Chris DiMarco said that purses on the PGA Tour Champions are “kind of a joke” while the rest of men’s professional golf is in the midst of a cash explosion.
DiMarco, who banked nearly $23 million in career earnings on the PGA Tour, said on Golf’s “Subpar” podcast that he hopes that LIV Golf buys the senior circuit and ramps up the prize funds.
“Let’s play for a little real money out here,” he said on the podcast. “I mean, this is kind of a joke when we’re getting $2 million. There were like seven guys last week (at the PGA Tour’s Players Championship) that made more money than our purses.”
DiMarco was referring to The Players, which had a record $25 million purse. Five players walked away with more than $1 million, while those in a tie for 19th nearly made as much as Padraig Harrington took home for winning last week’s senior event at the Hoag Classic. Nearly all of the Champions Tour’s regular-season purses are less than $3 million.
DiMarco described himself as “fortunate” to have played in the big-money era spawned by Tiger Woods, and that the senior tour represents a “second life” for much of the over-50 set, where DiMarco has four top-10s in 114 starts.
“I got to play for some good money, but not like the kind of money these guys are playing for,” he said. “It seems like every week there’s another person passing me on the career money list (94th) in just a couple years being on Tour.”
That led to a discussion about the players who left the PGA Tour for LIV.
DiMarco said if he were offered similar contracts in the prime of his career, in the mid-2000s, he would have said: “See you later. I’m gone.”
“Golf has come a long way, and it should. I don’t fault any of those guys for going to LIV,” he said. “It’d be a purely monetary thing for me. You’re talking generational money these guys are making, and it’d be nice to have that in the bank and have my kids taken care of.”
