Presidents Cup payout: Can Schauffele, Scheffler and team win money?

Quebec’s Royal Montreal Golf Club, the oldest in North America, will play host to the 15th Presidents Cup this weekend, an international event held every two years. The best golfers in the world outside of Europe will begin four days of matchplay competition on Thursday, September 26, and plenty of bragging rights are at stake. 

Twelve U.S. players, led by captain Jim Furyk, will compete against Captain Mike Weir—on his home Canadian turf—and 12 international players, none of whom are from Europe. That’s a distinction that has made this event a relatively lopsided affair. In fact, an International team has only won once (in 1998) since the Presidents Cup began in 1994. 

And while paydays, payouts and purses are the talk of the golf world throughout year, notably the TOUR Championship purse, which sent Scottie Scheffler home with $25 million in prize money (a massive 35 percent of his career earnings), the Presidents Cup is different. 

Six of the world’s Top 10 golfers—Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa, Wyndham Clark, Patrick Cantlay and Hideki Matsuyama—are in this year’s Presidents Cup field, but what's in it for them? Turns out: Charity.

Presidents Cup payout: Do golfers get paid?

The Presidents Cup does not hand out a purse to the winning team. Nor does the Presidents Cup pay for the players’ participation. So with no purse or prize money, what are golfers getting in return? Beyond bragging rights, each competitor is allocated an equal portion of the funds generated to give to charities of their choice.

Players, captains and captains' assistants nominate specific charities, and since its inception in 1994, $56.4 million has been donated to 475 charities in 18 countries, according to the Presidents Cup. 

2024 Presidents Cup teams

Each team is comprised of six automatic qualifiers and six captain’s picks. Each side has different criteria for automatic qualifiers, but for the U.S., the top six on the FedEx points list after the 2024 BMW Championship qualified. From there, Furyk selected Keegan Bradley, Sam Burns, Tony Finau, Brian Harman, Russell Henley and Max Homa as his captain's picks. 

Here’s a full list of the 2024 Presidents Cup teams.

While those 24 golfers fought for more than $400 million up for grabs during the 2024 PGA regular-season and playoffs, this weekend, they'll simply race to 15.5 points. The purse? Three decades of bragging rights for the Americans. And the chance to prove everyone, everywhere, wrong on home soil for the International team.