Tiger Woods’ $120,999,166 record is about to fall. But it’s not a fair fight

When Scottie Scheffler tells you he’s a rich man, he’s not talking about his bank account.

He’s referring to his family: high-school-sweetheart-turned-wife Meredith and their towheaded sons, Bennett (2) and Remy (5 months). He’s referring to his faith (he’s a devout Christian and regular at Park Cities Presbyterian Church in Dallas). And, in a distant third among his soul-fillers, he’s referring to his golf (though not in the name of chasing titles or history or fame; Scheffler is driven by the singular pursuit of executing each shot and each task as it comes — with as much care, skill and focus as his body and mind will allow).

None of which to say that the guy hasn’t also banked a Brink’s truck or two full of cash.

Scheffler’s career windfall has come into focus this week as he prepares for the second of three legs of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs, the BMW Championship, because he is on the cusp of a seemingly momentous achievement: usurping Tiger Woods as the Tour’s all-time leading money earner. Scheffler ($119,964,411) trails Woods ($120,999,166) by “only” $1,034,755, meaning if he finishes in a three-way tie for third or better at Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, Scheffler will assume the gilded throne. After Scheffler’s exemplary form in Memphis last week, where he won by a touchdown and a two-point conversion, smart money says Woods’ record will fall this week.

You may have noticed our use of seemingly above. It was intentional, because while Scheffler’s career haul is staggering and also an obvious sign of his stunning consistency over his first seven soon-to-be full seasons on the PGA Tour, it also is misleading, because Scheffler has, of course, accomplished nothing close to the bullet points on Woods’ C.V. If anything, this potential passing-of-the-torch is more so a moment to stand in awe of the Tour’s escalating purses.

Woods gets much credit for that, for all the eyeballs, sponsor dollars and ballooning TV deals he brought to the game. But so, too, do Greg Norman and Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for creating a competitive threat in the upper rungs of pro golf, a rival league that forced the PGA Tour to reach not only deep into its own coffers but also into those of its knight-in-shining-armor investment partners.  

Scheffler acknowledged all of this at the BMW on Wednesday when asked about eclipsing Woods’ mark. “A lot to do with the purses and all that,” he said. “I’m not really too close to him in terms of career wins.” Nope, not too close at all. Woods has 82 victories; Scheffler, 21.        

“What, am I like a fourth of the way there?” Scheffler continued. “Tiger did a lot for the game of golf and he put us in a position where we’re able to earn some pretty good stuff financially, so that’s something we’re very grateful for. Tiger’s contributions to the game, when you look at where the purses were at before he came out on Tour to where they’re at now is a pretty stark difference.”

Consider this: Scheffler is about to put a bow on his seventh PGA Tour season. Over that stretch, he has made 157 starts and averaged $763,054 per start; in Woods’ first seven seasons, he made 137 starts and averaged $284,574 per start — with 16 more wins than Scheffler.

It’s a fun and eye-opening exercise, comparing Scheffler’s career thus far to Woods’ through his first seven years. When you look beyond Woods’ win total in that period (37), Woods’ and Scheffler’s cumulative finishes are strikingly similar.

Woods had:

To put a finer point on it, if Scheffler finishes top-10 either this week or next (but not in both weeks), he and Woods will have [cue eerie music] exactly the same number of top-10 finishes through their respective first seven years on Tour. So while Woods was undoubtedly more dominant (i.e., a better closer) early in his career, if your barometer for consistency is top-10s, you could make the case that little separates the golfers. (By the way, if you want to play this game with Jack Nicklaus, his first-seven-seasons stat line, no surprise, also is staggering: 149 starts, 27 wins, 104 top-10s. For Big Jack’s troubles over that stretch, he pocketed a princely sum of $846,531, or, on average, about $5,681 per start.)

Scheffler’s peers are awed by his consistency. Almost without exception, it’s the first quality they mention when asked about his greatness. Here’s Ryan Fox, Champion Golf of the Year, weighing in Wednesday from the BMW: “The most impressive thing about Scottie is the consistency. Like, the consistency in results. Because I don’t think we have seen anyone that’s as consistent probably since Tiger. But [also] the consistency of his iron shots. Like, I watched most of Sunday [in Memphis], and the recurring theme was he just always hits the shot that needs to be hit.”

Next on the press-tent schedule at Bellerive was eight-time Tour winner Viktor Hovland. Same question about Scheffler, and, yep, pretty much the same answer. “He’s just so consistent,” Hovland said. “He hits the ball so well. … It seems like putting and the rest of the game, like it doesn’t have a weakness. I mean, last week, I feel like I was a little surprised to see the second place being nine under. So no one really pushed him either last week, but for him to go out there and shoot 17 under, I mean that’s, yeah, very impressive. That’s just kind of how he’s been playing the last few years. It’s really cool to watch.” 

Scheffler’s steadiness has added up to career winnings well north of the gross domestic product of Montserrat (pop. 4,328). Unseemly? Depends on your perspective. Scheffler wasn’t asked Wednesday about the Tour’s ever-swelling payouts and bonuses, but Rory McIlroy was.  

“If [sponsors are] willing to pay that, then that’s the market value,” said McIlroy, who’s nipping at Scheffler’s heels with $116,488,372 in lifetime earnings. “We are professional golfers. Like, we’re not just Bobby Jones out there, not playing for prize money. We turned pro to make money playing golf.” 

That said, McIlroy stressed, players’ paydays should not be a drum the Tour bangs too loudly. The topic, he said, surfaced in a conversation he had Tuesday with PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp. This week, for example, McIlroy said, the Tour should be trumpeting not the BMW’s $20 million purse but the rich legacy of the event, which was born 127 years ago as the Western Open. “We should play into that history,” he said. “That should be what we are talking about when we come to these tournaments.”

McIlroy added, “This tournament has so much history, and I think that some of that, as we’ve gotten into commercializing the PGA Tour, has gotten lost.”

It’s a nice sentiment, but if Scheffler contends this weekend, you can forget quieting any talk of his massive fortune. All that’s separating him from history is about a million bucks.