[Photo: Andy Lyons]
Capturing his second win of 2026 the focus for Scottie Scheffler this past week at the FedEx St Jude Championship, particularly given his seven second-place finishes after a victory in his opening start. We’re guessing, then, that the now 21-time PGA Tour winner wasn’t aware that his eight-shot victory at TPC Southwind allowed him to get this much closer to a historic financial milestone.
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The all-time tour money leader is Tiger Woods with $US120,999,166 in earnings. It’s a title Woods has held since September 2000. However, Scheffler now trails the 82-time PGA Tour winner by only a little more than $1 million with $US119,964,411 in career prizemoney. This comes after Scheffler claimed his $US3.6 million first-place cheque with his latest title.
With the upcoming BMW Championship having 50 players, no cut and a $US20 million purse, followed by the Tour Championship having 30 players, no cut and a $40 million prizemoney payout, Scheffler’s chances of passing Woods in the next two weeks seem fairly high. He can do it with an outright third-place finish or better at Bellerive Country Club this coming week. And the top eight players at East Lake all earn $US1 million or more.
In Memphis, Scheffler also jumped past Rory McIlroy to No.2 on the all-time moneylist after McIlroy finished 66th on the week. McIlroy has $US116,488,372 in all-time earnings, so he too has a reasonable chance to pass Tiger in the next two weeks as well, albeit he’ll have to play way better than he did in his first start since the Open Championship.
Of course, the record prizemoney payouts of the past few years have skewed the moneylist in the favour of Scheffler and McIlroy and other current players. Consider that Scheffler has played in just 163 tour events as a pro compared to McIlroy’s 284 and Woods’ 364. Doing the maths, that means that Scheffler has earned $735,977 per start during his PGA Tour career, McIlroy has claimed $410,170 and Woods “only” earned $332,415.
While this is the era of golf where prizemoney payouts are exponentially greater than in the past, it’s also interesting to note that the next closest active PGA Tour on the moneylist to Woods, Scheffler and McIlroy is Justin Rose (age 46) with $US78.6 million in earnings. The leading Australia is Adam Scott with $US73.9 million, good for eighth spot on the list.
It’s a lot, but there’s still a large gap between Scheffler, McIlroy and the rest of the tour, even in this gilded age.
