LPGA Tour purses keep getting bigger
LPGA Tour sets another record with $127.5M in prize money for 2025By DOUG FERGUSONAP Golf WriterThe Associated Press
The LPGA Tour will play for $127.5 million in official prize money in 2025, another record for the circuit that has worked independently of the PGA Tour for 75 years.
The schedule announced Wednesday at the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship in Naples, Florida, has a few moving parts that include new tournaments in Utah and Mexico, the end of a 40-year run in Ohio and its Founders Cup merging into a previous tournament.
The official prize money does not include the $2 million International Crown, held every two years as the only team event in golf where countries compete against each other; and the $2 million Grant Thornton Invitational, a mixed team event with the PGA Tour.
The LPGA Tour is playing for $123.75 million in official prize money in 2024.
The tour also announced that Chicago-based CME Group has extended its sponsorship of the Race to CME Globe for two years through 2027.
The CME Group Tour Championship has more than doubled its purse to $11 million, with $4 million going to the winner this week. The only bigger payoff in women’s sport is the WTA Finals. Coco Gauff won $4.8 million earlier this month.
LPGA Tour Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan was scheduled to speak later Wednesday.
Among the tweaks to the 2025 schedule was starting two weeks later for a slightly longer offseason. The Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions in Florida starts Jan. 30.
Cognizant no longer sponsors the $3 million Founders Cup in New Jersey. Instead, the Founders Cup replaces the LPGA Drive On Championship in Bradenton, Florida, with a $2 million purse.
New to the schedule is a return to Mexico for the Riviera Maya Open in Cancun, and the Black Desert Championship in Utah, which hosted a PGA Tour event on the same course this fall.
The LPGA also put the Hawaii stop on the front end of the fall Asia swing, instead of behind it, as players made their way back to the mainland. It also moved its first major, the Chevron Championship, back one week. That keeps it from being held the week after the Masters.
Ten of the tournaments had slight increases in prize money. All but two tournaments, the Honda LPGA Thailand and the ShopRite LPGA Classic, have at least $2 million purses. Ten tournaments have prize money of $3 million or more, with the new FM Championship at the TPC Boston raising its purse to $4.1 million.
That doesn’t include the majors or the CME Group Tour Championship. The U.S. Women’s Open, run by the USGA, again has the highest purse at $12 million. It will be played next year at Erin Hills in Wisconsin, where Brooks Koepka won his first major in the 2017 U.S. Open.
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