The 2026 PGA Championship runs from Thursday, May 14 through Sunday, May 17 at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, the second time the club has hosted the event — Gary Player won the first one here in 1962 for a winner’s check of $13,000. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler comes in as the defending champion. Rory McIlroy, fresh off his back-to-back Masters win at Augusta, is going for his third Wanamaker Trophy and seventh major title overall.

The 2026 purse will be officially confirmed by the PGA of America before the trophy ceremony on Sunday evening. But the 2025 number is the floor everyone is starting from, and that floor is a record: $19,000,000, with $3,420,000 going to the winner.

What does the 2026 PGA Championship winner actually pocket?

In 2025 at Quail Hollow, Scottie Scheffler banked $3,420,000 as the new PGA champion. That is the largest winner’s check the tournament has ever paid. The runner-up earned $2,052,000, third place cleared $1,292,000, and even the players who missed the 36-hole cut walked away with $4,000 each, according to the official PGA of America payout list.

The winner’s share in 2025 was $90,000 higher than what Xander Schauffele collected in 2024. If the PGA of America keeps the same percentage split and lifts the total purse again — the pattern of the last five years — the 2026 winner should clear something between $3.45 million and $3.6 million. We will know for sure by Sunday night.

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

The PGA Championship is no longer the richest stop on the calendar, but it is no longer the smallest one either. Here is where it sits in 2026, based on each major’s purse:

  • Masters Tournament (April 2026, Augusta National): $22,500,000 purse, $4,500,000 to the winner Rory McIlroy
  • PGA Championship (May 2026, Aronimink): $19,000,000 purse expected, around $3,420,000+ to the winner
  • U.S. Open (June 2026, Shinnecock Hills): purse to be set in early June, $21.5 million last year
  • The Open Championship (July 2026, Royal Birkdale): $17 million in 2025 at Royal Portrush, expected to climb

By comparison, the Players Championship — the PGA Tour’s flagship non-major event — already paid out a $25 million purse this season, a reminder of how aggressively the Tour has lifted prize money to compete with LIV Golf since 2022.

For broader context on how elite sports prize pools are structured, you can read our breakdown of Formula 1 prize money and team payouts — F1 is a structural outlier, since individual race wins do not pay a direct check at all and teams instead share an end-of-season constructors’ pool.

Why is the PGA Championship purse climbing every year?

Three factors are pushing the number up. First, competitive pressure from LIV Golf: since 2022 the breakaway tour has dangled nine-figure signing bonuses at top players, and the PGA of America has been forced to raise its own purses to keep the field elite. Second, TV revenue: ESPN and CBS extended their PGA Championship rights deal through 2030 at a higher per-year value, and a chunk of that flows directly into the prize pool. Third, sponsorship: Mastercard, Rolex, and Cadillac have all renewed their tournament partnerships, and the on-course “pin position” bonuses paid out by partners like KPMG are layered on top of the base purse.

The result: the Wanamaker Trophy now comes with the largest single check in PGA Championship history, and the gap to the Masters winner’s payout has narrowed from $1.5 million in 2022 to roughly $1.1 million today.

What about everyone else in the 156-player field?

The PGA Championship pays everyone who tees off Thursday, which matters when four-day expenses for a player and their caddie at a major can easily run past $10,000. In 2025, every player who made the 36-hole cut at Quail Hollow took home at least $23,420. The 82 players who missed it still collected $4,000 each — small money for a top pro, but enough to cover the week’s hotel bill.

The deepest part of the field is where the math gets most interesting. A player finishing tied for 17th in 2025 earned $290,925. A player finishing tied for 50th still earned $40,674. That is more than the entire purse at most Korn Ferry Tour events, which is why the 156 spots in a major are some of the most fiercely contested in golf.

For a different angle on how a single weekend can rewrite a player’s earnings year, our piece on the 2026 Miami Open prize pool breaks down a similar dynamic in tennis, where the Miami Open champion banked $1.15 million for two weeks of work. And for hardcourt context earlier in the season, the Australian Open 2026 prize money breakdown shows how Grand Slam purses now scale into the eight figures across both draws.

What to watch on Sunday

If you are tracking the money story, the number to circle on Sunday is not the winner’s $3.42-million-plus check. It is the cut line cash of $4,000 and the T50 payout of around $40,000. Those two figures are the cleanest indicator of how rich the middle of the field has become — and that is what will tell us whether the PGA of America is keeping pace with the Players Championship, the Masters, and the rising baseline LIV Golf has imposed on the entire sport.

Aronimink will host its first major on Sunday afternoon. By Monday morning, we will know exactly how much $19 million — or more — has been redistributed across the 156 players who showed up to chase it.

Sources: PGA Tour, “PGA Championship 2026: See full purse breakdown from Aronimink Golf Club,” May 12, 2026 — https://www.pgatour.com/article/news/latest/2026/05/12/what-is-the-purse-breakdown-prize-money-pga-championship-winner-2026-aronimink-scheffler-mcilroy. Golf.com, “Here’s how much money every player made at the 2025 PGA Championship,” May 18, 2025 — https://golf.com/news/2025-pga-championship-money-player-payout/. ESPN, “2026 PGA Championship: Latest news and analysis, how to watch and more from Aronimink” — https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/page/PGAchampionship2026/pga-championship-2026-news-tee-s-schedule-television-complete-coverage-analysis. Cover image: Unsplash.}