A European record of $7,000,000 will be on offer at the World Golf Championships - American Express Championship when the tournament returns to Mount Juliet in Co Kilkenny next year.
The increase of $1,000,000 means that the winner of the 2004 tournament in Thomastown will pocket a record $1,200,000 for his efforts.
It will be the tournament's second visit to the Jack Nicklaus designed course and it's fourth to Europe, having first been held in Valderrama in Spain, where the purse amounted to $5,000,000.
The 2002 tournament in Mount Juliet, played one year after the event's postponement following the September 11th attacks, was won by Tiger Woods and carried combined prizemoney of $5,500,000.
The most recent winner of a WGC-American Express Championship, Ireland's Darren Clarke, has welcomed the return of the event to Mount Juliet, as has his compatriot and world number 10 Padraig Harrington.
Clarke, who has won both the WGC - Accenture Match Play and the WGC - NEC Invitational titles, said: "This announcement is great news for Irish golf. It's a fantastic venue and always prepared to the highest level of conditioning.
Harrington described the course as "one of the best conditioned courses in the whole of Great Britain and Ireland.
"As an Irishman, I was very proud to see so many of the world's leading players at Mount Juliet last year when we enjoyed a week of glorious sunshine," he added.
Ken Schofield, Executive Director of The European Tour, said: "Last year we witnessed a wonderful event, with a truly international field competing over one of the leading courses in the country.
"The Championship field was one of the strongest in the world in 2002 with 49 out of the top 50 on the Official World Golf Ranking treating record crowds of over 120,000 to golf of the highest quality."
The tournament is one of only four that is sanctioned by the International Federation of Tours and includes an automatic invite for the world's top 50 players as well as other selected participants.