The Honda Classic is coming up this week for yet another exciting PGA TOUR event. This tournament traces its roots all the way back to the 1960s. This tourney was preceded by the National Airlines Open Invitational and it only ran from 1969 to 1971. Replacing it on the schedule was the Jackie Gleason’s Inverrary Classic in 1972 then was became known as the Jackie Gleason Inverrary-National Airlines Classic in 1973. From 1974 to 1980, the tourney bore the name Jackie Gleason-Inverrary Classic before American Motors sponsored it in 1981. Honda took over the sponsorship of the tournament in 1982 and continues to be its principal financial backer to this day. How much are they coughing up this year? Let’s find out.
The purse at the Honda Classic has come a long way. In 1972, Tom Weiskompf won the Jackie Gleason’s Inverrary Classic and took home $52,000. It was a huge sum at the time, but it was not anywhere near to what the winners of the tournament in recent years have made. Last year, Keith Mitchell topped the event by just a stroke and pocketed a total prize of $1.224 million to set the mark for the richest win in the tournament’s history. However, that money record has consistently been broken and will be again this year, as the Honda Classic has fattened the pot — again. This year, the total pot at the Honda Classic will be $7 million — up from the $6.8 million qualified players have shared in 2019. The pot in the tournament didn’t reach the $1-million mark until 1990 when John Huston cashed in his victory cheque for $180,000.
The Complete Breakdown
The only official figure available as of the moment is the winner’s share, which amounts to $1.26 million. The PGA TOUR has a set formula, however, to determine how the pot will be divvied up, and by following those equations, we find the breakdown of prizes for the top-10 finishes at the 2020 Honda Classic:
