R&A Boosts British Open Purse to $16.5 Million

It continues to a trend of record-setting tournament purses this year.

GULLANE, Scotland - The R&A announced on Wednesday that the purse for the 151st Open Championship will be $16.5 million with the winner receiving $3 million.

The move is an 18 percent increase from the $14 million/$2.5 million received from winning the Open at St. Andrews last year and $7.3 million more than when the Open was last at Royal Liverpool in 2014 when Rory McIlroy won his only claret jug.

“Our aim is to ensure the Open remains at the pinnacle of world golf and we have almost doubled the prize fund since 2016,” Martin Slumbers, CEO of The R&A said in a statement. “While we are seeing substantial increases in prize money across the men’s professional game, we are fulfilling our wider obligation to the sport by elevating the AIG Women’s Open, strengthening pathways in the elite amateur game, and encouraging more people around the world to play golf. We believe that getting this balance right is vital to the long-term future of the sport.”

With the announcement by the R&A, the total purses for the year's four majors, the Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open and The Open totaled $69.5 million.

Since 2014, when the total purses for the four majors were $37.2 million, the purses have increased by 86.8 percent or $32.3 million in 10 years.

The Open purse is the smallest of the four majors. This year's LIV Golf events and PGA Tour designated events have offered $20-25 million purses.

“You have a new entity coming into the game offering $25 million prize funds and other entities feel the pressure to keep up,” McIlroy said about the escalating purses at the Memorial Tournament earlier this year. “You think about the four most important tournaments in our game, the prize funds aren't in the top 20 of prize funds. You think about that, right? Like that doesn't quite add up. So, whether there needs to be some sort of correction in that or -- I, look, as a player these big prize funds are great. But it's a good question whether that's sustainable in the long-term.”