This weekend’s $8.7-million Valspar Championship recently announced a new title sponsorship deal through 2030. This week, 10 of the top 27 players in the World Golf Rankings are in the field at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course.
Other prominent names competing the Tampa-area event include Jordan Spieth and Will Zalatoris.
It’s an impressive field, especially for a “non-signature” event with a modest — by PGA Tour standards — purse.
Though many questions remain about its future, the PGA Tour seems to be on mostly steady ground at events in the Carolinas.
Truist has signed a title sponsor extension through 2031 for its PGA TOUR “signature” event at Charlotte’s Quail Hollow Club, complete with a $20-million purse. With the PGA Championship scheduled at Quail Hollow, this year’s Truist will be played at Philadelphia Cricket Club.
The Heritage Classic at Harbour Town on Hilton Head Island, another $20-million event that attracts the game’s top stars, is on a year-to-year deal with title sponsor RBC. A PGA Tour favorite stop along Calibogue Sound since 1969, pundits seem unworried about the Heritage’s future — with or without RBC. Boeing remains as a significant sponsor.
Here in Greensboro, the Wyndham had a deal as title sponsor at Sedgefield Country Club through 2026. Given the investments made by the club and the PGA Tour in Sedgefield’s practice facilities, the Greensboro tournament’s place on the Tour seems secure with its $8.2-million purse. Plus, the players routinely praise the Donald Ross design.
The creation of the LIV Tour, and now the slow movement in negotiations for a working relationship between LIV and the PGA Tour, brought tournament sponsorship deals under more media attention.
After LIV signed PGA Tour superstars such as Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed and Dustin Johnson, and later added Jon Rahm, Cameron Smith, Tyrrell Hatton and Joaquin Niemann, the PGA Tour scrambled to please its top remaining stars, creating signature events that required some sponsors to immediately double their sponsorship contributions.
