How Much The Winning Caddie Makes At The Arnold Palmer Invitational

The bumper prize funds at Signature Events like the Arnold Palmer Invitational also mean bumper bonus checks for the winner's caddie

Ted Scott and Scottie Scheffler at the 2024 Hero World Challenge
(Image credit: Getty Images)
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As usual, the golfer holding the trophy at the Arnold Palmer Invitational on Sunday will get all the glory - and most of the cash - but there'll be a tidy bonus for their caddie too.

As it's a Signature Event, the Arnold Palmer Invitational prize fund is a whopping $20m, and like the Genesis Invitational and the Memorial Tournament a larger portion goes to this week's winner.

So the champion at Bay Hill will win $4m rather than the $3.6m handed out at the other Signature Events - and that also means a bigger bonus check for the winning bagman.

The industry standard is usually for a player to give his caddie 10% of a winning check, with around 5-7% depending on how high they finish on the leaderboard.

That means that the caddie for the 2025 Arnold Palmer Invitational champion should be taking home a lovely $400,000 bonus.

Scottie Scheffler cruised to victory at Bay Hill last year and that meant one of several huge paydays for his caddie Ted Scott - who is making quite a living looping for the World No.1.

Scott actually won more at Bay Hill than at Augusta last year as the first prize for winning The Masters was $3.6m in 2024.

Still, that, added to another big $450,000 windfall for Scheffler's second successive Players Championship victory at TPC Sawgrass, meant that Scott won around $5.3m in 2024.

That meant Scott banked more winnings in 2024 than the average PGA Tour player, and even pocketed more than the likes of Justin Thomas, Russell Henley, and Brian Harman.

While all the extra money being piled into pro golf is swelling the bank balances of the world's top players, it's also meaning bumper bonuses for their caddies.

There's never been a better time to be a bagman.

Paul Higham
Paul Higham
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Paul Higham is a sports journalist with over 20 years of experience in covering most major sporting events for both Sky Sports and BBC Sport. He is currently freelance and covers the golf majors on the BBC Sport website.  Highlights over the years include covering that epic Monday finish in the Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor and watching Rory McIlroy produce one of the most dominant Major wins at the 2011 US Open at Congressional. He also writes betting previews and still feels strangely proud of backing Danny Willett when he won the Masters in 2016 - Willett also praised his putting stroke during a media event before the Open at Hoylake. Favourite interviews he's conducted have been with McIlroy, Paul McGinley, Thomas Bjorn, Rickie Fowler and the enigma that is Victor Dubuisson. A big fan of watching any golf from any tour, sadly he spends more time writing about golf than playing these days with two young children, and as a big fair weather golfer claims playing in shorts is worth at least five shots. Being from Liverpool he loves the likes of Hoylake, Birkdale and the stretch of tracks along England's Golf Coast, but would say his favourite courses played are Kingsbarns and Portrush. 

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