Golf's Growing Divide on Tour

View From The Fairway by Derek Clements

NOTHING demonstrates the difference between the haves and the have-nots on the PGA Tour more than the Signature events.

When Sepp Straka won the Truist Championship he collected a cheque for $3.6m. On the same day, Ryan Fox holed a chip to claim the Myrtle Beach Classic for his first PGA Tour victory. His reward? $720,000. Admittedly, he also earned a two-year exemption but that is one hell of a difference in prize money.

(Image Credit: Kevin Diss Photography)

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You will know that the Signature Events are limited field tournaments designed to reward the tour’s very best players. So can somebody please explain to me why on earth it is that Rickie Fowler and Jordan Spieth have been receiving invitations to so many of these events?

Fowler is ranked as the world’s 127th-best golfer, while Spieth has now worked his way back up to 48th - but only with the help of these invitations.

The two men have got into these elite fields as a result of sponsor invites. And therein lies the problem - the criteria allows sponsors to invite golfers who do not otherwise qualify for these tournaments and their massive prize funds.

In Spieth’s defence, he has at least shown some kind of return to form in 2025.

But Fowler? He may well still be a fan favourite but in 10 starts this season ahead of the US PGA Championship his best finish was a tied 15th, ironically enough at the Truist. He also found his way into the US PGA, the second major of the year. When asked how, he replied that he had no idea.

There has been a great deal of resentment among the rank-and-file when it comes to the Signature Events and I totally understand why that would be. All that they succeed in doing is increasing the gap between the world’s very best players and the rest.

The PGA Tour is awash with money.

Consider this. We are still in May but before the US PGA, Rory McIlroy had already pocketed $13.25m after winning the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, The Players Championship and The Masters. Ludvig Aberg, in fifth place, had collected $5.7m. It is widely perceived that Scottie Scheffler has had a poor start to the year but his earnings stood at just shy of $5m.

A total of 32 players had earned in excess of $2m, 48 had banked at least $1.5m, and a staggering 67 golfers had picked up at least $1m.

These are staggering sums of money.

In case you are wondering, Fowler’s earnings stood at $500,000 and he languished in 106th place on the money list - unless he gets his act together and soon he is in serious danger of losing his full playing privileges at the end of the season.

In other words, he has done nothing to deserve his place in the biggest PGA Tour events. So is it any wonder that the rank-and-file are less than happy that Fowler should be receiving what is preferential treatment when he is doing nothing to deserve it.

Webb Simpson, whose game has fallen off a cliff, is another who has benefitted from sponsor invites. Why?

He has earned $132,000 and is in 164th place on the money list.

On the other hand, you have golfers such as Matt Wallace grinding it out week in, week out, playing wherever and whenever he can in the certain knowledge that unless he can find a win from somewhere then he has absolutely no chance whatsoever of playing in a Signature Event - or gain the Ryder Cup he so covets.

(Image Credit: Kevin Diss Photography)

When he complained about the gap, the late Grayson Murray was told by McIlroy to “play better’. It was not one of the Northern Irishman’s finest moments.

It takes a great deal of hard work and dedication to make it to the PGA Tour. Golfers such as Aberg take to it like a duck to water. But for many others it takes time to acclimatise - just ask Robert MacIntyre. The Scot suffered horribly for much of his maiden season until he made the breakthrough at last year’s Canadian Open.

He spoke of loneliness, of hours spent on his own in a hotel room and of how much he missed his friends and family. His answer was to get his father to carry his bag in Canada. That win changed everything for the Scot.

My worry is that the proliferation of Signature Events will make it all the more difficult for more stories like MacIntyre’s to be written.

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