DP World Tour is Reminder That More Isn't Better When It Comes to Events With Lesser Purses
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Two golf tournaments concluded in the United States on Sunday, with Henrik Stenson winning the $25 million LIV Golf event and Tony Finau winning the $8.4 million Rocket Mortgage Classic on the PGA Tour.
While the two events were the headliners, on the other side of the Atlantic, just up the road from the Old Course at St. Andrews where the British Open was contested two weeks ago, the DP World Tour concluded the Hero Open with a $1.79 million purse at the Fairmount St. Andrews.
If this seems like a disconnect between purses on either side of the Atlantic, you're absolutely correct. And it may never change in any significant way.
Five years into playing golf for a living, Crocker, an American, won for the first time as a pro with a one-shot win over Englishman Eddie Pepperell, cashing a career-best winner’s check of $304,000.
Crocker’s not complaining, but the winner of the LIV event banked $4 million and the PGA Tour winner took $1,512,000 million -- both exceeded the total purse of the Hero. It’s just plain sad.
And concerning.
Several players competing in the Hero this week confirmed they had been concerned with the future of the DP World Tour at the beginning of the year, but with the DP World Tour and PGA Tour announcing an expanded strategic alliance on June 28, they now believe the DP World Tour is in a better position moving forward.
“We need to strengthen our fields, put on great quality events,” said Oliver Wilson, a 20-year pro. “When we do that, and when we focus on things like that, we have an amazing events and great sponsor interaction. And it's a phenomenal place to play. Because you get to travel, you get to travel to good places, play good golf courses and get looked after well, and that experience of playing on tour is very important to a lot of us.”
In discussions with officials of the DP World Tour, Wilson believes there should be as many playing opportunities as possible, which was the guiding principle of the tour in the past. That's being reviewed and will eventually be adjusted to a policy of creating bigger and better events, but fewer of them.
Wilson's recent career has consisted of lesser events due to his lower status category, which is due to his lack of success.
But Wilson also understands that making cuts needs to be something other than a losing proposition. He supports eliminating the lesser events, which may fundamentally impact his ability to play.
At Hero, Wilson made the cut but earned only $9,655, not nearly enough to pay for expenses for the week.
“With COVID, we think everyone was worried about playing opportunities,” Wilson said. “We ended up having way too many and playing a lot of very poor golf courses, weak fields, no fans, no spectators, no fan experience. And that's not what we need.”
None of the politics of LIV Golf or the DP World/PGA Tour alliance were on Crocker’s mind Sunday when he faced a 5-footer on the 72nd hole to win.
Having missed nine consecutive cuts in 2022 from January through early May, it’s understandable that Crocker would a disinterested party in professional golf’s current storylines.
After the first nine missed weekends, and nine more events after that, Crocker is a winner for the first time.
“It’s awesome, it just shows that you don’t know what this game will bring you,” Crocker said. “We go out every day trying our hardest. We can play terrible for a long time and then all of a sudden you have a week like this where every bounce seemed to go my way, putts dropped, I hit the ball beautifully. It makes me appreciate this game I play and what I get to do for a living.”
While it’s great to see Crocker win this week and Scotland’s Richie Ramsey end a five-year drought last week at the Cazoo Classic in England, the lesser events like Cazoo, Hero and next week's Cazoo Open in Wales need to be dropped from the schedule or upgraded with better purses, venues and fields to strengthen the tour.
“Obviously, you want to create playing opportunities. Unfortunately, these events after the stretch we've had have been pretty weak fields,” New Zealand's Ryan Fox said. “In terms of TV, in terms of the sponsors, they probably don't get as much out of having a weak field as what some of the bigger events do. So, I think in terms of the tour, I think, yeah, we'd have to contract a little bit.”
Fox, who traveled from his home in New Zealand during the pandemic, which included two-week quarantines when he made it back, doesn’t see anything wrong with having a week off here and there in the middle of the season.
“We're in a place going forward with obviously a DP World sponsorship coming in and the PGA Tour agreement coming in, we can pick our schedule a little bit better going forward,” Fox said. “And I think most members would probably prefer to have a few less events and have stronger fields and better world ranking points than having an event week in and week out.”
One dilemma that now seems to plague both the DP and PGA Tours is the independent contractor concept.
LIV doesn’t have this issue; it contracts most of its 48 players and requires participation, which guarantees fields for future sponsors and fans.
Wilson wondered aloud if the independent contractor concept needs to be revamped.
“One of the biggest problems is there's been this thing where we're independent contractors and you probably don't want to force players to play in certain events,” Wilson said. “Never understood it personally; I have no issue. I've been told that you have to play $7 million events. I've played in those events. And I've got to a point where, yes, I could understand why you would miss them. But it's not the end of the world to be forced to play in big events.
"So, I think having less events, yeah, 35 events and maybe a handful of them you have to play to guarantee strength of fields for sponsors. I don't I really see a problem with that.”