It was just three weeks ago that I wrote the WGCs are maybe the sweetest deal in sports. At the WGC Mexico Championship, the first of the calendar year, a massive $9,750,00 went out to a limited-field, no-cut group. Every year, these purses keep getting bumped another $250,000. The fields are small and you can play some of the most horrendous golf of your career and you’re still guaranteed almost $50,000 for last place. Steven Bowditch finished 47 shots behind first place in a WGC just a year ago and still bagged $47,000.
WGC Dell Match Play 2017 purse: Winner’s payout is huge $1.66 million in prize money
The World Golf Championships are some of the richest cash games on any Tour in golf. And everyone, even last place, is guaranteed a nice check.
Photo by Darren Carroll/Getty Images
This Sunday, the rich will get richer at the WGC Dell Match Play. The No. 1 player in the world, Dustin Johnson, is closing in on his second straight WGC title and third straight win. His opponent in the final is the young stud Jon Rahm, who banked a sweet $497,000 in that same WGC Mexico Championship after briefly passing DJ on Sunday to take the lead. Rahm is going to stack cash over the course of what could be a two-decade Hall of Fame career. But even for the young Spaniard, getting his second pro win, a spot in the top 10 in the Official World Golf Rankings, and the chance to take out the No. 1 less than two weeks before the Masters probably takes priority over any payout.
DJ is just 33 years old and has $45,475,023 in career earnings. We also may be just at the sunrise of what could be a few years of dominance. Of course, he’s won at least once in each of his first 10 years on the PGA Tour. But this is a new level, with a No. 1 ranking, a major championship, likely three wins before we even get to Augusta, and potentially the first ever WGC grand slam (even Tiger, who will never be caught with 18 WGC titles, never won the event over in China). DJ’s season earnings are already at $3,686,600 and this would be another $1.66M bump. This is still, I am told, March.
Only the majors and The Players pay out more than the WGCs these days, and the way he is cooking now, one of those seems to be coming for DJ again this year. Here are some of the payouts for the top events in the game in 2016:
- The Players Championship — winner took $1.89M of $10.5M purse
- Masters/U.S. Open/PGA Championship -- winner took $1.8M of $10M purse
- British Open -- winner took $1,551,000 of $8.5 million (prior year’s $10M conversion impacted by Brexit)
- WGC events -- winner took $1.62M of $9.5M purse
We’ve already seen the WGC winner get another $40,000 this year for that total pot increase and the USGA made an early statement in this arms race already this year, saying it was boosting its U.S. Open purse to a massive $12 million. That will accelerate things even more intensely, with The Players probably the first to answer that enormous $2 million jump for the U.S. national championship. The Players prides itself on being the biggest purse in the game.
At the majors, however, there’s a good chance you can go home with nothing and a missed cut. At the WGCs, everyone gets a nice fat check and some free world ranking points. That even includes early withdrawals, like Jason Day, who played only six holes in his first match on Wednesday before a heartbreaking announcement that his mom is battling cancer.
Here’s the full purse breakdown for the WGC Dell Match Play (we’ll update when results go final):
Place | Percent of Purse | Amount |
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