“Secure 170 million won.”
The prize money for maintaining seeding on the Korean Ladies Professional Golf (KLPGA) Tour is set to increase and break the 150 million won barrier for the first time this year.
The KLPGA Tour has nine tournaments remaining before the SK Shields-SK Telecom Open concludes on Nov. 12, including the OK Financial Group Eatman Open ($800 million in prize money), which kicks off on Nov. 15 at Club 72 Skye Course in Incheon.
With 23 of its 32 events completed, the KLPGA Tour is entering the final stretch of the season, and the battle for the top 60 spots to secure next year’s seeding is hotly contested.
With nine tournaments remaining, 60th-ranked Lee Chae-eun has earned KRW 113.89 million. Li Xueying (CHN), ranked 61st, has also earned KRW184.96 million, and 68th-ranked Hong Jin-young (KRW158.9878) has earned more than KRW100 million, making it an unseen war for the 60th spot.
As of now, players are predicting that this year’s seeding threshold will surpass 150 million won for the first time ever and will be decided around 170 million won.
The KLPGA Tour’s seeding requirement is 60th on the money list. As the prize pool has grown each year, the amount of money needed to maintain seeding has also increased.
Until 2013 (13.15 billion won), when the total prize pool was around 10 billion won, a player only needed to earn 50 million won in a season to remain seeded. However, since the late 2010s, the situation has changed slightly as the total prize pool has exceeded 20 billion won. Starting with 99.29 million won in 2016, the prize pool remained in the low 90 million won range until 2018 with 98.49 million won, and then in 2019, the prize pool for maintaining seeding exceeded 100 million won for the first time. That year, 60th-ranked Lee Yi-pum earned 125.167 million won to secure his seeding for the next season.
Since then, the pace of prize pool growth has been even steeper. With the exception of 2020, which was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ahn Song-i earned 125.38 million won in 2021 and Jeong Ji-min earned 14.35 million won in 2022 to secure her seeding at No. 60.
The KLPGA Tour is having a “record-breaking” season this year. With a total prize pool of 31.8 billion won across 32 tournaments, it is the largest in history.
If you don’t finish in the top 60 on the money list, you’ll be pushed into the “race from hell” to secure your seeding for next year. Players must finish in the top 20 of the Dream Tour and the seeded events to qualify for the rest of the tournaments, except for invitations, previous year’s prize money, and some tournaments that grant spots based on various rankings.
Players at the bottom of the money list are often forced to play on the Dream Tour during the season to avoid the race from hell.
Jung Min Moon, ranked 78th on the KLPGA’s regular tour money list, won the 13th edition of the Dream Tour, which concluded today, to move up to fifth on the Dream Tour money list and secure a spot on next year’s regular tour, which offers up to 20 spots.
“My original goal was to win one Dream Tour event and be in the top 20 on the money list and go directly to the regular tour,” said Moon. “Now that I’ve won, I want to go to the regular tour as the Dream Tour money winner,” he said, revealing his new goal.메이저놀이터
Avoiding seeding is one of the last bastions of the lower-ranked players. Lee Hyun-joo, who went to the seeding for four consecutive years from 2018 to 2021, said at a sponsorship signing ceremony with Doosan E&C earlier this year, “The seeding is a place no one wants to go. It’s depressing and dreary from the air,” she said earlier this year at a sponsorship signing with Doosan E&C.