LPGA Tour sets another record with $127.5 million in prize money for 2025

The LPGA Tour will play for $127.5 million in official prize money in 2025, another record for the circuit, which has operated independently of the PGA Tour for 75 years.

The schedule, announced Wednesday at the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship in Naples, Fla., has a few moving parts that include new tournaments in Utah and Mexico, the end of a 40-year run in Ohio and its Founders Cup merged into a former tournament.

The official prize pool does not include the $2 million International Crown, held every two years as the only team event in golf where countries compete against each other; and the $2 million Grant Thornton Invitational, a mixed team event with the PGA Tour.

The LPGA Tour is playing for $123.75 million in official prize money in 2024.

The Tour also announced that Chicago-based CME Group has extended its sponsorship of the Race to CME Globe for two years through 2027.

The CME Group Tour Championship has more than doubled its purse to $11 million, with $4 million going to the winner this week. The only bigger payoff in women’s sports is the WTA Finals. Coco Gauff won $4.8 million earlier this month.

The Players Championship ($4.5 million) and the US Open ($4.3 million) are the only golf tournaments that have paid more than what the winner of the CME Group Tour Championship gets.

“The metrics and the numbers are eye-popping for the growth we’ve had over the last several years,” LPGA Commissioner Mollie Marcoux Samaan said Wednesday.

“We’re really proud that other women’s sports are starting to get the financial investment that women’s golf has enjoyed, and we’re proud of the role we’ve played in elevating women’s sports in general,” she said. “The best women in the world must earn a living that matches their level of excellence, and we fight every day to achieve this goal.”

Prize money has risen almost 90% in four years, led by the majors and CME Group, which increase the purses at the biggest events.

Marcoux Samaan said the LPGA was trying to improve the geographic flow of the schedule and that it was avoiding playing the same week as five of the six biggest events in men’s golf next year. It is only played in the same week as the US Open (Meijer LPGA Classic).

The LPGA will be off during The Players Championship, Masters, PGA Championship, British Open and Ryder Cup.

The Chevron Championship, the first major, was moved back a week so it doesn’t start just four days after the Masters.

Marcoux Samaan also said the LPGA will have fully subsidized health insurance for its players next year. Previously, they had an $1,800 stipend in 2021 that grew to $4,000 this year. Full coverage is “something we’ve been working on in this organization for a really long time, and we’re really proud of that,” she said.

Among the tweaks to the 2025 schedule was starting two weeks later for a slightly longer offseason. The Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions in Florida starts on January 30th.

Cognizant is no longer sponsoring the $3 million Founders Cup in New Jersey. Instead, the Founders Cup replaces the LPGA Drive On Championship in Bradenton, Florida, with a $2 million purse.

New on the schedule is a return to Mexico for the Riviera Maya Open in Cancun and the Black Desert Championship in Utah, which hosted a PGA Tour event at the same course this fall.

The LPGA also put the Hawaii stop at the front end of the fall’s Asia swing, instead of behind it when the players came back to the mainland.

Ten of the tournaments had a small increase in prize money. All but two tournaments, the Honda LPGA Thailand and the ShopRite LPGA Classic, have purses of at least $2 million. Ten tournaments have prize money of $3 million or more, with the new FM Championship at TPC Boston raising its purse to $4.1 million.

It does not include majors or the CME Group Tour Championship. The US Women’s Open, run by the USGA, again has the highest purse at $12 million. It will be played next year at Erin Hills in Wisconsin, where Brooks Koepka won his first major at the 2017 US Open.

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