Rory McIlroy was on fire in his press conference ahead of the 2026 BMW Championship, even by normal Rory McIlroy standards.
Never one to hide his true feelings from reporters, the World No. 2 continued that tradition at Bellerive Country Club on Wednesday.
First, he dumped cold water on the idea that returning LIV Golf stars could improve the PGA Tour, burning them with one line: “Have they brought value to LIV?” Then, he quieted any suggestion that he should win Player of the Year honors, handed Scottie Scheffler the title early and suggested that if Scheffler kept putting as well as he did last week, McIlroy and the rest of the Tour’s stars are “F’d.”
But later in the media scrum, it was a question about the skyrocketing prize money on the PGA Tour that drew Rory’s attention.
When asked if runaway purses had gotten out of control in recent years, McIlroy provided a quick and forceful defense of the growing millions he and his fellow players are earning at Tour events.
Wherever your opinion lands on the topic of enormous PGA Tour purses, one thing is certain: prize money in pro golf has risen dramatically in just a few years.
McIlroy’s rollercoaster history at the Masters provides a good example. At the 2011 Masters, a young Rory had a four-shot lead heading into Sunday’s final round. A disastrous 80 followed, relegating McIlroy to a tie for 15th. Charl Schwartzel took home the green jacket instead. Schwartzel’s first-place check that week? $1.44 million.
Eleven years later, McIlroy finished runner-up to Scheffler at the 2022 Masters. McIlroy’s earnings for second place that year, $1.62 million, were higher than Schwartzel’s winner’s share in 2011. Scheffler took home a then-record $2.7 million for his first Masters title.
So in 11 years, the Masters winner’s check nearly doubled. But, incredibly, it took only four more years to double again: McIlroy earned a whopping $4.5 million for his 2026 Masters victory earlier this year.
PGA Tour tournament purses have followed a similarly steep trajectory, with Signature Events typically paying out $3.6 million to the winners. Or more. Cameron Young took home $4.5 million for his 2026 Players Championship.
All of that led a reporter at the BMW Championship to ask McIlroy if there was now “too much money” in pro golf.
Rory didn’t miss a beat, disagreeing with the notion and providing a free-market defense of gigantic purses. Rory suggested “if someone is willing to pay that” then it is justified.
“No, because I think it’s whatever the market’s willing to pay. And we’re getting sponsors to step up and pay for these titles of these Championship Series events,” McIlroy argued. “So, obviously these companies see value in putting that money up. So, I don’t think so. Again, it’s, you know, if someone is willing to pay that, then that’s the market value and, yeah, so, no.”
McIlroy’s views on growing pro golf purses could be seen as ironic when considered against his argument, in the same press conference, that LIV Golf “has never been a good thing for the game.”
Why did winners’ shares at PGA Tour events and majors double since 2022? The biggest reason is LIV Golf. LIV arrived on the scene that year, and immediately offered its players enormous upfront paychecks along with huge purses paying $4 million for first place.
The PGA Tour and the majors chose to strategically inflate their own purses in response, both to keep up with LIV and keep more star players from joining the upstart league.
In a follow-up, McIlroy was asked if he thinks big money should be part of the incentive structure of the PGA Tour’s reimagined postseason in the future, as it is now with the FedEx Cup playoffs.
Rory answered in the affirmative, joking that modern players aren’t like amatuer legend Bobby Jones “not playing for prize money.”
“Well, I think, I mean, I think it’s an incentive. We are professional golfers. Like, we’re not just Bobby Jones out there, not playing for prize money. So, like, I mean, we turned pro to make money playing golf. I mean, that’s a part of it,” McIlroy argued.
However, the six-time major champion also said that prize money shouldn’t be “front and center” as it is now, and that the Tour should lean into its own tournaments’ histories to raise their profiles, which has “gotten lost” recently through “commercializing the PGA Tour.”
“I don’t think it should be front and center in terms of, like, what we’re talking about, right. Like, it should be about other things. Like, I think we should — you know, I had a conversation with Brian about this yesterday. We should play into the history of, this is the Western Open. This was started in 1899. Like, we should play into that history. That should be what we are talking about when we come to these tournaments,” McIlroy said on Wednesday. “Yes, BMW are putting up the money and that’s amazing that they do, and they support golf all over the world. But this tournament has so much history, and I think that some of that as we’ve gotten into, like, commercializing the PGA Tour, has gotten lost. But I think there’s a way to thread that needle and be able to do both.”
Whatever happens to pro golf purses in the future, nothing is changing anytime soon. This week, McIlroy and co. will be fighting over a $3.6 million winner’s share, the same amount Scheffler won last week. That’s in addition to nearly $100 million in FedEx Cup bonus money that will be dished out on Sunday after the BMW.
Next week, the winner will take home $10 million.
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