The Open Diary: Tournament lagging behind other Majors in golf gold rush
Scottie Scheffler earned €2.91m for his victory at this year's PGA Championship. That is €260,000 more than the winner of this year's Open will receive. Pic: Brian Lawless/PA Wire.
Hats off to the people at Portrush Primary School whose grounds have been overrun this week with a bevvy of campervans and tents as golf fans avail of any and every opportunity to catch the world’s best players in action.
It isn’t just the town itself that has had to work around The Open. Vast stretches of the northern coastline are having to accommodate this enormous logistical operation with 40mph speed limits in operation for miles around.
A no-fly zone is in place with the PSNI warning anyone thinking of launching a drone of the consequences involved and a traffic management system is in operation to funnel people in and out of the area while allowing residents and businesses to go about with minimal fuss.
That’s all but impossible, really. Think of the East Strand car park and its 600 spaces that have been sealed off for the purposes of the tournament and this can’t be anything other than a unique week for the people in this part of the world.
Saturday evening promises to be especially interesting with a planned loyalist march in the town containing more than 60 bands and a couple of thousand people, just around the time when the golf ends down the road and punters are streaming out.
Watch that space.
Golf’s gold rush has been jaw-dropping in modern times, and the riches race has been supercharged since the advent of LIV into the market and eco-system. That injection is obvious on weeks like this.
When Shane Lowry took home the Claret Jug from Portrush in 2019 he earned with it a record cheque worth $1.935 million (€1.65m). The Champion golfer this time will take home $3.1m (€2.65m). Some difference in such a short space of time.
And yet, that €2.65m figure remains unchanged from when Xander Schauffele came out on top in Royal Troon 12 months ago, and it remains behind the other three majors in financial terms with no real bump of note since an 18% leap for St Andrews in 2022.
By comparison, Rory McIlroy was paid $4.2m (3.59) for his Masters triumph at Augusta in April, Scottie Scheffler’s PGA win was worth $3.4m (€2.91), and JJ Spaun got rewarded $4.3m (€3.68) for his US Open work.
The total prize fund for this week’s Open sits at $17m (€14.53m).
Oh, and why all the dollar values? Because that’s how the R&A pays out now.
Shane Lowry’s win here at Royal Portrush was immortalised in a huge mural painted on to the gable end of a house on the Causeway Road that leads from the course into the town itself. That was last year, to mark one year before The Open’s return.
Now, Rory McIlroy has been honoured too.
The Holywood man has been rendered in sprinkles, or hundreds of thousands if you prefer. Two-and-a-half million of them, to be precise. This mural has been rendered by the family-owned Morelli’s Ice Cream shop in the town’s Eglinton Street.
McIlroy, famously, missed the cut when The Open visited these parts in 2019 but this artistic nod has been made on the back of his Masters win in April and the achievement in having won all four of golf’s majors.
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