Record number of pro golfers earned US$1 million in 2023

LOS ANGELES – The influx of cash into men’s professional golf has resulted in a record number of players reaching the US$1 million (S$1.3 million) earnings mark in 2023.

All 49 members of LIV Golf to start in at least six events in the lucrative breakaway circuit this past season crossed that milestone.

The Saudi Arabia-funded league has completed its second season with Talor Gooch as its individual champion. The 32-year-old American wrapped up the year US$35.3 million richer thanks in part to an US$18 million bonus for first place in the standings.

The PGA Tour, which is now

in negotiations with Saudi’s Public Investment Fund (PIF),

sought to keep up with the increase in prize purses LIV Golf was able to offer by introducing much higher purses for designated events, or “signature events” as they will be called going forward.

That helped 139 PGA Tour players make at least US$1 million in the 2022-23 season, meaning 188 male golfers from both circuits earned at least that much in 2023. The PGA Tour season included the fall of 2022 and all of 2023 in advance of returning to calendar-year seasons.

World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler racked up US$21,014,342 over 23 events played on the PGA Tour.

The designated events, including a US$4.5 million payday for winning The Players Championship, helped him break his own single-season record of US$14.04 million from 2021-22.

The launch of LIV Golf, with its rich pockets, has inevitably had an effect on the PGA Tour purses, and Bryson DeChambeau – one of the marquee names to jump ship last summer – has again spoken of his optimism for LIV, not so much about its finances but rather the team golf format.

“In the end, when this is all said about LIV and done, five years out from now LIV is going to exist,” the 2020 US Open champion said on the Good Good Podcast.

“LIV is going to be a dominant force. I don’t know what the landscape will look like or if it will even be called LIV, but I can say that it will be here. Team golf will be here to stay.

“I know in my heart that the team aspect will continue to permeate through the game of golf for as long as I’m alive. That’s my opinion. I could be wrong, but from everything that I feel, the sentiment, the movement, the way things are headed, I do believe that LIV will be here to stay.” REUTERS