The LIV Golf tour has been in the news from Day 1 due to its substantial financial resources. It has flexed that muscle several times in player recruitment and, above all, in its sizable purses.
The trend doesn’t seem likely to change much.
A Sports Business Journal report states that the Saudi-backed league is prepared to increase its tournament purses by 20% for the next season. This means going from the current $25 million to $30 million.
Such a figure would break all professional golf records for high purses. Until now, LIV Golf tournaments were tied for first place with the Players Championship at $25 million.
However, the PGA Tour’s flagship event had an advantage over LIV Golf because its purse is entirely dedicated to an individual tournament, while LIV events currently allocate $20 million to that format, with $5 million as prize money for the top three teams.
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The second-highest purse for individual tournaments in the 2025 season was the US Open at $21.5 million, closely followed by the Masters Tournament at $21 million. The 14 individual tournaments on LIV tied for fourth place with the eight PGA Tour Signature Events, which also had $20 million purses each.
But the fact is that no current professional golf event reaches a purse of $30 million, as LIV events will in 2026, according to the Sports Business Journal report.
So far, there is no information available about how the LIV Golf purse distribution will be once the purses are increased. Currently, the individual events distribute its purse in the usual way in professional golf, with $4 million going to the winner and the last-place player receiving $50,000.
The team event allocates $3 million to the winning team, $1.5 million to the runner-up, and $500,000 to the third-place finish. Teams in fourth through 13th place receive no prize money.
Recently, The Telegraph reported that LIV Golf will suspend its practice of paying player fines imposed by the DP World Tour, effective after the Ryder Cup. The league is estimated to have spent about $20.3 million on this issue so far, with an additional $13 million to be added for the Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton cases.
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