The long summer months that saw hundreds of players battle to make it to the final week of the season has all come down to the Tour Championship as East Lake Golf Club hosts the top 30 players of the 2024 PGA Tour season for one final four-day fight for the FedEx Cup. With the playoffs beginning a few weeks ago, levels of players have been eliminated as the weeks progressed bringing us to the final group of players competing for part of the record $100 million total purse (FedEx bonus pool included).
The Tour Championship awards the best players in the world who played consistently enough throughout the year the opportunity to make life-changing money, as the purse continues to expand year to year. The difference between first and second in a regular PGA event is usually a difference of a few hundred thousand dollars. The difference between first and second in the Tour Championship? Only $12.5 million. Below is a breakdown of the placement payouts this week.
Place-Total
1-$25,000,000
2-$12,500,000
3-$7,500,000
4-$6,000,000
5-$5,000,000
6-$3,500,000
7-$2,750,000
8-$2,250,000
9-$2,000,000
10-$1,750,000
11-$1,075,000
12-$1,025,000
13-$975,000
14-$925,000
15-$885,000
16-$795,000
17-$775,000
18-$755,000
19-$735,000
20-$715,000
21-$670,000
22-$650,000
23-$630,000
24-$615,000
25-$600,000
26-$590,000
27-$580,000
28-$570,000
29-$560,000
30-$550,000
Now, to be fair, even with the continuous growth of the purse, the LIV Tour separation forced the PGA Tour’s hand in making a more-than-substantial increase in payouts in order to keep their biggest stars from jumping ship. Compared to Viktor Hovland’s 2023 payout from a year ago, first place this year pays almost $7 million more. \
One thing newer golf fans might be curious about when tuning into coverage today is you’ll notice each player is starting out with a score already below par. This was a change implemented by the Tour a few years ago in an attempt to create a more even playing field. You might ask yourself, how does giving other players more strokes make it even? All season long, each player receives points based on where they finish in each tournament. Those points accumulate over the season and into the playoffs until they reach the top 30 on the points list for the Tour Championship. However, once we get to the top 30 players, there is still a large margin between what the #1 ranked player accomplished over the season compared to what the #30th ranked player did. For example, Scottie Scheffler comes into the Tour Championship ranked first with six wins in 2024, including a Major win at The Masters. Justin Thomas brings up the rear at 30th with zero wins in 2024 and only five top 10 finishes. It would not be fair for both of these players to start at even par with each other with this much money on the line. So the Tour implemented a new “handicapping system” that rewards each player with a certain number of strokes to start the tournament. This week, Scheffler will start at -10 while Thomas will start even par. It makes the regular season play more valuable in terms of starting position for the Tour Championship, a change the PGA should have made a long time ago.
Below is the starting score for each player:
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