- Masters winners can earn millions of dollars for placing at the iconic golf tournament. That’s much more than the original $1,500 prize for the winner of the inaugural tournament in 1934. Some professional golfers claim, though, that the money isn’t the reason they’re playing in the tournament.
There are few enduring traditions of the Masters tournament, one of the four main championships in men’s professional golf: the iconic green blazer awarded to the winner, caddies’ white jumpsuits, the Champions Dinner, the Par 3 Contest, and egg salad sandwiches. In fact, sports broadcaster Jim Nantz coined the Masters as a “tradition unlike any other.”
But one major factor that’s changed over the 91 years since the inaugural tournament is the payout for the winner. Back in 1934, Masters founders Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts set up a $5,000 “purse,” or pool of money, for tournament participants, with $1,500 going to the winner and descending incremental amounts going to other place finishers, according to Today’s Golfer.
The $1,500 prize that went to inaugural winner Horton Smith would be worth nearly $36,000 in purchasing power today, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ CPI Inflation Calculator. Although the official purse and winner’s payout for the 2025 Masters tournament hasn’t yet been finalized, Scottie Scheffler’s payout in 2024 was $3.6 million. That’s over 100 times more than Smith’s payout in 1934. Scheffler’s net worth is estimated at $50 million, according to NBC, but some reports suggest it could be as high as $90 million.
The total purse in 2024 was $20 million, so the top 60 players left with a pay day. The top five players at last year’s Masters went home with more than $1 million, and places one through 35 earned more than $100,000. Even the No. 60 player left with almost $40,000. That was the largest purse in Masters history, and the pool of money has always stayed the same or increased, Today’s Golfer reports.
Professional golfer Rory McIlroy told Sky Sports that anyone who thinks golfers are underpaid “need their heads examined.”
“I play golf for a living. There’s nurses and teachers and they’re the ones that should be getting paid a lot more,” McIlroy said. “So, I just wouldn’t feel right at all saying that I get underpaid for playing a game for a living.” Last year, McIlroy took more than $175,000 home from the Masters.
Looking back, iconic golfer Arnold Palmer—namesake for the popular lemonade-iced-tea drink—was the first Masters winner to go home with a five-figure payout in 1958, according to Golfweek. By 1984, the winner’s payout reached six figures, but it wasn’t until 2001 that a Masters winner earned more than $1 million from the tournament: that honor went to Tiger Woods.
Although Ben Hogan earned just $3,000 for winning the 1951 Masters and $5,000 for the 1953 tournament, he famously said it was more about the game than the money.
“If the Masters offered no money at all, I would be here trying just as hard,” Hogan said.
What a Masters winner could buy then with their prize money versus now
While $1,500 went much further back in 1934 than it does today, its current monetary equivalent of about $36,000 won’t get people too far. It’s not nearly enough to put a down payment on a typical home, according to Zillow. A home buyer earning the median income needs to put down nearly $127,750, or 35.4%, to comfortably afford a typical U.S. home, a 2024 Zillow report shows.
But today’s Masters payout of $3.6 million could afford a player the chance to buy a median-priced home in Los Angeles, which would set them back about $1.1 million, according to Redfin. The Masters payout for 1934 also wouldn’t be enough to buy a brand-new Tesla; some models start around $50,000. But today’s winner could afford a fleet of new cars—or splurge on an expensive sports car. The average player on the PGA Tour in the 2021 season earned $1.5 million, according to Sports Illustrated.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
