Tyrrell Hatton wins £800,000 without playing thanks to PGA Tour bonus
Tyrrell Hatton has secured a cool £800,000 ($1 million) payout despite not even competing on the PGA Tour this week ahead of the upcoming FedEx Cup playoffs.
Hatton has enjoyed a fairly succesful year on the PGA Tour in 2023, and finds himself inside the top 20 of the seasonal standings heading into this week's opening playoff event, the FedEx St. Jude Championship. The Englishman's last outing came at the Open Championship at Royal Liverpool last month.
Once again Hatton continued his steady form, securing his seventh top-20 finish in eight tournaments, to put him in a good spot heading into the playoffs throughout August.
On the back of his Open showing, Hatton opted to skip the recent 3M Open, as well as last week's Wyndham Championship, giving him a nice break before the busy run-in. Despite not making the trip to West Virginia last weekend, Hatton still came away with a nice payout.
The ending of the regular PGA Tour season saw the annual 'Aon Risk Reward Challenge' come to a close, which rewards players who record the best two scores on the 'challenge holes' from each participating event throughout the season. The 2023 prize went to Hatton thanks to an average score of -0.885 under-par.
Bubba Watson shares details of horror knee injury ahead of LIV Golf debutThe PGA Tour star pipped second-placed Stephan Jaegar, who did compete in last week's Wyndham Championship. Third spot was taken by Tommy Fleetwood, whilst Adam Scott came fourth and world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler finished the challenge in fifth.
Scheffler himself is more than aware of the benefits the partner deal brings, after winning the jackpot in 2022. In 2021 the challenge and £800,000 prize were won by LIV Golf star Matthew Wolff, with Nick Taylor winning a year earlier back in 2020.
The Risk Reward Challenge was initially brought in by the PGA Tour back in 2019, with its maiden winner Brooks Koepka, who also won two major championships that year. After his break and bonus earner, Hatton will return to action at the opening playoff in Memphis this week.
The Tour's top 70 players will take to the field in the St. Jude, before the top 50 players from this advance to playoff No. 2 at the BMW Championship a week later. This will then be reduced to the top 30, for the circuit's final event of the campaign at the Tour Championship, where the FedEx Cup champion will be crowned.