Karl Vilips and Cassie Porter will join major tours amid changing landscape for men and women

Two Australian young guns headed for the big-time in 2025 have eye-spinning prizemoney in their sights, but it could be easier for one to get their share.

Karl Vilips is headed for the US PGA Tour in 2025. (Photo by Alex Goodlett/Getty Images)

Timing is everything in golf and the newest Australian members of the PGA and LPGA tours, Karl Vilips and Cassie Porter, are hitting the big time amid differing changes that could provide significant new challenges as well as potential rewards.

Vilips, the former child prodigy who played the Australian Open as a 16-year-old in 2017, has graduated from a stellar college career at Stanford and is already a professional winner on the secondary Korn Ferry Tour.

His win in Utah, in just his sixth professional start, proved a catalyst for a top-30 points finish and secured passage to what will be a new-look PGA Tour in 2025.

Rising Australian star Karl Vilips. Picture: Alex Goodlett/Getty Images

Recent announcements confirmed sweeping changes, including only 100 players retaining a full tour card at the end of 2025, instead of 125, and some field sizes reduced from 156 to as few as 120, upping the ante for those new to the tour.

While prizemoney remains at stunning levels, with nearly $250m on offer at eight signature events, and weekly winner’s cheques of up to $2m, not including the four majors, Vilips, now 23, knows he’ll have to work hard to get his share.

“I think I just keep doing what I’m doing,” Vilips said ahead of his first Australian Open as a professional.

“I’m just looking to play really good golf out there, and whatever happens, happens. And I believe my game is good enough to continue to keep keeping my card and notch up a couple wins, if possible, and everything clicks for a week.

“But you know, just got to get top 100, I think, for keeping your card, so not looking to set the sights beyond that.”

After two years of toil on the Epsom Tour in the US, which netted her about $170,000, 22-year-old Porter came 10th on the tour’s season-long standings to earn her maiden LPGA card and her eyes are spinning at what could be in her future.

Cassie Porter is headed to the @LPGA 👏👏

Coming up clutch on the weekend, Porter secured her playing rights for the upcoming season, more here: https://t.co/8x8k0061B8pic.twitter.com/lrJkAZVa81

— WPGA Tour of Australasia (@WPGATour) October 7, 2024

A record $201m in purse money will be up for grabs at 35 events, an increase of $20m on 2024, and the combined purse total for the five majors will top $72m, the highest in the LPGA Tour’s history.

Having taken home on average of $5000 per event, across 34 events in two years, it’s hard for Queenslander Porter not to get excited about how her life could change while knowing the work it will take to capitalise on the opportunity she has earnt.

“At the moment, it’s an amazing time to be a professional golfer, a women’s professional golfer, given what’s happening worldwide. I think that’s really special,” she said, with an opening event in Florida next year her initial target.

“(The prizemoney) is not front of mind, but making it is something we’ve worked really hard for over the past four, five, years, so it’s a great cherry on top.

“I haven’t stopped smiling for so long. It’s a dream come true. And I’ve said it so many times, but I’ve joked about this since I was a little girl.

“I think there’s this whole mindset that a lot of people have that once I make the LPGA or everything will be fine.

“But really, it’s just the first step, you still have to fight to keep your card, and you have to fight to make cuts every week because you’re not going to make any cash if you’re not making a cut.

“So it’s definitely a goal achieved, but it’s also just the first step because there’s a lot of things I want to do in this, in my career, in golf.”