The Players Championship Prize Money - $15m Up For Grabs

A massive $2.7m will go to this week's Players Championship winner

The Players Championship Prize Money - $15m Up For Grabs

The Players Championship is known as golf's unofficial fifth Major, and its prize fund is now the biggest in golf for a single tournament.

This week's event offers up of a huge $15m, making it significantly more lucrative than the four Majors in terms of prize money.

That is going by last year's Major purses, which could be increased this year in reply to Sawgrass.

Last year's Masters purse was $11.5m, the USPGA's was $11m, the US Open's was $12.5m and the Open Championship's was $10.75m.

The US Open's first-place cheque of $2.25m was the biggest in golf, until the European Tour Final Series usurped it with $2.5m to the Nedbank Golf Challenge winner and $3m to the DP World Tour Championship winner.

The victor at Sawgrass this week will pick up a tidy $2.7m, up $450,000 on the $2.25m that Rory McIlroy won last year.

Related: The Players Championship Betting Tips

In 2019, runner-up Jim Furyk collected $1.35m, so this week's runners-up prize, assuming it has also been significantly bumped up, is likely to be bigger than many PGA Tour winner's cheques.

The PGA Tour announced a new nine-year domestic TV deal after the Arnold Palmer Invitational, with commissioner Jay Monahan saying that player earnings are set to increase.

“The nine-year deals will put us in a position to significantly increase player earnings, deliver more value to our tournaments and sponsors, and ultimately allow us to continue to grow our charitable footprint," Monahan said.

This is thought to be direct retaliation to the newly-proposed Premier Golf League, a new 48-man 18-tournament league hoped to begin in 2022.

The PGL is set to be very lucrative for players, with money coming from the likes of New York investment bank the 'Raine Group' as well as the Saudi Public Investment Fund.

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