Slowly but surely, the LPGA Tour is becoming a more lucrative place. Starting in 2019, the CME Group Tour Championship will dish out $1.5 million to winner of the year-end event.
The purse bump — up to $5 million total from $2.5 million this year — will match the biggest purse on the LPGA Tour schedule, with the winner’s share being as great or greater than many full tournaments from 2018.
The LPGA Tour regular season will serve as a points race in which the top 60 players will meet at Tiburón Golf Club in November and battle it out for the big money. The five major tournaments will carry 25% more points than other LPGA events.
“With the Race to the CME Globe, we already had a grand finish to the LPGA Tour season,” With these changes, it’s now bigger money, smaller field, and any player in the Tour Championship can win — game on!”
That last bit is important to note. The year-long race for points only qualifies players for the event. All 72 holes that follow will be played as a normal tournament, just with a juicier prize. This diverges in comparison to the PGA Tour’s year-long FedEx Cup race in which the Tour Championship will have players beginning with a head start — as many as 10 strokes — over other competitors.
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