Prize Money and Earnings

No, amateur golfers do not receive prize money at PGA Tour tournaments.

According to the rules of the PGA Tour, only professional golfers who are members of the tour are eligible to receive prize money.

Amateur golfers are allowed to compete in certain PGA Tour events under specific conditions such as, sponsor's exemption, qualifying or invitation.

No, PGA Tour professional golfers do not get paid if they miss the cut.

The cut line at 36 holes is normally the top 65 players plus those tied at the end of that group.

The only professional events where professionals get paid for missing the cuts are in the majors.

Professional golfers can have other income streams like appearance money, endorsements, corporate events, instructional videos and books they may write.

When he first started playing Ho Sung Choi taught himself the golf swing by studying the swings of the greats in various golf magazines.

He learned to play golf from reading magazines and turned pro less than two years after taking up golf. Choi Ho-sung was born on 23 September 1973.

At age 25, Choi found a job working part-time at Anyang Country Club, which had recently undergone a renovation by architect Robert Trent Jones Jr. to toughen up a layout that was nearly three decades old. Choi had little interest in playing golf on a regular basis … until a management change in 1997. “The general manager of the course encouraged every employee to ‘experience’ golf,” Choi recalls.

So Choi became more serious about the sport, teaching himself golf in a very unique way.

“I had no coaches back then as it’s expensive,” he says, “but there were many golf magazines that I learned from. I would try to copy the golf swings of Tiger Woods, Ernie Els, Annika Sorenstam. All of their swings were in those magazines. Of course, they were all snapshots of the swing, not a video, but I was able to apply by looking at them.”

Tired of drifting from one job to another, and finding more and more enjoyment in playing golf – which, much like fishing, is mostly a solitary experience – Choi took the next step and decided to see if he could make a living as a pro golfer. He started out as a semi-pro, and then turned into a full-time commitment in 2001, seeking playing opportunities in both Korea and Japan. He was 29 years old. “I lived year after year in a struggle,” he told Golf magazine. “But I had the desperate and urgent mindset that golf was all I had. I think that is what made me.”

Ho Sung Choi's golf record as at September, 2024:

Professional Victories

Ho Sung Choi has won 3 tournaments on the Japan Golf Tour.

Career Earnings

His career earnings on the Japan Golf Tour total ¥246,504,691.

Lowest Round

Choi's lowest 18-hole score on the Japan Golf Tour is 62, which he shot at the Fujisankei Classic in September 2019.

PGA Tour Champions Debut

In March 2024, at age 50, Choi made his PGA Tour Champions debut at the Cologuard Classic on a sponsor exemption. This marked his first PGA Tour-sanctioned start since 2019.

Source: https://www.pgatour.com/

A professional caddie usually gets a weekly base salary and on top earns a 5% to 10% share of the players’ winnings.

Caddies get a weekly paycheck, no matter where their player finishes. This weekly salary is negotiated with the player and can range from $1,000-$3,000 a week.

This base salary is meant to cover basic travel and living expenses.

As a rough rule a caddie also will earn 5% of the winnings if his golfer finishes outside of the top 10 and 7% of the winnings for a top 10 finish.

A caddie usually earns 10% of winnings when his golfer wins a tournament.

At the time of purchase it was called Big Creek Golf Course.

• JT learned his golf at Big Creek and felt a personal connection. He didn’t want to see it die after he realized it was in financial difficulty.
• With Timberlake’s backing it has become an award winning eco-friendly layout now known as Mirimichi.
• He sold it a few years later for a loss financially, but hopefully with a warm feeling of the good he had done for golf in his hometown.
• With a slope of 147 off the back tees this is no walk in the park. You can see the scorecard, a flyover of the course and other information on the Mirimichi website
• Mirimichi has a rating of 4.5 out of 5 from 36 reviews on Tripadvisor and 4.3 out of 5 from 77 reviews on Golfadvisor. It sounds like it’s worth a trip!

More about Justin Timberlake's involvement with golf:

AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am: Timberlake regularly participates in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, a celebrity golf tournament. His participation has brought significant attention to the event.

Charity Work: Timberlake has used his love for golf to support various charitable causes. For example, the annual Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Las Vegas has benefited from his involvement.

What is Justin Timberlake’s Handicap?

The winner of a PGA Tour event usually gets 18% with second place receiving 10.8% of the total purse. It continues from 3rd to 10th place 6.8%, 4.8%, 4%, 3.6%, 3.35%, 3.1%, 2.9% and 2.7%. The percentages then further decline down to the 70th place finisher, who receives 0.2% of the purse.

If there is a cut, normally 65-70 players make the final rounds.

Players who don’t make the cut don’t get paid.

If two or more players finish with the same score the dollar values of the players’ positions are added up, then divided by the number of tied players to calculate each player’s share.

Amateurs don’t receive any prize money and are simply passed over when the purse is distributed.

While the above has historically been the general approach for most tours LIV Golf certainly changed things up and now we are starting to see more flexibility in prize money distributions.

Do PGA Tour professionals get paid if they don’t make the cut at a tournament?

The Players Championship was the richest PGA tournament in 2022 with a total prize money of US $20 million.

It is ironic that The Players Championship, which is considered by many to be 'the fifth major', is the highest paying single event on the PGA tour.

The Tour Championship is now representing the final event for the FedEx Cup schedule and, having no purse of its own, it technically has a payout of $75 million for the 30 qualifying players.

2022 PGA Tournament purses

The purse for the 2022 US Women’s Open increased to $10 million, a $4.5 million leap over 2021.

The tournament was played from 2-5 June, 2022 at the Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club.

Minjee Lee won the tournament with a total score of -13.

The winner's share was $1,800,000 million. The USGA announced the purse will rise to $12 million by 2026.

2022 US Women's Open top ten prize money payouts

1.$1,800,000
2.$1,080,000
3.$685,043
4.$480,225
5.$399,982
6.$354,658
7.$319,738
8.$286,363
9.$259,169
10.$238,052

Where is Minjee Lee from?

The total purse across 28 events on the 2023 PGA Tour Champions was $66 million.

The 2023 PGA Tour Champions season started with the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai the week of January 16-21 in Ka’upulehu-Kona, Hawaii.

The 25 event regular season led into the seventh annual Charles Schwab Cup Playoffs. The three-tournament series concluded at Phoenix Country Club at the Charles Schwab Cup Championship on Sunday, November 12, 2023.

The 2023 PGA Tour Champions Major Championships are:

May 8-14:Regions Tradition at the Greystone Golf & Country Club (Birmingham, Alabama)

May 22-28:KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship at the Fields Ranch East at PGA Frisco (Frisco, Texas)

June 25-July 2: U.S. Senior Open Championship at the SentryWorld (Stevens Point, Wisconsin)

July 10-16:Kaulig Companies Championship at the Firestone Country Club (Akron, Ohio)

July 24-30:The Senior Open Championship presented by Rolex at the Royal Porthcawl Golf Club (Bridgend, Wales)

Jon Rahm won the most prize money in the 2021 tour season with a total of US $7,705,933.

According to PGA Tour stats the average tour income in 2021 was $1,485,0555.

Jon Rahm played a total of 22 events including his victory at the US Open. He earned an average of $350,269 per event.

Louis Oosthuizen won the most money without winning an event. A total of $6,306,679.

Official Season USPGA Tour 2021 Money List top 10

• Jon Rahm:22 Events,$7,705,933
• Patrick Cantlay:24 Events,$7,638,805
• Bryson DeChambeau:22 Events,$7,426,415
• Collin Morikawa:23 Events,$7,059,908
• Justin Thomas:23 Events,$6,537,153
• Jordan Spieth:25 Events,$6,470,482
• Louis Oosthuizen:21 Events,$6,306,679
• Harris English:26 Events,$6,200,481
• Cameron Smith:24 Events,$5,851,867
• Abraham Ancer:27 Events,$5,816,565

Note: This data does not include prizemoney from other tours or 'non-tour' events such as the FedEx Cup.

The biggest PGA Tournament purse in 2023 was $25 million at The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass.

The winners share at The Players Championship was $4.5 million.

The total prize money for the 2022-2023 PGA Tour season was over $500 million.

The Majors, of course, are more prestigious events but they don't have the same amount of prize money as The Players.

In 1967 Arnold Palmer became the first professional golfer in history to make more than $1 million in career earnings.

Arnold Palmer, often referred to as "The King," was not only a highly successful golfer but also a charismatic and beloved figure who played a key role in popularising the sport and bringing it to a wider audience. His achievements on and off the golf course had a lasting impact on the game of golf and its recognition as a major professional sport.

The top earner, Jimmy Johnson, was working for Justin Thomas. Find the top 10 list below.

Having the same experienced caddie every week is essential for the success of a player.

Most professionals see it as a team event and have no problem paying their caddies quite a bit of money.

Top caddies yearly payout for 2020

• Jimmy Johnson (Justin Thomas) $502,851
• Jonathan Jakovac (Collin Morikawa) $486,825
• Austin Johnson (Dustin Johnson) $472,600
• Paul Tesori (Webb Simpson) $417,595
• Adam Hayes (Jon Rahm) $374,625
• Tim Tucker (Bryson DeChambeau) $353,801
• Kessler Karain (Patrick Reed) $346,500
• Josh Cassell (Daniel Berger) $343,470
• Marc Kelly (Marc Leishman) $330,100
• Mark Crane (Tyrrell Hatton) $287,400