There are reigns of Tiger Woods that will never fall. Certainly not in the short or medium term. The most obvious is the number of weeks as World Number One. Another is the number of tournaments won on the PGA Tour. And a third, to name just a few, would be the consecutive cuts made, especially when making the cut had much more value and weight than it does now. However, there is another reign where he is about to yield, despite the fact that just four years ago it was seen as an equally astronomical record.
It is the total earnings per tournament accumulated on the PGA Tour over a career. Tiger Woods left the counter at $120,999,766 when he won his last cheque at the Masters Tournament in 2024. It cannot be said that the figure was unreachable, as prize purses have been growing each season since the beginning of time, but it was certainly evident that it would be much more challenging… if anyone managed to surpass it.
Well, unless something strange happens to Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler in 2026, both will surpass Tiger before the season ends. Basically, this record of Tiger’s has been shortened by at least five years, and the reason is the Signature Events and, by extension, the arrival of LIV Golf. It is more than evident that without the emergence of LIV Golf, the PGA Tour would not have launched the elevated tournaments nor would the prize purses have skyrocketed. The PGA Tour… and the Majors, of course.
The numbers that demonstrate how golf has changed economically are overwhelming. In the 21-22 season, just before the introduction of the Signature Events, Scottie Scheffler led the PGA Tour earnings with a total of $14,046,910. That is, he already had a spectacular year and earned $561,876 per tournament played. Since the 22-23 season, the debut of the elevated events, Scheffler has earned a total of $81,290,429 (three and a bit seasons, 66 tournaments), which translates to $1,231,673 per tournament. In other words, he has doubled his earnings. Before the elevated events, Scheffler had played 84 PGA Tour tournaments counting only since he turned professional and, therefore, earned cheques.
Thus, after the 21-22 season, Scottie had a total of $21,550,888 in total PGA Tour earnings over 84 tournaments. He was $99,448,278 away from the mark set by Tiger Woods. If he had maintained the level of earnings per tournament from that season (remember $561,876) and multiplying by an average of 20 tournaments a year, Scheffler would have taken almost nine years playing at his best level to surpass Tiger’s record of just over 120 million. However, by raising his average earnings per tournament to just over $1.2 million (from 2023 to the present day), it turns out he will surpass it in just over three years. In short, LIV has taken more than five years off this economic reign of Tiger, if not more, since it is a lot to assume that Scheffler will be at this same level until 2031, winning the PGA Tour earnings list every year.
As we said, Rory and Scheffler will surpass Tiger in this economic chapter this year unless something unusual happens. McIlroy has $110,124,516, while Scheffler is at $102,841,316. Last year, the Northern Irishman surpassed 16 million in earnings, while Scottie went over 27. Tiger is virtually dethroned. The most curious thing about this race to catch Woods is that McIlroy could be the first to dethrone him, but it is likely that by the end of the year he will have been ‘decapitated’ by Scheffler. In the same year, we could have three different leaders in total accumulated earnings on the PGA Tour.
Another very curious fact considering the close link this story has with LIV Golf. We have said that since the Signature Events appeared in 2023, Scheffler has earned an average of $1,231,673 per tournament. Well, the figure is practically the same as Jon Rahm has earned per tournament since he has been in LIV Golf. Specifically, Jon’s amount is $1,275,949. However, a significant difference: Scheffler has done it playing 66 tournaments and Rahm in 27.
