Akshay Bhatia can join Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler as multiple winners this season.
Raj Mehta/Getty Images
The youth movement is sweeping the PGA Tour this week.
Four amateurs teed off this week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic, including Luke Clanton, Ben James, Jackson Koivun and 15-year-old Miles Russell. Reining Masters and U.S. Open Low amateur Neal Shipley also received a sponsor exemption this week but made his PGA Tour professional debut at Detroit Golf Club.
It’s clear that the organizers of this young tour stop in Detroit would like to open their event to the next generation of golf, but in a strange way they are also helping the regular professionals of the PGA Tour.
Before Tuesday’s tournament, Min Woo Lee sent his best wishes to high school 10th-grader Russell, who had already attracted attention at a Korn Ferry Tour event earlier this year.
“Hopefully he has fun and doesn’t beat me and does a good job,” Lee said.
From a financial perspective, however, it doesn’t really matter whether Russell or Clanton – who made the cut and was three shots back after 54 holes – or any of the amateurs beat Lee this week. While players at colleges and high schools can sign NIL contracts and make money that way, they still can’t collect prize money on the PGA Tour.
When an amateur wins, as Nick Dunlap did at the American Express earlier this year, he gets nothing and first place goes to the runner-up. Christiaan Bezuidenhout capitalized on Dunlap’s win in January, taking home $1.512 million. Ironically, Clanton finished tied with Dunlap this week.
But now that scholarships are no longer available, Clanton admitted Saturday night, players may be tempted to stay in college longer since they can receive pay in addition to their scholarships.
“Yeah. I play golf to play golf,” Clanton explained. “I think being able to play golf every day with your buddies is something you don’t get to do very often. I have 12 guys on this team that I absolutely love, so it’s great.”
He is definitely playing golf this week for the sake of playing golf, because he is not getting a cent from the weekly purse.
Below you can see the full payout breakdown for this week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic at Detroit Golf Club. The total purse is $9.2 million.
How much each player earned at the 2024 Rocket Mortgage Classic
(Final payouts will be updated after the final round is completed.)
1. 1.656 million US dollars
2. 1.002 million US dollars
3. 634,800 USD
4. 450,800 USD
5. 377,200 USD
6. 333,500 USD
7310,500 US dollars
8th. $287,500
9. 269,100 USD
10. $250,700
T11. Taylor Moore, $197,340
JJ Spaun
Dylan Wu
Hayden Springer
Nick Dunlap
Luke Clanton (a)
T17. David Skinns, $149,500
Troy Merritt
Ben Silverman
T20. Carl Yuan, $113,068
Andrew Novak
Patton Kizzire
Ben Kohles
Neal Shipley
T25. Nate Lashley, $74,980
Matt Kuchar
Patrick Fishburn
Justin Lower
Jhonattan Vegas
Joel Dahmen
T31. Nicholas Lindheim, $48,583.08
Ben Griffin
Kevin Yu
Ryan McCormick
Ryo Hisatsune
Jacob Bridgeman
Harry Hall
Roger Sloan
Max Greyserman
Beau Hossler
Jake Knapp
Rickie Fowler
Patrick Rodgers
T44. Taylor Montgomery, $29,164
Maverick McNealy
Blaine Hale, Jr.
Brandon Wu
Ryan Moore
Ben James (a)
Chris Kirk
Hayden Buckley
T52. Matti Schmid, $22,650.40
Mark Hubbard
Bud Cauley
Nick Hardy
Michael Kim
T57. Davis Riley, $21,160
Callum Tarren
Kevin Streelman
Robbie Shelton
Vince Whaley
Joe Highsmith
T63. Zach Johnson, $20,332
Pierceson Coody
Nico Echavarria
66. Nicolai Hojgaard, $19,964
T67. Ryan Fox, $19,412
Luke’s List
Chandler Phillips
Wesley Bryan
Chris Gotterup
T72. Taylor Pendrith, $18,768
Aaron Baddeley
74. Peter Malnati, $18,492
(a) = Amateur, receives no share
