How much is Rory Mcllroy’s Open Championship victory worth?
Rory Mcllroy has just capped a stunning display to win the British Open Championship, becoming the the third youngest golfer in history after Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods to have won three major championships.
That is quite an achievement for the 25-year-old Northern Irishman, who displayed nerves of steel on the last day of the Open Championship to join his boyhood idol Woods and the 18-time major champion Nicklaus on an elite podium in golf.
As well as ensuring his father and his friends enjoy a £200,000 jackpot after placing a £100 bet on Rory to win the sport's oldest major tournament before the age of 26, the victory means that Mcllroy nets almost £1m after a £30,000 increase in the prize money for the champion from last year.
But he is not the only one going home with a large paycheck though. The runner up at Royal Liverpool Golf Club will pocket more than half a million. In fact, the top 11 players will earn in excess of £100,000 from their participation at the tournament.
Here's how the prize money breaks down for the event.
The prize money at the British Open has recorded a real boost over the last few years, almost doubling since 2000, when the victor's earnings stood at half a million.
The chart below shows how much the tournament winner received each year since 1955, demonstrating the remarkable growth in the financial rewards available to the world's top golfers over the last twenty years.
But earnings from competitions are not even the half of it. The top golf stars can command big bucks in commercial deals and Mcllroy has benefited immensely from lucrative sponsorships in his short career so far.
Even before his Open victory, Mcllroy had already guaranteed income of $24.3m for 2014, according to Forbes estimates. The large majority of his money, in the region of $20m, is from endorsements.
The 25-year-old from Holywood, County Down, became the second youngest player in the sport's history to reach number one in the world in 2012 and his impressive ascendancy through the rankings has also made him particularly appealing for brands.
As the chart below demonstrates, Mcllroy's revenue from endorsements has grown steadily over the last four seasons, to an impressive $18m in 2013, according to figures from Golf Digest's annual golf richlist.
Mcllroy had a difficult 2013 on the field having to adjust to playing with new clubs after signing a bumper deal with US sports giant Nike worth a reported $100m million over five years, but that certainly boosted his income off course.
With his sponsorship revenue showing no signs of plummeting and the prize money from his latest triumph, it looks like 2014 could be Mcllroy's most successful season both on and off the golf course.