unprecedented commitment, a testament to who these guys are and what they believe in. To now have our top players rally around this organization and commit to a portfolio of tournaments like never before, I think our fans, our partners, our players are going to love it. I promise you, there’s more to come.”