BMW PGA Championship: Tee times, prize money as LIV players compete amongst PGA rivals
Billy Horschel will tee it up Thursday at the BMW PGA Championship in England to defend his 2021 title against PGA, LIV and DP World Tour competitors.
The groups to watch on Thursday and Friday are made up of PGA Tour superstars who have extra motivation this weekend. It’s not about the money, although the $8 million purse and $1.3 million for the winner is nothing to sneeze at, but McIlroy, Fitzpatrick, Rahm and Horschel want to outplay the LIV gang.
Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy and Billy Horschel have made it clear over the past week that they are not looking forward to competing with the LIV golfers. Things have been tense since the new Saudi-backed tour became a reality in June, but this is the first time players on both tours have competed against each other in a non-major tournament.
The LIVers already have money. They made the trip to England to get world ranking points in the hope of competing in majors in 2023 and to prove they can still play with the best.
Tee times of groups to follow
The best golfers are paired together on Thursday in two morning groups and three afternoon threesomes. At 8:30 a.m. local time (3:30 a.m. ET) 2022 FedExCup winner Rory Mcilroy, 2022 US Open winner Matt Fitzpatrick and Billy Horschel, who is back at the BMW PGA Championship to defend his title, will tee it up.
Another group of golf’s top players will tee off immediately after them at 8:45 a.m. when Shane Lowry, Justin Rose and Tommy Fleetwood get things started in the morning.
In the afternoon Jon Rahm, Viktor Hovland and Tyrrell Hatton, three 2021 European Ryder Cup teammates, will get started at 12:40 p.m. local time (7:40 a.m. ET). Following them are two threesomes with some of golf’s top names: Adam Scott, Thomas Pieters, Francesco Molinari and Luke Donald, the recently appointed 2023 European Ryder Cup captain.
LIV golfers mixed in the pack
The BMW PGA Championship organizers somehow managed to keep the 15 LIV golfers isolated from each other and from some of their biggest critics in the Thursday tee times. The first LIV player to tee off Thursday is Abraham Ancer at 7:30 a.m. local time with Scott Hend and Sebastian Soderberg. The rest of the rebel golfers are scattered out in random tee times during throughout the day. Patrick Reed is the last of the LIV gang to tee off Thursday at 1:55 p.m. with Jorge Campillo and Garrick Higgo.
All eyes will be on the beautiful West Course at Wentworth, the home of the DP World Tour, which is less than an hour outside of London. The course has been redesigned twice by South African golf legend Ernie Els, who owns a property there and is one of the favorite stops on the European Tour. The 7267-yard par-72 course will be a challenge for LIV and PGA golfers alike.