In 2013, the last time the AIG Women’s Open was played at St. Andrews, Stacy Lewis cashed a first-place prize money payout of $402,583 for her victory out of a total purse of $2.75 million. Come Sunday, when a new champion photographed on the Swilcan Bridge, there will be 3½ times that much on the line.
The R&A announced on Wednesday that the prize money payout at this week’s event will be a record $9.5 million with the winner earning $1.425 million. The total purse is up $500,000 from 2023 and almost double the amount offered just three years ago.
Part of the increase can be ascribed to the overall rise in paydays for women’s professional golf events on the LPGA Tour, and in particularly the five women’s majors, which have each had their purses jump past $7.9 million in the last year.
Here's the payday in the other four women’s majors:
U.S. Women’s Open: $12 million/$2.4 million
KPMG Women’s PGA: $10.4 million/$1.56 million
Amundi Evian: $8 million/$1.2 million
Chevron: $7.9 million/$1.2 million
But the increase at the Women’s British Open can also be linked to the R&A taking over the operation of the event from the Ladies Golf Union in 2017, AIG coming on board in 2019 and an influx of money and resources both internal and external following both.
“With the outstanding backing we have received from AIG as our title sponsor we have been able to achieve a step change and take this championship to new levels,” said Martin Slumbers, the outgoing R&A CEO who is set to step down from his post later this year. “The increased prize fund and our enhancements to the staging and the spectator experience this year reflect our shared commitment to making the AIG Women’s Open a world class championship for players and fans alike.”
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During last month’s Open Championship at Royal Troon, outgoing R&A CEO Martin Slumbers lamented the rising purses in the men’s professional game, worrying about the downstream effect they will have in taking away resources that could be used in other ways to grow the sport overall. But that’s not quite the concern here.
“I think the men's game and the women's game are in two completely different places,” Slumbers said during a pre-championship press conference on Wednesday. “But for the women's game, the issues that we're trying to really think about and focus on is how do we push it forward and elevate its profile? How do we take it to the great courses? How do we give them the opportunities to show how good they are and not really get caught up in all the difficulties that have been going on in the game.”
In that sense, the increase in the purse size is an investment in the growth of women’s golf overall, something he’s comfortable with.