PGA Championship Prize Money: Full Payout Breakdown

The 2026 PGA Championship paid a record $20.5 million, and champion Aaron Rai collected $3,690,000. All 82 players who made the cut and completed 72 holes were paid, from Rai’s cheque down to $23,900 for last place, and every professional who missed the cut received $4,300. The PGA of America pays the winner a flat 18% of the purse, a percentage that has not moved in years.

All figures on this page are from the 2026 PGA Championship, played 16-23 May 2026 at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.

How much is the PGA Championship purse and what does the winner get?

The 2026 purse was $20,500,000 and the winner banked $3,690,000. That was a $1.5 million rise on the $19 million paid in 2025 and the third straight year of growth.

Rai’s win was the first by an Englishman in the stroke play era of the championship, which began in 1958. The runner-up received $2,214,000, third place $1,394,000, fourth $984,000 and fifth $820,000. Thirty-three players earned six figures.

What is the full 2026 PGA Championship payout, position by position?

Eighty-two players were paid. This is the complete schedule, which is what a payout query actually needs and what a one-line summary cannot give you.

Pos	Prize	Pos	Prize
1	$3,690,000	42	$68,880
2	$2,214,000	43	$65,870
3	$1,394,000	44	$62,960
4	$984,000	45	$60,150
5	$820,000	46	$57,430
6	$727,600	47	$54,810
7	$681,050	48	$52,290
8	$636,400	49	$49,860
9	$593,700	50	$47,540
10	$553,000	51	$45,300
11	$514,160	52	$43,170
12	$477,300	53	$41,130
13	$442,370	54	$39,190
14	$409,390	55	$37,350
15	$378,340	56	$35,600
16	$349,240	57	$33,950
17	$322,080	58	$32,600
18	$296,850	59	$31,430
19	$273,570	60	$30,460
20	$252,230	61	$29,690
21	$232,830	62	$29,120
22	$215,370	63	$28,640
23	$199,840	64	$28,180
24	$187,230	65	$27,740
25	$175,110	66	$27,310
26	$163,460	67	$26,890
27	$152,310	68	$26,480
28	$141,640	69	$26,080
29	$131,450	70	$25,690
30	$121,750	71	$25,360
31	$113,990	72	$25,040
32	$107,200	73	$24,730
33	$101,380	74	$24,530
34	$96,530	75	$24,370
35	$92,650	76	$24,230
36	$88,960	77	$24,130
37	$85,370	78	$24,040
38	$81,880	79	$23,970
39	$78,480	80	$23,930
40	$75,180	81	$23,910
41	$71,980	82	$23,900

Missed cut: $4,300 per professional.

Read the bottom of that table and you can see the PGA of America’s design. From 73rd down, each place is worth roughly $100 to $300 more than the next. The last dozen positions are effectively a flat appearance payment dressed as a ranking, which is deliberate: it guarantees a player who scrapes through the cut a meaningful week without inflating the tail of the purse.

How has the PGA Championship purse grown?

The purse has risen every year since 2021 and has gone up just over 70% in five editions. Because the 18% winner’s share has never moved, the champion’s cheque has tracked it exactly.

Year	Venue	Total purse	Winner’s share	Champion
2021	Kiawah Island	$12,000,000	$2,160,000	Phil Mickelson
2022	Southern Hills	$15,000,000	$2,700,000	Justin Thomas
2023	Oak Hill	$17,500,000	$3,150,000	Brooks Koepka
2024	Valhalla	$18,500,000	$3,330,000	Xander Schauffele
2025	Quail Hollow	$19,000,000	$3,420,000	Scottie Scheffler
2026	Aronimink	$20,500,000	$3,690,000	Aaron Rai

The steady 18% is worth dwelling on. Augusta National raised its winner’s share from 18% to 20% in 2025, and the USGA did the same at the U.S. Open, which is why those two events now hand over $4.5 million on a purse only $2 million larger than the PGA’s. Had the PGA of America matched the move, Rai would have earned $4.1 million.

How does the PGA Championship compare with the other three majors?

Third of four on purse size, and third on the winner’s cheque. All four 2026 editions are below.

2026 major	Total purse	Winner’s share	Winner’s %	Players paid
Masters	$22,500,000	$4,500,000	20%	54
U.S. Open	$22,500,000	$4,500,000	20%	72
PGA Championship	$20,500,000	$3,690,000	18%	82
The Open	$17,500,000	$3,200,000	~18%	Varies

The PGA Championship pays the most players of the four. That is a function of its cut rule and a 156-player starting field rather than generosity, but it does mean a journeyman is more likely to leave the PGA with a five-figure week than he is to leave the Masters with anything at all, since Augusta invites fewer than 100 players in the first place.

The championship also sits behind several regular PGA Tour events on raw purse. The Players Championship and the signature events on the schedule have carried pots at or above $20 million since 2024, so the PGA Championship’s prestige now runs well ahead of its prize fund.

Who is eligible for PGA Championship prize money?

Every professional in the field is paid something, and amateurs are paid nothing. The championship reserves 20 places for PGA of America club professionals who qualify through the PGA Professional Championship, and those players are paid on the same schedule as the tour professionals.

That is the quiet story of the payout sheet. A club pro from a municipal course in Ohio who misses the cut still banks $4,300, and one who makes the weekend and finishes 70th collects $25,690, which for most club professionals is a substantial share of an annual salary. The same logic applies at the U.S. Open, where qualifying is open to anyone with a low enough handicap index.

What else does the champion get?

The Wanamaker Trophy, a lifetime exemption into the PGA Championship, five-year exemptions into the Masters, U.S. Open and The Open, five seasons of PGA Tour membership and 750 FedExCup points.

The exemptions carry more long-run value than the cheque. Five guaranteed years in all four majors is worth several million dollars in earning opportunity plus the world ranking points that keep a player inside the elite fields. It is the same compounding that turns franchise ownership into generational wealth, as the ranked list of NFL ownership groups shows. More payout breakdowns across sport are collected in our prize money guides.