Professional golfers can be extremely financially successful. However, like most athletes, professional golfers have a wide discrepancy in revenue streams and annual income.
To get a better understanding of how much golfers earn, we take a look at the annual revenue of the top three all-time winnings leaders: Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, and Dustin Johnson.
Now, professional golfers earn income in two primary ways. First, the PGA Tour dispenses winnings after a tournament. The amount you win is dependent on where you place during the event.
The other primary source of revenue is endorsement deals. These are sponsorship deals with golf equipment, clothing, and other unrelated products. Often these deals will have incentives and bonuses depending on how well a player does during the season.
Tiger Woods stands ahead of all other golfers with career earnings. The golf superstar stands alone with over $120,000,000 PGA Tour earnings. However, Tiger Woods’ iconic status has enabled him to dwarf his Tour earnings by his endorsement deals. Forbes estimates that Tiger Woods has earned over $1.5 billion from endorsement and sponsorship deals.
Phil Mickelson is another prolific golfer. He is ranked second on the all-time PGA Tour earnings with $94,666,977. Similar to Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson is a household name. This notoriety has enabled him to sign many endorsement deals. Forbes reports his career endorsements earnings to be over $750,000,000
Dustin Johnson is ranked third on the PGA career earnings chart. He has career earnings, currently over $72,000,000. Dustin Johnson is less commonly known than his counterparts on the list. The breakdown of his earnings reflects this. PGA Tour earnings make up the majority of his annual income at $24,500,000 million, while his endorsements are $20,000,000 annually.
Overall, the amount of total income an athlete can make is highly dependent on the fam and marketability of the athlete. This is why the breakdown of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson differ so much from Dustin Johnson. Golfers who are less famous than these three can be estimated to have larger PGA Tour earnings than endorsement deals.
