If the fall season is any indication, tournament sponsors are drawing the line on the rapidly escalating cost of doing business with the PGA Tour.
The FedEx Cup Fall season, which started with last week’s Procore Championship in Napa, California, will be worth $58.7 million. Although that’s up $2.1 million from last year, there will be one more tournament in the eight-event fall schedule. The $7.5 million Black Desert Championship will debut next month in Ivins, Utah.
Five of the seven returning stops on the tour’s fall schedule will play for lower purses than offered in 2023, a signal that the rising price tag on the PGA Tour amid its fight with rival LIV Golf has reached a tipping point, according to an analysis by The Associated Press’ Doug Ferguson.
The Procore Championship, which featured a new sponsor, also cut its purse, from $8.4 million last year to $6 million. Next month’s Sanderson Farms Championship, which will be the final edition of a long-running stop in Jackson, Mississippi, will offer less money: $7.6 million compared with last year’s $8.2 million. The same theme will play out in Las Vegas at the Shriners Children’s Open (down $1.4 million, to $7 million), in Mexico at the World Wide Technology Championship (down $1 million, to $7 million) and in Sea Island, Georgia, for the RSM Classic (down $400,000, to $8.4 million). The Zozo Championship in Japan remains flat at $8.5 million, but it offered $11 million two years ago. Only the Butterfield Bermuda Championship will play for a higher purse this fall, by $400,000, to $6.9 million. READ MORE
Tiger Woods underwent another back surgery, his sixth in the past 10 years, he disclosed on social media. Woods, 48, who played in only five tournaments this year – including three missed cuts and a withdrawal – said the microdecompression surgery of the lumbar spine was done to “alleviate the back spasms and pain I was experiencing throughout most of the 2024 season.” Woods typically plays two year-end exhibitions in early December: the Hero World Challenge, which benefits his foundation, and the PNC Championship in which he teams with his son, Charlie. READ MORE
Jordan Spieth anticipates returning to the PGA Tour “healthy and prepared for 2025” after undergoing surgery on his left wrist, he wrote on social media. Spieth, 31, a three-time major champion, has not won in 2½ years and has faded to No. 44 in the Official World Golf Ranking. READ MORE
Ludvig Åberg faces a “couple weeks of rehab and rest” after surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee, he said in a social-media post. Åberg, 24, of Sweden, will be the defending champion in the PGA Tour’s RSM Classic in late November at Sea Island, Georgia. READ MORE
The trial date in a $16 million contract dispute filed by former backers against PGA Tour player Tony Finau has been moved from next month to an undetermined date in 2025, according to the Deseret News of Salt Lake City, Utah. The continuance means that Finau, 35, a Utah native, will be able to compete in next month’s inaugural Black Desert Championship in St. George, the tour’s return to Utah after more than 60 years. READ MORE
The documentary “Full Swing” will return to Netflix for a third season, the streaming service announced on social media. The topics were not disclosed, though the first two editions took viewers behind the scenes with some of golf’s biggest stars. READ MORE
Brandt Snedeker was named as an assistant captain for next week’s Presidents Cup, U.S. captain Jim Furyk announced. Snedeker replaces Keegan Bradley, who recently was selected as a captain’s pick as a player for the September 26-29 matches against the Internationals at Royal Montreal (Canada) Golf Club and will captain the 2025 U.S. Ryder Cup team. READ MORE
Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler will challenge Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka in a PGA Tour vs. LIV Golf made-for-TV match, Golfweek’s Eamon Lynch reported. The high-profile matchup in Las Vegas, which GGP’s John Steinbreder advocated in a 2022 commentary, gives golf fans a taste of what they have been missing in the ongoing feud at the top of the professional game. READ MORE
Spain’s Jon Rahm has appealed fines levied by the DP World Tour in response to his defection late last year to LIV Golf and is cleared to play in the Spanish Open in two weeks. The move also opens a pathway for Rahm to qualify for next year’s European Ryder Cup team.
Rahm must meet the DP World Tour minimum of four events to retain membership and be eligible for the Ryder Cup. His only qualified start to date was at the Summer Olympics in France. READ MORE
LIV Golf, the Saudi-funded rival tour, will open its fourth season with its debut in Saudi Arabia, officials announced. The first four tournaments of 2025:
In its first three seasons, LIV played on weeks when the PGA Tour did not hold its top events. Though the rest of LIV’s 2025 schedule was not disclosed, the Saudi circuit has abandoned any such niceties with its first four stops next year amid a negotiating stalemate with the U.S. tour. The Riyadh tournament will be played opposite the WM Phoenix Open; Adelaide is up against the Genesis Invitational; Hong Kong is opposite the Arnold Palmer Invitational; and Singapore will be played during the Players Championship. READ MORE
Perhaps LIV Golf should change its edgy motto from “Golf, but louder” to “Golf, but faster.” That was the message delivered to England’s Richard Bland at last week’s LIV Golf Chicago event. In the first round, after his group received a pace-of-play warning, Bland was assessed a one-stroke penalty and fined $10,000, the tour announced. He also was dinged for a similar infraction last year in Spain. READ MORE
LIV Golf announced the hiring of five team general managers as the third-year tour seeks to build its franchise model: Nick Adams (Ripper GC), South Africa’s Richard Glover (Stinger GC), Jonas Mårtensson (Cleeks GC), Martin E. Kim (Iron Heads GC) and Jeff Koski (Legion XIII). READ MORE
LPGA commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan faced the media Saturday and took the blame for a transportation breakdown in which hundreds of outraged fans were unable to see Friday’s opening of the Solheim Cup.
“At the end of the day, I’m the leader of the organization and I have to own it,” Marcoux Samaan said.
Spectators were left waiting for hours Friday in off-site lots for an inadequate number of shuttle buses to Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Virginia, leaving an estimated half of the grandstand behind the first tee unoccupied when play began.
The LPGA adjusted its schedule and staffing and offered free tickets to angry fans who flooded the tour’s social-media feed. READ MORE
The 2026 Solheim Cup at Bernardus Golf in Cromvoirt, Netherlands, will be played September 11-13, the Ladies European Tour announced. READ MORE
TAP-INS
Remember the jarring Malbon sweater vest that Jason Day wore on Friday during the resumption of the postponed first round of the 2024 Masters, prompting Augusta National Golf Club officials to ask (order?) him to change it midround? The garment sold for $17,300 at a charity auction, Golf Magazine reported. READ MORE
Denmark’s Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, who won the recent Big Green Egg German Challenge for his third victory this season on the Challenge Tour, has earned an automatic promotion to the DP World Tour. READ MORE
Four Epson Tour players – China’s Yahui Zhang, American Lauren Stephenson, Spain’s Fatima Fernandez Cano and American Jessica Porvasnik – have clinched LPGA status for 2025, the developmental tour announced. They rank Nos. 1-4, respectively, on the Epson Tour’s season-long “Race for the card” standings. READ MORE
Compiled by Steve Harmon