PAYDAY AT VALHALLA
PGA Championship 2024: Prize money payouts at Valhalla hit another record-breaking number
By Ryan Herrington
May 18, 2024
2152915900
Ben Jared
It’s a sign of the times in men’s professional golf. The question wasn’t whether the PGA of America was going to increase its prize money payout for each golfer at this year’s PGA Championship to another record payday. Rather, it was by how much.
That amount turned out to be $1 million, the PGA of America announcing Saturday that its overall purse had jumped to $18.5 million with the winner on Sunday at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville taking home $3.33 million.
To put that number in perspective, just four years ago at TPC Harding Park, the overall purse was $11 million. But then the PGA of America bumped the amount by $1 million for the 2021 PGA at Kiawah, $3 million more for the 2022 PGA at Southern Hills and another $2.5 million for the 2023 PGA at Oak Hill.
Here's a look at the evolution of the prize money payout in the PGA Championship, offering a revealing glance at the trajectory of golf purses in general over the years:
Year: Winner's Pay, Total Purse
1916: $500, $2,580 (first year of the event)
1931: $1,000, $7,200 (first year winner's pay increased)
1953: $5,000, $20,700 (first year winner's pay was $5K)
1958: $5,500, $39,388 (first year of stroke play; winner's amount actually decreased that year)
1965: $25,000, $149,700
1978: $50,000, $300,240
1983: $100,000, $608,099
1988: $160,000, $1,000,000 (first year with a $1M total purse)
1993: $300,000, $1,702,750
1998: $540,000, $2,886,800
2000: $900,000, $5,031,100 (first year with a $5M total purse)
2003: $1,080,000, $5,938,300 (first year with $1M-plus to the winner)
2009: $1,350,000, $7,484,500
2014: $1,800,000, $9,913,000
2018: $1,980,000, $11,000,000
2021: $2,160,000, $12,000,000
2022: $2,700,000, $15,000,000
2023: $3,150,000, $17,500,000
The latest jump, however, leaves the PGA Championship’s purse shy of the $20 million paydays offered in the PGA Tour’s new signature events as well as the $20 million paydays being played for individually on the LIV Golf circuit.
Here is a breakdown of the prize money payouts for each place in the field. (We’ll update this on Sunday when we know what each player specifically earned for his efforts at Valhalla.)
Valhalla Golf Club
PRIVATE
Valhalla Golf Club
Louisville, KY
102
PANELISTS
100 Greatest
Best In State
Given a difficult piece of land on which to create Valhalla (half the site was floodplain, with high-tension power poles), Jack Nicklaus drew on his training under Pete Dye and Desmond Muirhead to produce a unique design, with an alternate fairway par 5, a par 4 with an island green and an 18th green shaped like a horseshoe. Over the decades, Nicklaus returned periodically to update its challenges, and the club rebuilt bunkers and replaced its soft bent grass fairways with firmer, faster zoysia in 2022. Valhalla has proven to be a great championship site. It has hosted three thrilling PGA Championships, the latest Rory McIlroy’s win in 2014, and will host a fourth in 2024.
VIEW COURSE
Win: $3,330,000
2: $1,998,000
3: $1,258,000
4: $888,000
5: $740,000
6: $660,580
7: $618,300
8: $577,790
9: $539,030
10: $502,040
11: $466,810
12: $433,340
13: $401,630
14: $371,690
15: $343,500
16: $317,080
17: $292,420
18: $269,520
19: $248,380
20: $229,000
21: $211,390
22: $195,530
23: $181,440
24: $169,990
25: $158,980
26: $148,410
27: $138,280
28: $128,590
29: $119,340
30: $110,540
31: $103,490
32: $97,330
33: $92,040
34: $87,640
35: $84,110
36: $80,770
37: $77,510
38: $74,340
39: $71,250
40: $68,260
41: $65,350
42: $62,530
43: $59,800
44: $51,160
45: $54,610
46: $51,140
47: $49,760
48: $47,470
49: $45,270
50: $43,160
51: $41,130
52: $39,190
53: $37,340
54: $35,580
55: $33,910
56: $32,320
57: $30,830
58: $29,590
59: $28,540
60: $27,660
61: $26,950
62: $26,440
63: $26,000
64: $25,590
65: $25,190
66: $24,800
67: $24,430
68: $24,060
69: $23,690
70: $23,340
71: $23,060
72: $22,830
73: $22,650
74: $22,470
75: $22,350
76: $22,230
77: $22,140
78: $22,100
Players missing the cut and turning in a 36-hole score will be paid $4,000 each. Any player making the cut but failing to submit a 72-hole score will also be paid $4,000.
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