This week Rory McIlroy was requested whether or not the Main prize funds had been turning into unsustainable within the midst of handbags rocketing left, proper and centre within the fashionable recreation? For 14 weeks of the yr LIV Golf supply a prize pot of $25m, with $4m going to the winner. Coincidentally The Gamers Championship this yr supplied the identical $25m total and Scottie Scheffler picked up a whopping $4.5m.
The brand new Elevated Occasions characteristic purses of $20m which depart the Majors trying comparatively small fry from a monetary viewpoint. Final yr we noticed the next purses on supply; Masters and PGA each $15m, US Open $17.5m and The Open $14m. This yr we’re but to listen to what’s on the desk on the US Open and Open however Augusta went as much as $18m whereas the PGA went to $17.5m.
“You consider the 4 most necessary tournaments in our recreation, the prize funds aren’t within the prime 20 of prize funds. You consider that, proper? Like that is, that does not fairly add up. So whether or not there must be some kind of correction in that, I do not know. As a participant these massive prize funds are nice,” defined McIlroy.
“It would not cease me from enjoying a Main however on the identical time the Main championships mainly hire the expertise for every week from the PGA Tour and you would argue from LIV and wherever, DP World Tour and wherever else. So the Main championships aren’t going to be the product that they’re with out the highest gamers on this planet.
“So would that imply that I’d or anybody would go to the lengths of not enjoying a Main to make some extent? No. However that is simply having an affordable dialog with the governing our bodies and the those who run these tournaments and attempt to give you an answer.”
The primary time that The Open complete prize cash moved into double figures was as current as 2017, Augusta was 2015, so you’d be exhausting pressed to recommend that issues weren’t on the up, significantly when additionally contemplating the rocket in prize funds for the AIG Girls’s Open and US Girls’s Open.
Simply that they are not in the identical ball park as LIV and the PGA Tour’s showpiece.
One great thing about the fashionable recreation is that the Majors appear to have taken on much more significance previously 12 months. For 2 and a half many years we have obsessed about Tiger’s document in them and whether or not he can overhaul Jack, now all of the speak is of Rory’s dry spell, which is getting on for a decade, and what number of Koepka can find yourself with.
There’s speak of who is perhaps first to shine off the profession Grand Slam and we fascinate over who the Greatest Participant To Not Have Gained A Main is. As issues stand, bizarrely, we have now half of the world’s prime 10 who’ve but to make the breakthrough.
Of all of Tiger’s 15 Majors none of us might provide you with any concept of what he received in official prize cash. The importance, in our heads at the very least, of transferring from none to 1 or from 4 to 5 is way better than any bunch of zeros on the finish of a pay cheque.
There can be sufficient clauses in contracts to not have to fret about what you are being paid for one of many biggest weeks of your life and you will have extra publicity, new exemptions and sponsorship offers thrust in entrance of your nostril to not even think about your pay-out. There can be a Inexperienced Jacket, Wanamaker or US Open trophy and a Claret Jug to indicate off all over the world and remind you and us fairly how sensible you had been for 4 days.
This yr the Wells Fargo had prize cash of $20m, greater than The Masters, and many people can barely keep in mind who even received* at Quail Hole.
Fortunately cash has little or no bearing on our notion of the sport. For the professionals it is a enterprise, for us it is a spectacle. If the previous yr (and years of the FedEx Cup) has taught us something it is that cash doesn’t equal pleasure or curiosity ranges. If the Main prize pots had been to stage out then there can be minimal, if any bearing, on a participant getting their arms on the Jacket or the Jug. They are surely what desires are manufactured from.
* Wyndham Clark