Cameron Smith, the winner of the 150th Open Championship at St Andrews, has taken home a record £2.1 million first prize.
The R&A upped their total prize fund for the championship this year by a whopping 22% from 2021 to £11.8 million ($14 million).
Champion golfer Smith’s £2.1 million ($2.5 million) is followed by the £1.22 million ($1.455m) won by American Cameron Young while Rory McIlroy in third place received £782,000 ($933,000).
Even the competitor who finished last on the Old Course walked away with a cheque for £5,863.
America’s Collin Morikawa took home £1.76 million with his victory at Sandwich in 2021, with runner-up Jordan Spieth getting just over £1 million.
Open still fourth in payout out of the four majors
Not long now ⛳️ pic.twitter.com/cX7GbVU1pF
— The Open (@TheOpen) July 7, 2022
It still means The Open is fourth in payout of the four golf majors.
The Masters and PGA Championship both have total prize funds of £12.56 million.
Last month’s US Open paid out a record total of £14.65 million.
With regular events in the Saudi-funded LIV Golf Tour now paying out a minimum of $4 million (£3.35m) to winners, the big rise in prize money was largely expected as the majors seek to maintain their primary place in the game.
R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers noted the “significant changes in prize money” in golf over the last year.
“We have therefore increased the prize fund by 22%. This means that the prize money has increased by more than 60% since 2016.
“We have made this substantial investment while balancing our wider commitments to developing golf at all levels around the world and to continuing to elevate the AIG Women’s Open.”
First prize has doubled in just seven years
The first prize has risen just under £1m since the last time the Open was at St Andrews in 2015.
The USA’s Zach Johnson won the Claret Jug and £1.15 million that year.
Tiger Woods won just £720,000 for the second of his Open wins at St Andrews in 2005.
Fifteen years earlier, Nick Faldo won a mere £85,000 at St Andrews when he won his second Open title.
The Open didn’t even pay prize money in the first three versions of the championship, held in the 1860s. The total prize fund for the 1863 championship, competed for by just 14 players, was £10.
The champion, Willie Park, got an equal share of that money plus the Champions’ Belt. That was the trophy until it was won outright by Young Tom Morris in 1871.
In 1873 the famous Claret Jug was first awarded, and is still used today.
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