LPGA Tournament Purses
Is it me or is there an incredibly large discrepancy between the LPGA and PGA tournament purses? Looking at the disbursement of money from this past weekend’s PGA and LPGA events respectively, it’s quite shocking to see that the women golfers are playing for less than a third of what the men are playing for. Granted, neither of these tournaments are top-tier events (or middle-tier for that matter), but I think the purses are indicative of the average tournaments on both tours.
So what’s causing the discrepancy? Many things, not the least of which is the TV money that the tours rely on heavily to pad their tournament coffers. The PGA tour just recently renegotiated their TV contract and it’s no surprise that their ratings and hence their purses continue to grow as the legend of Tiger continues to grow. Also, as any PGA tournament director will tell you, having Tiger in the field can possible triple attendance, which leads to higher ratings, which leads to more merchandise being sold. Annika Sorenstam is the LPGA’s “Tiger Woods”, but I’m not sure her participation creates the same negative or positive impact on tournaments the way Tiger’s does.
So what can the LPGA do to increase the total purse amount? Marketing, marketing, marketing. The year started off with a slew of adds touting the “fresh, young faces” of the LPGA”, and other ads touting “these girls can play!”. There is no doubt that the quality of play on the LPGA is first-rate, and the tour is incredibly deep with talent, both domestic and international.
It wasn’t that many years ago that the LPGA was full of 30-something soccer-mom type of players that no doubt could play golf, but it wasn’t exciting and quite frankly, they looked like Aunt Edna from down at the country store. Yes, attractiveness sells tickets. It’s not a coincidence that in the last couple of years that Paula Creamer, Natalie Gulbis, Michelle Wie, Lorena Ochoa, Cristie Kerr, and many others have made watching the LPGA more enjoyable. Maybe that’s a chauvinistic in some eyes, but it’s cold, hard, facts. It’s also not a coincidence that the aforementioned girls are outstanding players on the LPGA tour.
It behooves Carolyn Bivens (LPGA Comish) to negotiate hard at the next round of TV talks to get the LPGA the kind of purses it desperately deserves.
(The table below lists the top-10 finishers of this past weekend’s tournaments and their respective payouts.)
| PGA |
|
| LPGA |
|
| Ben Curtis | $900,000.00 |
| Jeong Jang | $270,000 |
| Billy Andrade | $330,000.00 |
| Julieta Granada | $166,000 |
| Padraig Harrington | $330,000.00 |
| Marcy Hart | $106,000 |
| Nick O’Hern | $330,000.00 |
| Brittany Lang | $106,000 |
| Steve Stricker | $330,000.00 |
| Mi Hyun Kim | $74,981 |
| Ben Crane | $167,500.00 |
| Gloria Hee Jung Park | $49,533 |
| Jeff Gove | $167,500.00 |
| Lorena Ochoa | $49,533 |
| Brett Quigley | $167,500.00 |
| Sherri Steinhauer | $49,533 |
| Robert Allenby | $140,000.00 |
| Wendy Ward | $49,533 |
| Daniel Chopra | $140,000.00 |
| Karine Icher | $32,101 |
| Total Purse: $5,000,000 |
|
| Total Purse: $1,800,000 |
|