As guddles down the back of the couch go, this is a pretty decent one. The European Tour yesterday announced a huge increase to the prize fund of its season-ending Race to Dubai showpiece. In fact, it will now offer the most prize money for a single tournament victory in the history of golf.
The winner of the DP World Tour Championship title in November will receive $3 million (£2.33m), more than double the $1.33m last year’s victor Danny Willett earned.
READ MORE: European Tour unveils golf's biggest prize
The Dubai bounty is bigger than any of the major championships and eclipses the $2.16m dished out to the winner of the US Open, which was the highest in the game until the European Tour squeezed the udders of this particular cash cow.
The two preceding Rolex Series events that make up the dripping, money-basted finale to the season – the Turkish Airlines Open and the Nedbank Challenge – will both see large hikes to the first prize, although not the overall purses which remain at $7m and $7.5m respectively.
In addition, the equivalent points awarded in the season-long Race to Dubai will also rise. In Turkey, it goes from 7000 to 9000, the Nedbank rises from 7,500 to 10,000 while the Tour Championship leaps from 8000 to 12,000.
Amid these increases, there are cuts too. The field in Turkey will be reduced from 78 to 70, the Nedbank will do down from 72 to 60 and the Tour Championship will see only the top 50 golfers on the order of merit taking part, instead of the leading 60. Got it?
If your abacus has packed up, you’re probably thinking all this just resembles a muddle of mind-mangling figures broadly equivalent to the numbers segment in an episode of Countdown. The power-that-be at the European Tour, meanwhile, will be hoping it all adds up to star attraction.
Let’s face it, the response of the leading lights of the European Tour to the climax of the 2018 campaign was decidedly lukewarm.
Only Justin Rose, Tommy Fleetwood and Thorbjorn Olesen, all members of the victorious Ryder Cup team, played in Turkey. Sergio Garcia and Rory McIlroy were the only two from that side who competed at the Nedbank. And Rose and Paul Casey didn’t even travel to the end-of year bonanza in Dubai.
McIlroy, who still moves the needle like no other in this continent at least, has, thus far, only committed to two European Tour events in 2019.
The shrugging, might-play-in-this, probably-won’t-do-that approach of the main movers and shakers remains one of Keith Pelley’s major challenges. The chief executive of the tour doesn’t have it easy as he tries to drive up tournament purses to the point where the all-powerful PGA Tour is even partly challenged. Sponsors want big-name guarantees.
As ever, the effervescent Pelley remains bullish. “The changes we have announced are designed to increase the excitement around the end of the season for our fans, as well as encourage greater top player participation in our final three events,” he said upon announcing the news.
Will money talk? Time will tell.
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