The LPGA announced its 2020 schedule on Friday and it features more prizemoney and two new tournaments in Florida.
The total purse for the 33-event season is $US75.1 million, up $5.1 million from 2019. Of the purses that have grown, the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship made the largest jump in prizemoney. The purse for that event is now $4.3 million, which is $450,000 more than it was in 2019.
“A $75.1 million total purse. That number is a testament to the support we are receiving from sponsors and industry partners around the globe,” LPGA commissioner Mike Whan said. “As I enter my second decade as commissioner, we find ourselves in a new phase of the LPGA Tour. We’ve grown, but now we flourish.”
The tour will travel to 11 countries in 2020. The two new events are the Gainbridge LPGA at Boca Rio Golf Club (January 23-26) and the Pelican Women’s Championship presented by DEX Imaging at Pelican Golf Club (May 14-17). The Blue Bay LPGA is back on the calendar, bringing the tour back to China. The event was not held in 2019 because of its shift from the late fall to the spring.
It’s a UL International Crown year, too, where eight teams of four from eight countries will compete at Centurion Club in England. Team South Korea the is defending champ.
The 2020 season will again culminate at the CME Group Tour Championship at Tibur´on Golf Club, where the winner’s share again will be $1.5 million. At the end of the season, there will also be more returning awards for season-long competitions – the AON Risk Reward Challenge with its $1 million bonus and the Leaders Top 10 a $100,000 bonus.
It will be easier to watch all of this, because 2020 will have the LPGA’s most television hours ever. Globally, there will be 500 hours of coverage, and seven events will air on network television.
The 2020 Olympics in Tokyo was a factor in building the schedule. A two-week break begins after the Evian Championship, which concludes on July 26. The first women’s Olympic round will be played on August 5. The Olympics’ closing ceremony is on August 9, and the tour restarts that following weekend on August 13 with the Aberdeen Standard Investments Ladies Scottish Open.
The last qualifying event for the Olympics will be the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship. The field is 60 players, with the top 15 players on the Rolex World Ranking automatically qualifying, with the caveat that there cannot be more than four players per country.
