Korn Ferry Tour announces significant increase to purses over next 2 years

Korn Ferry Tour players will soon be getting a significant raise. According to a release from the development tour, purses will increase over the next two seasons with each event having a minimum purse of $1 million by 2023.

“The Korn Ferry Tour continues to play a massive role in delivering a pipeline of future stars to the PGA Tour on a consistent basis,” Korn Ferry Tour President Alex Baldwin said in a statement. “Today’s announcement is another step in ensuring the Tour will continue to attract the best young talent while providing higher-quality playing opportunities for the entire membership.”

The increases were approved by the PGA Tour policy board last March, but because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the changes were pushed back by a year.

The long-time top development tour has been a springboard to the PGA Tour since the early 90s, but money has been hard to come by on the circuit. From 1990-92, the total purse for the season was $3 million. And though the purses have increased since then, money still lags far behind the PGA Tour.

The 2019 money leader, Scottie Scheffler, earned $565,368 during his Player-of-the-Year campaign. If he were on the PGA Tour that same season, he would have ranked 159th on the money list.

The purse inflation will represent a 66.7 percent increase over the next two seasons, while Korn Ferry Tour Finals events will increase by 50 percent over that same time.