Money is important. Ask any player on the LPGA Tour or Ladies European Tour what she wants, and if it’s not at the top, you won’t go far down the list before you get to “raised purses.” So, what the R&A announced on Wednesday qualifies as a big deal.
In case you missed it, Martin Slumbers, the chief executive of the R&A, told the world on Wednesday that the purse for the AIG Women’s Open is, as of now, $5.8 million, an increase of $1.3 million. By next year it will increase at least another million to no less than $6.8 million. At the moment, this is the largest single-tournament purse in women’s golf and a momentous achievement for the R&A and the women’s game as a whole.
But, as you likely learned in Sunday School, or perhaps through the heartbreaks of life, money isn’t everything. Slumbers, to his credit, acknowledged as much.
“There should never be a race,” Slumbers said. “This is not a competition. This is about moving in a direction. And everyone's got to move at their own pace.”
He’s right. The last thing anyone wants to do is go to a sponsor who has poured their heart and soul into an event and say, ‘Hey, the R&A is ponying up north of $6 mil. What have you got?’ Communities and corporate partners who sponsor the LPGA Tour and LET bring professional golf to parts of the world that otherwise would never experience it. They expose young girls to the greatest female golfers in the world, up close and in person. Nobody wants to add undue pressure to these sponsors. Nobody wants those events to potentially go away.
Market forces dictate compensation in every profession. And scarcity drives price. Always has; always will. The laws of economics are like the law of gravity. You might not believe in them, but if you fall in the driveway, it’s still going to hurt.
The good news is the world has awakened to the value of women’s sports overall and women’s golf in particular.
Have there been better stories than the ones found in the women’s game in the last year? From Sophia Popov, who authored the sports moment of the decade a year ago when she won the AIG Women’s Open at Royal Troon, to Patty Tavatanakit bursting onto the scene at the ANA Inspiration, and Nelly Korda winning the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, vaulting to No. 1 in the Rolex Rankings and winning an Olympic gold medal in the course of six weeks, few sports have crated the drama of the LPGA Tour and none have done so with better athletes.
Has there been a more compelling fourth-place finish in any sport than what Aditi Ashok put together at the Olympic Games?
Has there been more week-long drama than what we saw at the Bank of Hope LPGA Match-Play hosted by Shadow Creek and won by Ally Ewing on her one-year wedding anniversary?
Is there a better Cinderella story in sports than what we saw out of Matilda Castren, who needed an LET victory to become eligible as a potential Solheim Cup pick and got it done with a win at the Gant Ladies Open in her home country of Finland?
How about the 60 Jessica Korda fired while playing with NFL star Larry Fitzgerald and television news anchor Bret Baier? Have you seen better this year?
Minjee Lee closing with a 64 and playing her last five holes in 4-under par to force a playoff and eventually win the Amundi Evian Championship.
Yuka Saso rallying from five shots down with nine holes to play to win the U.S. Women’s Open.
Ariya Jutanugarn winning in her native Thailand for the first time.
And let’s not forget Annika Sorenstam coming out of a 13-year retirement to capture the U.S. Senior Women’s Open in her first try.
The women’s game is in as good a place as it has ever been. Fans know it. Sponsors know it. Television executives are beginning to realize it. And the market is responding.
“We've been fortunate with the team we've got, with the championship we've got, to be able to move at the pace that we want to move,” Slumbers said of the purse increase. “I know I'm not the only one who shares this aspiration - and I know that there are a lot of people working very hard to move in this same direction - but it does take a lot of people working together on an event, and great sponsors, as well as great media and getting spectators to come watch, to be able to do (what we’ve done with the purse). And I hope we create a ripple, the same as other ripples have been created in the past. But this is our pace.”
Others will follow. In the meantime, players and fans will continue to drive demand, which will be filled as the best players in the world continue to get even better.
You know what happens from there. It’s a law. Just like gravity.
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