PRIZE money for the Open championship at Turnberry later this month has been set at £4.2 million, the same amount on offer at Birkdale last summer, with the winner on the Ailsa again taking home a cheque for £750,000.
The Royal and Ancient Golf Club, organiser of the Open, was keen to act prudently during an economic downturn by not raising the pot for already well remunerated professionals. That said, the decline in value of the pound against the dollar earlie
r this year raised the possibility of an increase simply in order to keep the championship competitive with the three American majors.
Thanks to the recent rise in the value of sterling – worth as little as $1.39 in January, the £1 was up to $1.64 yesterday – there was no extra pressure on the R&A to put any extra money in the kitty. Indeed, with a current dollar value of $6.9m, Open prize money isn't too far short of the $7.5m provided at both the US Open last month and the Masters in April. However, it is well down on the $8.4m value paid out at Birkdale in 2008 when the £1 was worth $2. Asked if he felt there was an incentive to freeze prize money in a recession, R&A chief executive Peter Dawson replied: "We have a duty at the Open championship to maintain the event at the forefront of world golf, and prize money is a part of that equation. That doesn't mean to say you have to be top of the prize money heap every year. The Open had been the most lucrative in dollar terms of all the four majors for quite some years now."
It's a measure of how the rewards in golf have grown over the years to recall that when the Open was first held at Turnberry in 1977, scene of the unforgettable "Duel in the Sun" between Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus, the winner collected £10,000. Now the golfer who finishes 65th on the Ailsa this month will receive that amount.
When the Open went back to Turnberry in 1986, Greg Norman picked up £70,000, and in 1994 Nick Price was rewarded with £110,000 for carding 12 under par. As he attempts to become the first golfer since Peter Thomson in 1956 to win three consecutive Opens, Padraig Harrington is unlikely to be disappointed when he learns the winner's cheque remains unchanged at £750,000.
