How do you put a price on value in elite golf?

If you’re into golf for the money, then try gambling instead…you’ll have better luck there,” goes the oft repeated refrain. Given the low success rate of golf professionals who make the grade to qualify and get playing rights on various international circuits, let alone compete and make money, that’s good advice. That holds true not just for golf but any professional sport. 

There is, however, an elite class of exceptions that proves the rule: the small legion of elite players who ply their trade on tourneys like the DP World Tour (Europe), the PGA Tour (US), LIV Golf Tour and even the Asian Tour. On these premier circuits, players compete week after week in events with fabulous purses—all the way from $400,000 (around ₹3.3 crore) in Taiwan Glass Taifong Open (Asian Tour) to the $25 million Players Championship (PGA Tour). 

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Till a few years back, specifically before the advent of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Tour, there was a clear hierarchy in place. Players made their way up from national tourneys to continental ones in Asia, then Europe, with the goal of finally competing for the highest stakes at the PGA Tour that enjoyed a monopoly at the top of the heap. Along came LIV Golf Tour in 2022 and everything changed. The new tour began weaning away some of the top pros from the PGA Tour with astonishing signing bonuses, fewer but big-money events and a more relaxed playing schedule. 

Broadcast rights are where most of the moolah lies for professional sports tourneys and the PGA Tour is no exception. Players like Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa, and Scottie Scheffler are those who move the needle when it comes to viewership and fan interest. According to a recent report by Josh Carpenter of the Sports Business Journal, US viewing figures for Sunday’s final round of the first event of the Playoffs—the FedEx St. Jude Classic—were down 30% on last year. 

It was already known that the viewership figures for the Open Championship in April this year had plummeted by 20% compared to 2023. One of the factors believed to have weaned fans from the final day’s action at the St. Jude Classic is a duel between Brooks Koepka and Jon Rahm, who battled down the stretch at a LIV Tour event at the same time. Clearly, retaining top players has become critical for the PGA Tour. 

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Ergo a significant increase in the tournament purses on the PGA Tour (LIV events started with a $20 million kitty)—a bit of a windfall if you will, as the PGA Tour dips into its coffers just to retain its top players. The FedEx Cup—a season-long competition on the PGA Tour that culminates with a series of Playoff-style events—is a case in point. 

This weekend will see the grand finale of the cup at the Tour Championship and the winner will win an eye-watering $25 million. The also-ran will make half of that; all the way down to the 30th spot which awards just over half-a-million dollars. In 2024, the total purse for the FedEx Cup is over $100 million—a significant jump from the $35 million in 2007 (when the first edition of the cup was held). The winner’s spoils have gone up from $10 million (2007) to $25 million this year. More pertinently, the winner’s share of the winnings has gone up $7 million from 2023. 

“In this era of inflated purses, does $25 million still get your attention…?” At the penultimate playoff event—the BMW Championship—that was played last week, the second-ranked golfer on the planet, Xander Schauffele, deftly evaded being drawn into a discussion about the FedEx Cup prize money. “It’s interesting to me, I think maybe golf is a gentleman’s game and you’re not supposed to talk about money, but all the media wants to do is talk about money,” he said. 

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Schauffele’s exasperation with the question is understandable given how often the subject  has come up at pressers recently, but it’s certainly a valid question. While sweetening the pot at the FedEx Cup and other big events year on year is de rigueur, there’s been a lot of talk in the media about the bigger purses not being indicative of an increase in value—for sponsors or the fans—but a consequence of two premier golf tours vying for primacy. 

There’s public fatigue with the internecine rivalry. Even though the tours signed a “framework agreement”, to “reunify the world of golf”, in June 2023, there’s no sign of a working partnership and the tours continue to operate independently. At the BMW presser, Schauffele suggested that professional golf is being unfairly targeted by the media. “When I look at other sports, when someone gets a $300 million contract, there’s all these positive comments about how someone got their bag or they’ve worked so hard to get this and they deserve it, things like that,” he said, reiterating that for players in the top echelon, money isn’t the driving force. 

“Winning $25 million would be really cool and really nice, but I don’t think it’s going to change my life, and I can tell you if I lose and play bad, I’m going to be pretty upset about playing bad and not being able to peak at the right time,” he said. If he does win the FedEx Cup, Schauffele would have made $43 million—the highest ever in a season. But this year, the cup is really Scottie Scheffler’s to lose: the world No.1 has been in imperious form—notching up seven victories and an Olympic gold—raking in about $29 million in the season. If he wins, then he’ll take his season’s tally to over $50 million. And when you make that kind of money, then it’s rarely about the money. 

Meraj Shah is a Delhi-based writer, golfer and television producer.

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