NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — The 156-player field at the PGA Championship, which starts Thursday at Aronimink Golf Club, is annually one of the strongest in golf. But the prize money up for grabs in recent years has lagged behind other majors and many top-tier golf events.
“It’s a balanced approach,” PGA of America CEO Terry Clark said Wednesday when asked about the prize-money strategy by Front Office Sports during his pre-tournament press conference.
The PGA of America, a separate organization from the PGA Tour, operates the PGA Championship and Ryder Cup, among other events.
This year’s purse will be announced Saturday morning, which is standard for the PGA Championship. Last year’s prize money was $19 million, up $500,000 from 2024 and a record for the tournament, but third out of the four major championships behind the U.S. Open ($21.5 million) and the Masters, which paid out $21 million in 2025 and raised its 2026 purse to $22.5 million last month. The Open Championship paid out $17 million.
“It’s not always in comparison to all of [the other majors],” Clark said of the PGA Championship’s strategy. “What are the factors that make sense? We do look at it as an annual focus around how we get competitive purses.”
Last week, USGA CEO Mike Whan told FOS the U.S. Open’s prize-money strategy is “not a race” with the Masters or anyone else.
Beyond the majors, the PGA Tour’s eight $20 million signature events all have larger purses than the PGA Championship, as does the tour’s $25 million Players Championship. So do all LIV Golf events, which are paying out $33 million this season ($23 million to players, $10 million to teams).
PGA Championship’s Identity
Clark, who was hired in February following former PGA of America CEO Derek Sprague stepping down after just one year, pushed back on two ideas that have been circulating about the future of the PGA Championship: moving out of its current May date and back to August, and playing internationally.
“I really think we’ve got a strong position in May,” Clark said. “Certainly I’m always going to look at what could make us better, but not actively looking at: should we look and move this to later or back to August.”
The PGA Championship in 2019 started playing in May, in a move that allowed the PGA Tour to host its entire postseason in August and finish before the NFL season.
As far as hosting the PGA Championship outside the U.S., Clark said, “I don’t see that being a real focus as far as right now. It’s not something that I really looked at and discussed. I think we have a great identity, and that identity [is] tied to those venues here; we have plenty of opportunities to establish that identity in this country.”
