(NEXSTAR) — It’s early April, which means golf’s best have descended upon Augusta National for the 2025 Masters. As they vie for the tournament’s venerable green jacket and a multi-million dollar pot, their right-hand caddies will be hoping for a bit of green themselves.
Last year, Scottie Scheffler secured his second Masters victory and with it, $3.6 million in prize money. That’s the most a Masters champion has ever received, surpassing the $3.24 million 2023’s winner, Jon Rahm, took home (which broke the record Scheffler set in 2022).
The Masters has not yet released what the payout will be this year, but it’s unlikely that it will decrease compared to last year.
We also don’t know exactly how much caddies will be taking home. We do, however, have a rough idea of how much a winning caddie may earn — and it’s nothing to shy away from.
Professional caddies typically receive a weekly paycheck from their player and, in most cases, earn a cut of the player’s winnings.
Caddies and players can have individual deals regarding pay but the general rule with tournaments is a “10-7-5” payout, former PGA Tour caddie Michael Collins previously explained on his show, “America’s Caddie.”
“If the guy makes the cut, the standard is 10-7-5 — 10% for a win, 7% for a top 10, 5% for everything else,” Collins explained, according to an Insider report. Caddies may negotiate a lower tournament payout in exchange for a higher weekly paycheck, he noted.
Using the “10-7-5” structure, Scheffler’s caddie, Ted Scott, may have collected $360,000 for his work at the Masters last year. That’s more than those who finished outside the top 20 last year.
Only the top 50 golfers and ties are paid from the Masters pot. As of 2021, players who didn’t land among the top 50 during the Masters still earned $10,000. If the caddies for those golfers have the “standard” deal laid out by Collins above, they could take home about $500.
That isn’t exactly raw profit for the caddie, though. They are usually responsible for their own expenses, covering things like airfare, hotel, car rentals, food, and anything else that may pop up, Collins said during a 2021 episode of the “Green Light with Chris Long” podcast.
Depending on the tour a caddie and golfer are on, those expenses could range from $25,000 to $50,000 a year, Michael Bestor, caddie for Kevin Streelman, previously explained.
In addition to his hard-earned cash, the winning caddie can also ask to have the white jumpsuit they wore at the Masters sent their way after the tournament.
