The LPGA Tour and CME Group introduced a handbag enhance for the season finale that will see the winner take residence $4 million.
Getty Images
NAPLES, Fla. — LPGA Tour execs are set to see a file payday within the close to future.
Thanks to a historic funding from CME Group, the LPGA Tour Championship purse — already the most important within the ladies’s sport — will enhance from $7 million to $11 million subsequent season. The winner’s share will enhance from $2 million to $4 million, with each participant within the discipline assured to earn at the least $55,000 for the week.
The title sponsor will additionally lengthen their partnership with the LPGA Tour by two further years.
“I am trying to be a catalyst for women’s golf,” mentioned CME Group CEO Terry Duffy. “We’re being a bit of a catalyst and I think we pushed the majors, which is more important.”
With a handbag of $11 million, the CME Group Tour Championship joins the U.S. Women’s Open in having the most important purse in tour historical past. The purse can also be bigger than many on the PGA Tour, save for the majors and elevated occasions.
“This partnership extension with CME Group is extremely important and underscores the growth and strength of the LPGA,” LPGA commissioner Marcoux Samaan mentioned in an announcement. “CME Group has been pushing the LPGA forward at every step of our evolution since 2011, and with this extension they are once again helping take the LPGA, women’s golf and women’s sports to unprecedented heights.”
The historic inflow of money comes only one yr after a tense episode between CME Group and the LPGA final fall. The incident featured Duffy trying to honor the LPGA execs at a pre-tournament dinner earlier than the 2022 occasion. However, when the lights have been turned on to highlight the gamers, there have been none to be discovered.
“It’s an embarrassment to a company of my size and an embarrassment to me personally,” Duffy later told Golfweek. “I am exceptionally disappointed with the leadership of the LPGA.”
The episode had some gamers and tour management nervous that CME may pull their sponsorship {dollars} all collectively. Instead, Duffy has opted to double down on his dedication to the ladies’s sport.
“My commitment to the LPGA and my commitment to St. Jude will never change,” Duffy mentioned. “But I think Mollie, we got together throughout the year and talked about a lot of the different things and still do, and I think that helped give me more confidence to come to this point today to extend our relationship.”
The $4 million to the winner is a historic determine for ladies’s golf as simply two gamers in LPGA Tour historical past have ever made extra all through a whole season. This season’s cash chief, world No. 1 Lilia Vu, has made simply over $3.2 million with the season finale nonetheless to play.
“I always wanted this to be a premier event,” Duffy mentioned. “[And] sometimes you need dollars to make it a premier event.”
Source link
