Do Players Get Paid To Play In The Presidents Cup?

Some of the biggest names in golf compete in the Presidents Cup, but they don’t get paid for their participation, and there's no prize money on offer.

The size of the purse seems to be one of the main talking points in today’s golf, but those taking part in the Presidents Cup at Quail Hollow in North Carolina, from September 20th, are doing so for charity.

The biennial team event between the US and an International team excluding Europe has raised more than $54.4million since its inception in 1994 from event proceeds as well as contributions made on behalf of the Presidents Cup. A charitable donation of $5.3million was made from the most recent event, held in Melbourne in 2019. Each of the 24 players is allocated an equal portion of the funds generated to give to charities of their choice. Over the past 25 years, the Presidents Cup has impacted more than 460 charities in 18 different countries.

Davis Love III last week completed his 12-man roster by adding his captain’s picks of Collin Morikawa, Jordan Spieth, Billy Horschel, Cameron Young, Max Homa and Kevin Kisner to automatic qualifiers Scottie Scheffler, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Sam Burns, Justin Thomas and Tony Finau.

Trevor Immleman’s captain’s picks for the Internationals were Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Cam Davis, Si Woo Kim, KH Lee, Sebastian Muñoz and Taylor Pendrith. They join Hideki Matsuyama, Adam Scott, Sungjae Im, Tom Kim, Corey Conners and Mito Pereira in a team that has representatives from Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Japan, South Africa and South Korea. 

The two teams meet over four days, three days of four-balls and foursomes and 12 singles on the final day. There are five matches each on Thursday and Friday and eight on Saturday before every player takes part in Sunday’s singles.

Both teams had to deal with players becoming unavailable through joining LIV Golf, with all-time Presidents Cup top appearance maker and points scorer Phil Mickelson not an option for Team USA. He joins the likes of Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed as absentees for the US, while Immleman was forced to do without the Cameron Smith, Joaquin Niemann, Marc Leishman, Louis Oosthuizen, Branden Grace, Carlos Ortiz and Abraham Ancer.