British Open 2016: Prize money breakdown
Because the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, the purse for The British Open Championship’s winner and participants is down in total.
Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson have been going shot-for-shot in one of the most memorable duels in recent memory at one of golf’s major tournaments for this weekend’s British Open.
Andrew “Beef” Johnston has become a cult hero. Rory McIlroy needs a new 3-wood. Jordan Spieth finally shot an under-par round in a major after 10 straight rounds over par. There’s Americans all over the leaderboard.
And, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union.
What does the last statement have to do with golf?
Well, the purse of The Open Championship is a sticky issue this year. The actual purse of the tournament increased £200,000, bringing the grand total to £6.5 million.
But, with the Brexit situation, the strength of the pound has been lowered compared to the dollar.
So basically, the winner of The Open gets $1.55 million, which is less than the winning share was last year, despite the rise in the overall purse for the tournament.
(To put it in perspective, Zach Johnson won $1.8 million after winning the three-man playoff at the 2015 Open Championship at St. Andrews.)
$1.5 million is still a lot of cheese for the winner — presumably Mickelson or Stenson — but that number is less than the winners of the other three majors (Masters, U.S. Open and PGA Championship) and the mini-major of the season: The Players Championship.
Here’s a look at what each position on the leaderboard will win you (pending ties on the final scorecards):
1: $1,551,000
2: $891,000
3: $571,560
4: $444,840
5: $357,720
6: $310,200
7: $265,320
8: $224,400
9: $196,680
10: $178,200
11: $161,040
12: $143,550
13: $134,640
14: $126,060
15: $118,140
16: $108,240
17: $102,960
18: $97,680
19: $93,720
20: $89,760
21: $85,140
22: $81,180
23: $76,890
24: $72,600
25: $69,960
26: $66,990
27: $64,350
28: $62,040
29: $59,400
30: $57,090
31: $54,780
32: $51,810
33: $50,160
34: $48,510
35: $46,860
36: $44,880
37: $42,900
38: $40,920
39: $39,600
40: $37,950
41: $36,300
42: $34,650
43: $33,000
44: $31,350
45: $29,700
46: $28,380
47: $27,060
48: $25,740
49: $24,684
50: $24,156
51: $23,628
52: $23,100
53: $22,770
54: $22,440
55: $22,110
56: $21,780
57; $21,516
58: $21,384
59: $21,252
60: $21,120
61: $20,988
62: $20,856
63: $20,724
64: $20,592
65: $20,460
66; $20,328
67: $20,196
68; $20,064
69: $19,932
70: $19,800
71: $19,668
72: $19,536
73: $19,404
74: $19,272
75: $19,140
76; $19,008
77; $18,876
78: $18,744
79: $18,612
80: $18,480
81: $18,348
Even with the overall winner’s purse lowered because of Brexit, the top 17 finishers for this year’s Open Championship win a six-figure check for their efforts. That seems fine.
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