The increases were approved at a board meeting earlier last month in Houston and outlined in a memo PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan sent to players on Monday.
“We are positioned to grow faster in the next 10 years than we have at any point in our existence,” Monahan said in the memo.
Monahan said the Tour’s forecast is for 55 percent of revenue going to the players in prize money, bonus programs and other benefits.
Last season’s top Australian money earner on the PGA Tour was Cameron Smith with more than US$5.6m (A$8m) while Marc Leishman, Cameron Davis and Matt Jones all topped the A$3m mark.
Two Playoff events will now offer US$15m (A$21m) while US$12m (A$17m) are up for grabs in the three invitational tournaments.
The lucrative FedEx Cup will now be worth US$75m (A$104m) – up from the US$60m (A$84m) this year – with the winner to scoop up US$18 million (A$25m).
The memo was a year-end message that was delivered earlier than usual, in part because of an announcement earlier this month that a Greg Norman-led group funded by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund plans to inject US$200m (A$277m) into the Asian Tour as a step toward creating a world Tour promising guaranteed riches.
Monahan did not mention competing Tours in his memo.
The Tour already posted the new season schedule in which most tournaments increased prize money by nearly US$1m (A$1.4m).
The average purse on the PGA Tour, not including the four opposite-field events, is roughly US$9m (A$12m).
The increases come largely from the nine-year media rights deal worth roughly US$7 billion (A$9.7b) that goes into effect in 2022.
The majors typically don’t announce their purses until closer to the event.
A year ago, the richest major was the U.S. Open at US$12.5m (A$18m).
The PGA Championship purse was US$12m (A$17m) and the Masters and The Open awarded US$11.5m (A$16m).
