The 2023 Zurich Classic tees off from just outside New Orleans this week. The tournament, which is the only team event on the PGA TOUR, will take place at TPC Louisiana between Thursday, April 20 and Sunday, April 23.
Here’s everything you need to know about the unique team format and how teams will split up prize money and points:
Schedule and format
The tournament tees off on Thursday, April 20 with a field of 80 pairs or 160 golfers. The first day will see teams play a four-ball, or best-ball format. In this format, each golfer plays his own ball on each hole, and the teammate with the lowest score on that hole records that score for the team. On Friday, they switch to foursomes, or alternate shot, in which teammates take turns playing the same ball in alternating order on each hole.
After a cut on Friday that will take just 33 top teams and ties, the remaining teams will play four-ball on Saturday and foursomes on Sunday.
Prize money
The 2023 Zurich Classic has a total purse of $8.6 million. The winning team splits the sum of the standard first- and second-place earnings down the middle. If this were a standard event, the winner would take home just over $1.5 million, and the runner-up would take home just over $930,000. In this case, the winners will split the average of these two prizes, and each take home $1,242,700.
The same goes for the team that gets second place in the tournament, who will split the sum of the standard third- and fourth-place prizes down the middle, and so on and so forth down the leaderboard.
FedExCup points
Similarly to the prize money, the FedExCup points awarded to the winners of the Zurich Classic is based on the average of the standard first- and second-place awards at PGA TOUR events. Usually, the winner of a tournament receives 500 points and the runner-up gets 300, so in this case, the winners of the Zurich Classic earn 400 FedExCup points each.
They do not earn any Official World Golf Ranking points, which usually come along with a PGA TOUR win.
How TOUR exemptions work for teammates
The winners of the tournament each receive the standard champion’s two-year PGA TOUR exemption (through the end of the 2025 season), but do not get an invite to the following year’s Masters. But the winners do get to join the field at THE PLAYERS Championship and the PGA Championship, as well as the following year’s Sentry Tournament of Champions and other invitational events.