Scottie Scheffler won the Tour Championship on Sunday to earn $10 million in prize money, pushing his career PGA Tour prize money to $130.4 million and ahead of Tiger Woods ($121 million), who had held the No. 1 spot since 2000.
It was his second Tour Championship and FedEx Cup title in three years and his third tournament win of the year. Scheffler secured a fifth straight year atop the money list, with $30.9 million, and he will almost certainly be chosen as the PGA Tour Player of the Year for a fifth straight year.
Scheffler addressed the idea of passing Tiger during his Wednesday press conference at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. “You’re kind of comparing apples and oranges,” Scheffler said, alluding to inflation in prize money over the last quarter century. “But I think a lot of success we’ve had out here, especially when you look at it from a financial perspective, Tiger has a lot to do with that. Like I said, it’s apples and oranges. The reason our purses are so large today is because of the influence and impact that Tiger had on the game.”
Scheffler added that he does not consider this a Tiger record being broken, but he is the closest thing the PGA Tour has seen to Woods, who turned pro in 1996 and was the all-time money leader a mere three-and-a-half years later—Tiger topped Greg Norman’s $12.9 million in early 2000. Woods held the career money title for 26 years, despite barely playing the past five years while prize money soared.
