Players Championship 2020 Prize Money: Purse and Payout Info for TPC Sawgrass

The 2020 Players Championship gets under way at TPC Sawgrass on Thursday, with a raft of the world's golf elite ready to compete at Ponte Vedra Beach in Florida. 

The PGA Tour released a statement on Thursday saying it was "aware of rapidly changing developments" regarding the coronavirus, but the competition is scheduled to go ahead as planned.

Defending champion Rory McIlroy is hoping to become the first player to win successive titles at this tournament, which will feature its largest prize-money payout to date.

Kyle Porter of CBS wrote the champion will earn a $2.7 million (£2.1 million) share of the total $15 million (£11.7 million) purse, while the runner-up takes home a little more than $1.6 million (£1.25 million). That's a 20 per cent increase on the $12.5 million total purse shared between the prize winners in 2019.

Any player who finishes among the top 30 places will win at least $100,000 (£78,400), with the top 65 finishers set to receive a cut in Florida.

Top 10 Prize-Money Payouts

1st: $2,700,000
2nd: $1,635,000
3rd: $1,035,000
4th: $735,000
5th: $615,000
6th: $543,750
7th: $506,250
8th: $468,750
9th: $438,750
10th: $408,750

Preview

Only six players have won multiple titles at the Players Championship, and legend Jack Nicklaus came the closest to clinching back-to-back crowns when he won three editions between 1974 and 1978.

Titleholder McIlroy has his eyes set on joining an elite club with victory in 2020, which would also bring him the unique honour of being the first to defend in the most lucrative competition in golf.

In fact, Steve Elkington holds the record for the shortest wait between Players Championship wins since it moved to TPC Sawgrass in 1982, which stands at six years following his successes in 1991 and 1997.

McIlroy has the form to at least contend following a run of excellent finishes, the most recent of which saw him tie for fifth at the Arnold Palmer Invitational on Sunday, via Sky Sports:

Other past champions in this year's field include Phil Mickelson (2007), Rickie Fowler (2015), Jason Day (2017) and Matt Kuchar (2012), while two-time winner Tiger Woods has opted to not compete. Kuchar will tee off alongside two more former champions in Sergio Garcia (2008) and Henrik Stenson (2009).

Jim Furyk finished as runner-up behind McIlroy in 2019, repeating the narrow one-stroke deficit that saw him finish second to Martin Kaymer five years earlier.

The Ponte Vedra Beach resident will hope home comforts are finally enough to land him his first Players Championship title in 2020 having birdied two of his final three holes last year, via GOLFTV:

Si Woo Kim—whose highest career world ranking is 28th—returns to the field after he took the trophy in 2017. Webb Simpson stormed home by four shots one year later, the joint-biggest margin of victory since 2006.

World No. 7 Simpson has been one of several names speculated as a dark horse coming to TPC Sawgrass this weekend, via the Golf Channel:

Adam Scott won the 2004 Players Championship and is looking to add his second title 16 years on, though that would still be short of the record 17-year gap that separated Hal Sutton's two titles in 1983 and 2000.