Masters Prize Money: Full Payout and Purse History

The 2026 Masters Tournament paid out a record $22.5 million, and champion Rory McIlroy collected $4,500,000 of it. Every professional who survived the 36-hole cut was paid, from McIlroy’s cheque down to $51,300 for 54th place, and each player who missed the cut received $25,000. Augusta National pays on a fixed percentage schedule, so the winner’s share is always 20% of whatever the purse happens to be that year.

All figures on this page are from the 2026 Masters, played 9-12 April 2026 at Augusta National Golf Club.

How much is the Masters purse and what does the winner get?

The 2026 purse was $22.5 million and the champion took $4,500,000. That was a $1.5 million rise on the 2025 purse of $21 million, which itself was $1 million up on 2024.

Scottie Scheffler finished one stroke behind McIlroy at 11 under and earned $2,430,000. Four players tied for third at 10 under, and each received $1,080,000. Thirty-nine players earned six figures. The 54 professionals who made the cut split the entire pot between them, because Augusta pays nothing to the amateurs in the field.

What is the full 2026 Masters payout, position by position?

The cut fell at 148 (+4) and left 54 players, so 54th was the last paid position. Here is the complete schedule.

Pos	Prize	Pos	Prize	Pos	Prize
1	$4,500,000	19	$315,000	37	$110,250
2	$2,430,000	20	$292,500	38	$105,750
3	$1,530,000	21	$270,000	39	$101,250
4	$1,080,000	22	$252,000	40	$96,750
5	$900,000	23	$234,000	41	$92,250
6	$810,000	24	$216,000	42	$87,750
7	$753,750	25	$198,000	43	$83,250
8	$697,500	26	$180,000	44	$78,750
9	$652,500	27	$173,250	45	$74,250
10	$607,500	28	$166,500	46	$69,750
11	$562,500	29	$159,750	47	$65,250
12	$517,500	30	$153,000	48	$61,650
13	$472,500	31	$146,250	49	$58,500
14	$427,500	32	$139,500	50	$56,700
15	$405,000	33	$132,750	51	$55,350
16	$382,500	34	$127,125	52	$54,000
17	$360,000	35	$121,500	53	$52,650
18	$337,500	36	$115,875	54	$51,300

Missed cut: $25,000 per professional.

The shape of that schedule matters more than the headline number. Roughly 44% of the purse goes to the top four finishers. From 27th place down, the drop between positions is a few thousand dollars a place, which is why a Sunday charge from 40th to 30th is worth about $56,000 while a charge from fourth to first is worth $3.4 million.

How has the Masters purse grown over time?

The winner’s cheque has gone from $1,500 to $4.5 million across 90 editions. The steepest growth has come since 2022.

Year	Champion	Winner’s share
1934	Horton Smith	$1,500
1958	Arnold Palmer	$11,250
1979	Fuzzy Zoeller	$50,000
1984	Ben Crenshaw	$108,000
2001	Tiger Woods	$1,008,000
2019	Tiger Woods	$2,070,000

Tiger Woods in 2001 was the first Masters champion to be handed a seven-figure cheque. The modern era is easier to read as a percentage:

Year	Total purse	Winner’s share	Winner’s %
2022	$15,000,000	$2,700,000	18%
2023	$18,000,000	$3,240,000	18%
2024	$20,000,000	$3,600,000	18%
2025	$21,000,000	$4,200,000	20%
2026	$22,500,000	$4,500,000	20%

The 2025 jump is the one to note. Augusta National did not just raise the purse that year, it also raised the champion’s slice from 18% to 20%, which is why the winner’s cheque rose 17% while the purse rose only 5%. The 18% share is still the standard at the PGA Championship.

Do amateurs get Masters prize money?

No. Amateurs receive nothing at the Masters, whatever they shoot. Six amateurs were in the 2026 field, and none of them was paid a cent.

What the low amateur does receive is the Silver Cup, presented to the amateur with the lowest 72-hole score. Accepting prize money would forfeit amateur status under the Rules of Amateur Status, which is exactly why the invitation is prized: it is a shop window, not a payday. The same rule applies across golf, and the U.S. Open payout sheet shows it plainly, with five amateurs completing all 72 holes at Shinnecock Hills in 2026 and taking home nothing.

How is Masters prize money split when players tie?

Tied players pool the money for the positions they occupy and divide it equally. The 2026 tournament gives a clean worked example.

Four players tied for third: Tyrrell Hatton, Russell Henley, Justin Rose and Cameron Young. The schedule pays $1,530,000 for third, $1,080,000 for fourth, $900,000 for fifth and $810,000 for sixth. Added together that is $4,320,000, and divided four ways it is exactly $1,080,000 each. Six players tied for 12th, and by the same method each received $427,500.

The practical effect is that a large tie flattens the money. Finishing third alone is worth $450,000 more than finishing third in a four-way tie.

How does the Masters purse compare with the other three majors?

The Masters and the U.S. Open were level in 2026, and the PGA Championship and The Open sat below them.

2026 major	Total purse	Winner’s share	Winner’s %	Champion
Masters	$22,500,000	$4,500,000	20%	Rory McIlroy
U.S. Open	$22,500,000	$4,500,000	20%	Wyndham Clark
PGA Championship	$20,500,000	$3,690,000	18%	Aaron Rai
The Open	$17,500,000	$3,200,000	~18%	Ryan Fox

The Open pays least in dollars and is run by the R&A on a different commercial model, with a tiered missed-cut payment of $12,900, $10,750 or $9,100 depending on where a player finishes in the non-qualifiers. Augusta’s flat $25,000 for missing the cut is the most generous of the four. The Masters also pays the smallest field: 54 players were paid at Augusta in 2026 against 82 at the PGA Championship.

What else does the Masters champion receive?

Beyond the $4.5 million, the winner gets the green jacket, a lifetime exemption into the Masters, five-year exemptions into the other three majors, a five-season PGA Tour exemption, 750 FedExCup points and 100 Official World Golf Ranking points.

Those exemptions are worth more than the cheque over a career. A five-year run of guaranteed major starts is worth several million in appearance-adjacent income and world ranking points, which is the sort of compounding you also see on the ownership side of sport, where the men who own NFL franchises have watched purchase prices from the 1990s turn into ten-figure valuations. For more payout breakdowns across sport, see our prize money guides.