[PHOTO: Gregory Shamus]
Yes, we all know that prizemoney payouts were up—way up!—on the PGA Tour during the 2022-2023 season. With the introduction of “designated” (soon-to-be “signature”) events with purses jumping into $US20 million neighbourhood for more than a dozen tournaments—a response to the influx of money into pro golf from the launch of LIV Golf—the overall money up for grabs was $US428.6 million.
Naturally, then, players were going to bank lots more loot than in previous years, allowing more tour pros to break through various career-earning milestones. For instance, the top money earner on tour this season was Scottie Scheffler, who made a single-season record of $US21,014,341 in 23 starts. That allowed the 27-year-old to leap through not just the $30 million career-earnings barrier but the $40 million mark, too.
Still, the sheer number of pros who jumped past certain round-number money thresholds ($10 million, $20 million, $30 million, etc.) feels fairly shocking, even with the caveat that this was likely to happen. Consider that three tour pros (Justin Rose, Jordan Spieth and Adam Scott) joined the $60 million career-earnings club, boosting the overall number from six to nine (an increase of 50 percent).
Meanwhile, five more tour pros can boast having earned at least $40 million in their careers, increasing the overall number from 25 to 30 (a 20 percent bump). Interestingly, one of those five was Brooks Koepka, who, despite not being a PGA Tour member, saw his earnings in PGA Tour-sanctioned events increase by $5,057,192 to $43,044,449 thanks to a win at the PGA Championship and a runner-up at the Masters.
The overall career PGA Tour moneylist looks a lot different in late 2023 than it did just 12 months ago, with a total of 39 different tour pros jump past eight-figure round-number money thresholds. We also explored two other “smaller” benchmarks, $5 million and $1 million, and well, there are plenty more tour pros who are now members of those earnings clubs, too.
Here’s each milestone with the number of “new” members and the overall total (all figures in $US, Australians shown in bold).
$80 million (1 new, 3 overall)
Rory McIlroy ($80,095,557)
$70 million (1 new, 6 overall)
Rory McIlroy
McIlroy made $13.9 million during the 2022-2023 season, allowing him to become the sixth player ever to make $70 million or more on tour and then the third (only behind Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson) to exceed $80 million in earnings.
$60 million (3 new, 9 overall)
Jordan Spieth
Adam Scott
