The inaugural 1860 Open Championship had just eight players and offered no prize money. It was not even an “open”. The winner, Willie Park, took home only the Challenge Belt, made of red Moroccan leather, and the title of Champion Golfer, and that stayed true for the tournament’s first three editions. Money didn’t enter the picture until 1863.

That year, a £10 pot was split among eight professionals in a 14-man field. A first-place incentive followed one year later, with Old Tom Morris earning £6 out of a £15 total pot. The purse reached £100 29 years later and didn’t quintuple until 1931. Just 15 years later, the first postwar Open offered £1,000. By 2000, when Tiger Woods completed the career Grand Slam at St Andrews, the purse had grown to £2.75 million or approximately $4.2 million, with Woods taking home £500,000. In 2022, the purse rose to $14 million, and Cameron Smith took home a winner’s share of $2.5 million, $430,000 more than what Collin Morikawa earned the year before. The purse has kept climbing since: $16.5 million in 2023, $17 million in 2024, flat at $17 million in 2025, and $17.75 million this year at Royal Birkdale.

This year’s winner takes home $3.2 million, up $100,000 from last year. Second place gets $1.842 million. Players who make the cut earn something based on where they finish, and even players who miss it get paid: $12,900 for the top 10, $10,750 for the next 20, $9,100 for the rest. Here’s the full breakdown by position:

🤔 golf trivia

This Should Be an Easy One, Right?

01/10

How Many Shots Was Bryson DeChambeau Penalized in R2 of the Open?

2134

Oops, bogey!

But don’t worry, there’s still the back 9 to prove your high golf IQ

PLAY GOLF TRIVIA

Players qualify for the field through the Open Qualifying Series, Final Qualifying events, past-champion exemptions, top amateur events, or their results on tour. That mix produces 156 players: established stars, international pros, and amateurs all in the same field.

The winner gets a unique title, “Champion Golfer of the Year,” along with the Claret Jug, presented to the winner since 1873. This year, that title and trophy are being decided at Royal Birkdale, a course with its own history among the championship’s winners.

Arnold Palmer, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson, Padraig Harrington, and Jordan Spieth have all won there. The course is popular for its dunes, tight bunkering, and exposed fairways, the kind of layout that rewards precision over power. The trophy that Royal Birkdale’s champions have lifted has a history of its own, and it starts with one golfer’s dominance nearly 150 years ago.

Facts to know about the Open Championship

Young Tom Morris won three consecutive Opens from 1868 to 1870, and under the rules of the original Challenge Belt, three straight wins meant he kept it permanently. That left the tournament with no trophy to offer, so no Open was held in 1871 while organizers arranged a replacement. Morris then won a fourth straight title in 1872, before the new Claret Jug was ready, meaning his name was the first engraved on a trophy he never got to lift himself. The professionals-only field he beat to get there didn’t stay that way for long.

The 1860 edition, played by eight professional golfers, restricted entry to that group alone. From 1861 onward, the field opened to amateur players as well, a structure that has continued in some form ever since and still allows leading amateurs to qualify for the championship today. What the tournament has never opened itself up to is the name most people outside the UK use for it.

Most people call it the “British Open,” but that’s not its name. The R&A calls it “The Open.” The label caught on in the U.S., where it needed to be distinguished from other countries’ Opens.

His run of four consecutive Open titles remains unmatched in the tournament’s history. Only one other men’s major has ever seen a player win four years running: Walter Hagen at the PGA Championship, from 1924 to 1927.

The Open still pays the least of the four majors, and this year’s increase doesn’t change that. The R&A has said as much itself: prize money competes with the grassroots funding it puts into golf worldwide, and it isn’t racing to close the gap. That leaves the purse on the same path it’s followed since 1863, small steps between forced jumps. The next one comes whenever a rival raises the number again; until then, $17.75 million is the ceiling.