Tiger Woods holds the PGA Tour's all-time earnings record at $120.99 million as of January 26, 2026, roughly $13 million ahead of Rory McIlroy. It sounds like dominance. But the gap tells a different story.
Three years ago, Woods' lead was $26 million. Today, Scottie Scheffler—who just broke $100 million in career earnings after winning The American Express—is tracking to close that gap within two or three seasons. Phil Mickelson, who departed for LIV, still sits fourth at $94.96 million. Dustin Johnson, another LIV defector, holds fifth at $74.26 million.
This is not a story about Tiger losing his crown. It is a story about how golf's financial structure evolved precisely because Tiger was so dominant. And now that evolution is creating a new generation of wealthy competitors who will likely surpass him.
The Money List in 2026: Woods Leads, But Barely
The PGA Tour's all-time career earnings list reflects the sport's history. Woods dominates, but not by the margin you might expect from someone widely considered the greatest golfer ever:
| Rank | Player | Career Earnings | Active Era |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tiger Woods | $120.99M | 1996–present |
| 2 | Rory McIlroy | $107.98M | 2009–present |
| 3 | Scottie Scheffler | $99.45M | 2022–present |
| 4 | Phil Mickelson | $94.96M | 1992–present (LIV) |
| 5 | Dustin Johnson | $74.26M | 2009–present (LIV) |
Notice what is missing from traditional PGA Tour conversation: LIV Golf's total purse figures. Mickelson's reported $200 million deal and Johnson's $125 million signing bonus do not appear on the PGA career earnings list because LIV money is tracked separately—a political and accounting distinction that matters less each year as the two tours move toward reunification.
What does matter: Scheffler, who turned professional in 2022, has accumulated nearly $100 million in four years. At that pace, he will surpass Woods by 2028. The question is not if, but when.
How Tiger's Dominance Forced Golf to Evolve
To understand why younger players are accumulating wealth faster than Woods did, you need to understand how golf's economics changed precisely because of Tiger's dominance.
The Tiger Era Economics: One Star, Massive Purses
When Tiger won, television ratings spiked. Sponsors paid premium dollars for broadcast association. Networks prioritized Tiger-centric coverage. The entire ecosystem responded to one golfer.
But the PGA Tour during Tiger's peak (1996–2009) operated on a different financial model than it does today. Purses were smaller. Prize distributions were top-heavy. A major championship paid perhaps $2–$3 million to the winner in 2005. Signature events did not exist yet. The FedEx Cup was introduced only in 2007.
Woods accumulated his $120 million through tournament victories and appearance fees over a 20-year career. But the tour's total economic footprint was smaller. Woods' success created revenue, but that revenue was not automatically distributed to a broader player base.
LIV as Existential Threat, PGA as Response
In 2022, LIV Golf launched with Saudi backing and a simple offer: guaranteed money. Not just prize purses, not endorsement potential, but guaranteed multi-million-dollar payments to join the circuit. Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, and eventually dozens of top players accepted.
The PGA Tour's response was panic, then innovation. If LIV could offer guaranteed money, the PGA would have to do the same—but better.
The result: signature events with guaranteed purses, equity stakes in the PGA Tour itself for top players, and a complete restructuring of how the tour distributes revenue. In 2025, the PGA Tour distributed $2.9 billion in prize money—roughly a 400% increase from pre-LIV levels.
Woods shaped this response not by playing better, but by being the standard against which all other opportunities were measured. When LIV offered a golfer $150 million to leave, the PGA Tour had to ask: what would we have to offer Tiger to keep him? And how do we scale that to other top players?
The answer was structural: reshape the entire tour around attracting and retaining top talent through multiple revenue streams.
Scheffler Benefits from Tiger's Shadow
Scottie Scheffler is not a better golfer than Tiger Woods was. But he is arriving in a golf economy that Tiger created the conditions for.
Scheffler's signature deal with PGA Tour events reportedly guarantees him millions per event, plus prize purse and bonus opportunities. A single major championship now pays $4+ million to the winner. The FedEx Cup bonus structure can add another $5+ million. Streaming deals and appearance fees layer on top.
If Scheffler wins 5 majors and maintains current form, he will accumulate $100+ million faster than any player in history. Not because he is more dominant than Tiger, but because golf's financial infrastructure now concentrates wealth differently.
Tiger benefited from dominance in a smaller economy. Scheffler benefits from being excellent in a vastly expanded economy designed partly to compete with Tiger's legacy.
Streaming, Globalization, and the Fragmented Audience
Golf's financial evolution reflects broader media shifts that reshaped how sports generate revenue.
The Tiger Effect: US-Centric Dominance
During Tiger's peak (2000–2009), PGA Tour earnings were overwhelmingly US-focused. The four majors, signature events, and FedEx Cup were designed around American audiences. International events existed but were secondary. Television contracts centered on US broadcast rights.
A player could win the US Open, the Masters, the PGA Championship, and the Players Championship and accumulate the bulk of yearly earnings from those events. Everything else was supplementary.
Streaming Disrupts, Then Democratizes
PGA Tour Live (on ESPN+ and Peacock) launched in 2018 and has grown to average over 300,000 concurrent viewers, up 20% year-over-year. This matters not for the raw numbers—traditional TV still pulls more eyeballs—but for what it signals: golf no longer depends on traditional broadcast television for viability.
Streaming enables multiple competitions running simultaneously without traditional TV constraints. It allows international distribution without regional blackouts. It creates opportunities for secondary events to build substantial audiences.
The result: purse expansion is no longer concentrated in four majors. It is distributed across 40+ signature events, regional competitions, and emerging formats.
Globalization Fragments and Expands
Woods' era (95% US focus) gave way to genuine international competitions. Asian events now offer purses comparable to American ones. European tour players earn substantial money without relocating to the US. Australian and South African events are not afterthoughts; they are part of the core schedule.
This fragmentation means no single player can dominate the earnings list through US dominance alone. Scheffler earns from majors, signature events, international competitions, and endorsements. The revenue is dispersed, but the aggregate is larger.
McIlroy as Bridge, Scheffler as New Model
Rory McIlroy ($107.98M) is instructive. He has never dominated majors the way Woods did—only four wins across his career. But by competing at the highest level consistently, collecting signature event money, FedEx bonuses, and international earnings, he has accumulated nearly as much as Woods.
Scheffler is following a similar arc but accelerated. He does not need to dominate majors the way Woods did. He needs to maintain top-10 consistency and win signature events regularly. The financial infrastructure does the rest.
LIV's Role: Pressure That Forced Change
LIV Golf did not succeed commercially. Viewership has remained modest. Tournament quality has been questioned. But LIV succeeded in one critical way: it forced the PGA Tour to acknowledge that players had alternatives.
Before LIV, the PGA Tour was monolithic. You played where the tour allowed, for the purses the tour set. LIV demonstrated that players could defect and still earn substantially.
That threat, more than any other factor, forced the PGA Tour's financial restructuring. Suddenly, the tour had to compete for talent not just on competitive merit, but on financial terms.
The Koepka Signal
Brooks Koepka's decision to return to the PGA Tour in 2026, forfeiting equity in LIV but accepting a $5 million annual charity commitment, signals the direction of travel. LIV provided options, but the reunification trend suggests PGA Tour reforms—signature events, equity stakes, streaming deals—have made staying more attractive than leaving.
For younger players like Scheffler, this creates an environment where excellence is rewarded across multiple revenue streams simultaneously. There is no tradeoff between playing in major competitions and financial security. Both are available.
What Woods' Shrinking Lead Reveals About Sport
Tiger Woods remains the all-time earnings leader, but his lead shrinking from $26 million to $13 million to potentially zero within three years tells a specific story: individual dominance is being replaced by structural success.
Woods was transcendent. He was a once-in-a-generation talent who reshaped golf through pure excellence. But he existed in a golf economy that concentrated rewards around individual stars.
Scheffler is excellent, possibly generational, but he exists in a golf economy that distributes rewards more broadly. He will likely earn more than Woods—not because he is better, but because the infrastructure supporting professional golf has expanded and democratized.
The same is happening across professional sports. Era-by-era comparisons of all-time earnings lists no longer reflect only talent or dominance. They reflect the business model a player competed within.
The Path Forward
Scheffler will probably pass Woods within 2–3 seasons if he maintains current form. Not as a verdict on their relative excellence, but as a reflection of how golf's economic model evolved.
This raises interesting questions: Do younger players' higher earnings make them more or less motivated than their predecessors? Does a $100 million baseline change how you approach competition? And as earnings democratize across a broader player base, does that improve the quality of competition?
For now, Woods' lead lingers. But it lingers in a very different game than the one that created it.
