Huge bonuses in golf shake up tennis world

Rory McIlroy (C) celebrates the 2025 Masters title at Augusta Golf Club, Georgia, U.S. on April 13, 2025. Photo by Reuters

McIlroy's two biggest bonuses since the beginning of 2025 are $4.2 million at The Masters this month and $4.5 million at the Players Championship last month. These two titles alone brought McIlroy a prize money nearly equal to the $9.8 million that tennis player Carlos Alcaraz earned in all of 2024.

The tennis world has recently been boiling over the issues related to prize money. The top 20 male and female players in March sent letters to the four Grand Slam tournaments asking for a raise in bonuses. The move comes after the Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA), an organization founded by Novak Djokovic, filed a lawsuit against the ATP, WTA and ITF for monopoly and corruption.

"There will be comparisons, obviously," tennis legend John McEnroe told ESPN about prize money in tennis. "Players have a reason to demand more benefits when the numbers are more public and transparent."

PTPA documents show that the 2024 U.S. Open organizers earned more than $12 million alone from selling a single type of cocktail to spectators. However, they only paid men's singles champion Jannik Sinner and women's singles champion Aryna Sabalenka $3.6 million each in prize money.

Sinner won the most titles and earned the most money last season, with $16.9 million. However, that figure is only half of what world number one golfer Scottie Scheffler earned. After his great success last year, the Scheffler pocketed $29.3 million in prize money, followed by Xander Schauffele with $18.4 million.

That means golfers earned twice as much as tennis players in 2024. Statistics show that the current tennis Grand Slam tournaments are spending less than a third of their revenue on prize money, compared to 40-50% in golf, basketball and baseball.

In a lawsuit filed in March, the PTPA asked tennis organizations to pay players more and give them more freedom to participate in exhibition tournaments. Saudi Arabia paid the highest prize money ever in tennis to six players at last year's Six Kings Slam, with $1.5 million in entry fees and an additional $6 million for the winner. At that tournament, Daniil Medvedev earned more than $2 million for playing just one match.

In golf, the independent LIV Golf Tour, also funded by Saudi Arabia, has paid huge sums to stars from the PGA Tour. Former Masters champion Jon Rahm pocketed $34.7 million last year from the system, while Sergio Garcia earned $17 million.