Scottie Scheffler is closing in on an incredibly lucrative record which Tiger Woods has held for 26 years.
There has never been as better time to be a professional golfer. And there’s never been a better time to be as professional golfer as dominant as Scottie Scheffler.
The best player in the world not only claimed his 21st PGA Tour win by eight shots on Sunday at the FedEx St Jude Championship, but he also banked another $3.6million from the gargantuan purse.
That latest windfall in Memphis leapt Scheffler up to an unthinkable $119,964,411 in career prize money – just shy of Tiger Woods, who has been the all-time money leader since September 2000.
Woods, who has 82 PGA Tour wins, is currently leading the PGA Tour’s career earnings charts with $120,999,166. Just $1million behind Woods, Scheffler is on the brink of creating another piece of history this week by breaking his record at the upcoming BMW Championship.
Another $20million purse is on the line at Bellerive Golf Club, with the Tour Championship then paying out $40million in the following week at East Lake. A solo third this week at the BMW would be enough for Scheffler to surpass Woods – and such a finish seems likely in this imperious form.
Scheffler only won his first PGA Tour title four years ago and has played 163 events on the US circuit as a professional, compared to Woods’ 364 starts. Scheffler, therefore, has remarkably averaged over $700,000 for each PGA Tour start he has made.
Rory McIlroy is also closing in on the top of the standings, currently in third place on $116,488,372 in career earnings from 284 starts, which is over $400,000 per start. It should be stressed, however, that these absurd sums are largely thanks to Woods’ seismic influence on the game in the first place.
The transcendence of Woods enabled golf to become a commercial behemoth that the game’s best players are capitalizing on today. Inadvertently, there is also LIV Golf to thank, with the $20m Signature Events created three years ago as part of the PGA Tour’s response to the threat of the breakaway league.
Phil Mickelson is fourth on the all-time PGA Tour earnings list with over $96m, while Justin Rose is fifth with over $78million earned on the US circuit.