Rory McIlroy made history by retaining the Masters in April, but his success has come with a huge tax bill
Tom Sunderland Sports Writer
16:34, 26 Jul 2026
Rory McIlroy(Image: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
Rory McIlroy etched his name in the history books in 2026, becoming only the fourth golfer ever to successfully defend the Masters title. Yet his dominance at the sport’s most prestigious tournaments has also resulted in some considerable tax obligations.
McIlroy, 37, brought his major season to a close last Sunday with a T40 finish at The Open at Royal Birkdale. The Northern Irishman struggled to mount a challenge after a particularly disappointing opening round of two-over-par, finishing nine strokes adrift of eventual champion Ryan Fox.
That performance was nonetheless enough to secure around £52,000 in prize money, though it pales in comparison to the £3.4m he earned for claiming a second Green Jacket. His back-to-back Augusta triumph unsurprisingly accounted for the lion’s share of his major earnings in 2026, further bolstered by £478,000 for a T7 finish at the PGA Championship.
Factor in his £97,000 reward for tying 32nd at the US Open in May, and McIlroy’s total major prize haul for 2026 comes to just under £4m. However, figures compiled by golfclubs4cash suggest this also means he faces a bigger tax bill than any other golfer this year across the major tournaments.
His total tax bill from those four competitions amounts to approximately £1,634,840, accounting for fluctuations in the dollar to sterling conversion rate. As such, he’s expected to have handed back a little more than a third of his major winnings this year.
That leaves around £2.35m of McIlroy’s earnings that he can take straight to the bank. However, that’s in addition to the other £2.4m or so he’s won on other PGA Tour events this year (or around £1.5m once you apply for the same tax rate on those earnings).
That amounts to an estimated total take-home sum of £3.85m from all PGA Tour events so far in 2026. Not bad for a season’s work in which McIlroy scaled back his schedule to concentrate more exclusively on the major championships.
It’s a tight race at the top of the majors tax bill table, however, as Wyndham Clark came close to paying an almost identical sum. The American came in second place on the list, having parted with an estimated £1,630,278 in deductions, just £4,000 less than McIlroy.
Clark, 32, claimed the US Open title for the second time in his career, pocketing the £3.4m first-place prize. His T21 finish at the Masters also netted him a £184,000 reward, though he failed to make the cut at both last weekend’s Open and the PGA Championship.
It ought to surprise precisely nobody that world No1 Scottie Scheffler also found himself on the tax podium. This year represented the first campaign since 2023 where the Texan failed to capture a major championship, although he secured top-four finishes at three of them (and T14 at the PGA Championship), resulting in £3.4m in prize earnings and a tax liability of slightly over £1.4m.
Scheffler and Sam Burns (fourth) are the sole names amongst the top six on the list who made the cut without claiming a major title. While the tax obligations may prove burdensome, McIlroy will recognise he’s on the right track if he appears amongst the frontrunners once again in 2027.
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