This two-week stretch in August is as lucrative as the PGA Tour gets with a major championship purse and a WGC purse in back-to-back weeks. The PGA Championship shares the title for the richest purse in golf, a $10 million payout that the PGA of America announced in advance of last year’s edition at Valhalla. That ignited an arms race of sorts, and the other three majors followed suit this year with a bump to $10 million. The Players, which has always boasted as having the richest purse in golf, made the preemptive move to $10 million in conjunction with their PGA friends last year.
WGC Bridgestone Invitational purse: Winner earns $1.57M payout of $9.25M in prize money
It pays to play the World Golf Championships.
Sam Greenwood/Getty Images
But after those majors, it’s these WGC titles that hand out the biggest checks in the game. It’s a pretty great gig, and if you’re qualified for a WGC it’s nonsense to turn it down and skip the week unless you’re seriously injured like Rory McIlroy or Chris Kirk (the only two from the top 50 in the world rankings not in Akron this week). There’s no cut at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, so everyone takes home a cut of the purse and a nice chunk of world rankings points. Troy Merritt, who earned his first career win and first career $1 million check last week, has been in last place almost from the start of his round on Thursday. But Merritt still stuck around for four days, finishing dead last at 22-over. He’ll still walk away with more than $40,000 -- not bad for four days work and a last-place finish.
The Bridgestone Invitational is the last WGC title of the season. The WGC-HSBC Champions, WGC-Cadillac Championship and WGC-Match Play all precede it on the PGA Tour schedule, and each one has the same $9,250,000 purse. That’s a $250,000 jump from last year’s WGC purses and the biggest non-major haul in the game. Shane Lowry is the leading candidate to cash the winner’s check of $1.57 million. Lowry is an accomplished Euro Tour player and obviously a world-class talent just to be in this field, but he’s never won on the PGA Tour, so a WGC title at Firestone would be a nice place to pick up that first stateside win and an enormous check heading into next week’s major.
Here are your pre-finish payout totals. These will obviously be affected by different ties on the leaderboard, and we’ll update when the final results come in:
UPDATE: Lowry did hold on for that career payday, while Bubba Watson’s lucrative season continued with another massive six-figure runner-up check. The final totals:
| Place | Player | Score | Payout |
| 1 | Shane Lowry | -11 | $1,570,000 |
| 2 | Bubba Watson | -9 | $930,000 |
| T3 | Jim Furyk | -7 | $470,000 |
| T3 | Justin Rose | -7 | $470,000 |
| 5 | Robert Streb | -6 | $330,000 |
| T6 | David Lingmerth | -5 | $219,000 |
| T6 | Danny Lee | -5 | $219,000 |
| T6 | Brooks Koepka | -5 | $219,000 |
| T6 | Henrik Stenson | -5 | $219,000 |
| T10 | Jordan Spieth | -4 | $149,500 |
| T10 | Rickie Fowler | -4 | $149,500 |
| T12 | Soren Kjeldsen | -3 | $126,000 |
| T12 | Jason Day | -3 | $126,000 |
| T12 | Steven Bowditch | -3 | $126,000 |
| T15 | Kevin Na | -2 | $109,000 |
| T15 | Patrick Reed | -2 | $109,000 |
| T17 | Paul Casey | -1 | $88,500 |
| T17 | Lee Westwood | -1 | $88,500 |
| T17 | Danny Willett | -1 | $88,500 |
| T17 | Russell Henley | -1 | $88,500 |
| T17 | Branden Grace | -1 | $88,500 |
| T17 | Keegan Bradley | -1 | $88,500 |
| T17 | Graeme McDowell | -1 | $88,500 |
| T17 | Ian Poulter | -1 | $88,500 |
| T25 | Camilo Villegas | E | $74,667 |
| T25 | Matt Kuchar | E | $74,667 |
| T25 | Bernd Wiesberger | E | $74,667 |
| T25 | Webb Simpson | E | $74,667 |
| T25 | Marc Warren | E | $74,667 |
| T25 | Bill Haas | E | $74,667 |
| T31 | Charley Hoffman | 1 | $70,500 |
| T31 | Charl Schwartzel | 1 | $70,500 |
| T33 | Billy Horschel | 2 | $67,500 |
| T33 | Brandt Snedeker | 2 | $67,500 |
| T33 | Marc Leishman | 2 | $67,500 |
| T33 | Zach Johnson | 2 | $67,500 |
| T37 | Hideki Matsuyama | 3 | $63,000 |
| T37 | Kevin Kisner | 3 | $63,000 |
| T37 | J.B. Holmes | 3 | $63,000 |
| T37 | Marcel Siem | 3 | $63,000 |
| T37 | Sergio Garcia | 3 | $63,000 |
| T42 | James Hahn | 4 | $59,000 |
| T42 | Louis Oosthuizen | 4 | $59,000 |
| T42 | Ryan Moore | 4 | $59,000 |
| T45 | Mikko Ilonen | 5 | $55,000 |
| T45 | Koumei Oda | 5 | $55,000 |
| T45 | Adam Scott | 5 | $55,000 |
| T45 | Joost Luiten | 5 | $55,000 |
| T45 | Martin Kaymer | 5 | $55,000 |
| T50 | Victor Dubuisson | 6 | $51,000 |
| T50 | Jamie Donaldson | 6 | $51,000 |
| T50 | Pablo Larrazabal | 6 | $51,000 |
| T53 | Anirban Lahiri | 7 | $48,167 |
| T53 | Jimmy Walker | 7 | $48,167 |
| T53 | Dustin Johnson | 7 | $48,167 |
| 56 | Stephen Gallacher | 8 | $47,000 |
| T57 | Ben Martin | 9 | $45,750 |
| T57 | Thongchai Jaidee | 9 | $45,750 |
| T57 | Gary Woodland | 9 | $45,750 |
| T57 | Byeong-Hun An | 9 | $45,750 |
| T61 | Francesco Molinari | 10 | $44,625 |
| T61 | Brendon Todd | 10 | $44,625 |
| T63 | Andrew Dodt | 11 | $43,875 |
| T63 | Sang-Moon Bae | 11 | $43,875 |
| T63 | Gary Stal | 11 | $43,875 |
| T63 | Phil Mickelson | 11 | $43,875 |
| T67 | Oliver Wilson | 12 | $43,125 |
| T67 | Fabian Gomez | 12 | $43,125 |
| 69 | Thomas Bjorn | 13 | $42,750 |
| T70 | Ryan Palmer | 14 | $42,375 |
| T70 | Padraig Harrington | 14 | $42,375 |
| 72 | Hunter Mahan | 15 | $42,000 |
| 73 | David Lipsky | 16 | $41,750 |
| 74 | Matt Every | 18 | $41,500 |
| T75 | Nick Cullen | 21 | $41,125 |
| T75 | WC Liang | 21 | $41,125 |
| 77 | Troy Merritt | 22 | $40,750 |
SB Nation video archives: Urban golfing with a U.S. Open champ (2012)
See More:
