Scottie Scheffler posted an epic season on the golf course in 2024. The only things that slowed him down were a traffic incident at the PGA Championship and a Christmas day accident rolling ravioli dough. His nine wins, including The Masters, in 21 events tied Tiger Woods (2000) and Vijay Singh (2004) for the most wins in a season since 1950.
The golfing heater was a boon to his bank account, with bonuses galore that pushed his annual earnings to an estimated $104.3 million, including endorsements. He ranked 11th in Sportico’s annual look at the world’s 100 highest-paid athletes.
Scheffler was just the second golfer after Tiger Woods to make $100 million in a single year, excluding golfers with nine-figure signing bonuses from LIV Golf. Yet, Woods’ $100 million-plus years were always driven by endorsements that often represented 90% of his total earnings. Scheffler made $76.3 million in prize money and bonuses in 2024, plus an estimated $28 million from sponsors.
Scheffler did not join LIV Golf after it launched in 2022, but he and the other pros who stayed on the PGA Tour benefited from the increased payouts implemented to keep golfers from jumping ship. In 2023, the PGA Tour raised its payout $125 million to $643 million, including $100 million for the Player Impact Program (PIP) and $75 million for the Tour Championship. The total was nearly $680 million in 2024.
Last year, Scheffler earned $29.2 million in PGA Tour prize money during his 19 official events, which included seven wins and 16 top 10s. He also cruised to a six-stroke win at Woods’ Hero World Challenge, which is an unofficial event and carried a $1 million winner’s check. His other 2024 win did not come with any prize money, but the gold medal at the Paris Summer Olympics netted a $37,500 bonus from the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee.
In August the 28-year-old Scheffler clinched the top spot in the Comcast Business Tour Top 10 standings, earning the $8 million bonus that came with it. Three weeks later, he captured the Tour Championship, the season-long FedEx Cup and $25 million in first-place bonus money.
Scheffler took the next three months off and, as an avid Dallas Cowboys fan, suffered through the NFL season. He returned in December to win the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas and The Crypto.com Showdown, an exhibition featuring Scheffler and Rory McIlroy versus LIV Golf pros Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka. The PGA duo dominated to claim the $10 million prize that was paid out in cryptocurrency.
Scheffler capped his year with a second-place finish in the Tour’s PIP, which rewards its most popular players with bonuses. Second was worth $8 million, while Woods took home $10 million in the final year of the program.
Scheffler now ranks fifth on the PGA Tour’s official career prize money list at $72.4 million. He jumps to third at $108.1 million, including FedEx bonuses. McIlroy took over the top spot from Woods this year at $150.6 million, including $56 million in FedEx payouts.
Scheffler has a half-dozen major sponsors, including Nike, TaylorMade, Rolex and Veritex Community Bank. The bulk of his estimated $28 million in off-court earnings is from his equipment and apparel deals. Those agreements are layered with bonuses tied to wins, top 10s, rankings points and other metrics. Scheffler’s season certainly triggered a multitude of bonuses from Nike and TaylorMade. His total points in the Official World Golf Rankings are 592. The only golfers currently in the same universe as him are McIlroy (404 points) and Xander Schauffele (357 points).
