The PGA Tour made the difficult decision Thursday night to cancel the 2020 Players Championship, citing growing concerns and public health actions around the spread of coronavirus.
However, the Tour will still be paying out the purse to the field, sort of.
Earlier in the day, the Tour sought to play their upcoming schedule with no fans, starting with Friday at TPC Sawgrass. However, as more public entertainment venues and companies closed their doors -- including Walt Disney World in Orlando -- the Tour saw a need to change their plans. Their decision, though, wiped out a chance for 144 players to compete for an unprecedented $15 million purse.
That's why the Tour announced Friday morning that it would be paying the starting field half of the stated purse, paying out in equal amounts since the entire field was not able to complete play on Thursday.
With a $7.5 million payout pool and 144 players, each player will receive $52,083.33 as part of the 2020 Players Championship purse payout.
Under PGA Tour regulations, the Tour was not required to pay out any of the purse to the field.
"If less than one official round of the tournament is completed as the result of any cancellation, the host organization shall not be required to pay any prize money and shall refund any dues paid for limited PGA Tour memberships by nonmember entrants," the Tour's player handbook states.
However, with The Players and the next four scheduled, PGA Tour-sanctioned events -- the Valspar Championship, the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, the Corales Puntacana Resort and Club Championship and the Valero Texas Open -- now cancelled, the PGA Tour made the right choice to pay out to this field as they won't have an opportunity to make money for the next month.
