The LPGA Tour is positioned to have a banner year in 2022, as a new schedule featuring 34 official events was released on Friday.
All the season’s tournaments combined will offer $85.7 million in prize money — a new record for the oldest professional women’s sports organization in America.
“The stage is set for 2022 to be one of the most exciting years in the history of the LPGA Tour, with the addition of new events, the largest total purse ever, over 500 hours of broadcast television and a collective commitment to being the leading women’s professional sports property in the world,” LPGA Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan said in a press release.
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The new events Marcoux Samaan mentioned are the JTBC Championship at Palos Verdes, which will be held at Palos Verdes Golf Club in late April, and September’s Kroger Queen City Championship presented by P&G in Cincinnati.
In addition to the new events, nine existing tournaments have increased their purse sizes, most notably the season-ending CME Tour Championship, which will increase to $7 million, with $2 million awarded to the winner and $40,000 guaranteed to every competitor who qualifies, making it the largest first-place prize in women’s golf history.
The purse for the Chevron Championship — the first women’s major of the year, which will be played at Mission Hills CC in Rancho Mirage, Calif. for the final time next year — also increased significantly, adding nearly $2 million for a total offering of $5 million.
“I think that the LPGA is in an amazingly strong position, but I also feel there’s a huge opportunity for growth,” Marcoux Samaan said in a state-of-the-LPGA roundtable following the release of the new schedule. “This is our time. The momentum is with us.”
