This week’s Masters golf tournament reunites the best players in the world for the first time since the British Open nine months ago, as golf’s Cold War between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf drags on.
While the competing tours have struck out in their attempts to join their commercial interests nearly two years after the “framework agreement” was reached, players across the board have struck gold thanks to the upstart tour.
The 10 highest-paid golfers earned an estimated $611 million in 2024 from prize money, bonuses, endorsements, appearances, royalties and course-design fees.
Jon Rahm ($105.8 million) and Scottie Scheffler ($104.3 million) led the way after each won his tour’s year-end tournament and subsequent bonus of $18 million (Rahm) and $25 million (Scheffler).
LIV poached Rahm in late 2023 with the biggest signing bonus for any golfer—an estimated $300 million, with $50 million paid in 2024. The Spaniard made the move after winning the 2023 Masters, which changed his thinking about switching allegiances.
“Winning the Masters was a huge step toward maybe thinking about it,” Rahm told Golf.com’s Breakthrough last year. “Being exempt from majors, knowing that most likely you can play the Masters for life and the U.S. Open at least until 2031, you know, I’m set with two of those, right, so it was a big determining factor.”
Last year, Scheffler won nine times, including the Masters, in 21 events. He tied Tiger Woods (2000) and Vijay Singh (2004) for the most wins in a season since 1950. Scheffler earned $76.3 million in prize money and bonuses from the FedEx Cup, Player Impact Program (PIP), Comcast Business Tour Top 10 and the Olympics. Scheffler is only the second non-LIV golfer to make $100 million in a single year after Woods. Yet, Woods’ $100 million-plus years were always driven by endorsements that represented more than 80% of his total earnings.
Scheffler has been atop the Official World Golf Ranking for 99 straight weeks and 134 overall. The only player with a longer streak at No. 1 was Tiger Woods.
LIV launched in 2022 with regular $25 million purses for events, higher than anything on the PGA Tour. The legacy tour responded by raising payouts $125 million in 2023 to a total of $643 million, including $100 million for the PIP and $75 million for the Tour Championship. The total was nearly $680 million last year.
The higher stakes helped nine golfers crack the world’s 100 highest-paid athletes for 2024, versus just four in the year before LIV launched. Rahm and Scheffler ranked No. 11 and No. 12 on the list.
The 10 highest-paid golfers were split evenly between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf last year. Prize money and bonuses represented 67% of their total earnings.
1. Jon Rahm: $105.8 million
Prize money/bonus: $85.8 million | Endorsements: $20 million | Age: 30
Rahm maintains a deep endorsement portfolio that includes Callaway Golf, Maestro Dobel, Rolex, Santander and VistaJet. Last month, Callaway signed a sponsorship agreement with Rahm’s Legion XIII team. It marked the first time that a major equipment manufacturer signed with LIV Golf.
2. Scottie Scheffler: $104.3 million
Prize money/bonus: $76.3 million | Endorsements: $28 million | Age: 28
Scheffler has a half-dozen major sponsors, including Nike, TaylorMade, Rolex and Veritex Community Bank. The bulk of his off-course earnings stems from his equipment and apparel deals that are layered with bonuses tied to wins, top 10s, rankings points and other metrics that kicked in during Scheffler’s dominant 2024
3. Rory McIlroy: $79.8 million
Prize money/bonus: $34.8 million | Endorsements: $45 million | Age: 35
McIlroy added FM as an endorsement partner this year. His sponsor agreements with Nike, TaylorMade and Optum all run at least 10 years. The world’s current No. 2-ranked golfer earned a $4.5 million bonus for a third-place finish in the PIP, as well as $5 million in cryptocurrency when he and Scheffler won the Crypto.com Showdown. His investment firm, Symphony Ventures, has made more than 20 investments.
4. Tiger Woods: $62.1 million
Prize money/bonus: $10.1 million | Endorsements: $52 million | Age: 49
Last year, Woods made his record 24th straight Masters cut, but it was the only tournament he reached the weekend out of five official PGA events—he did partner with son, Charlie, to finish second at the PNC Championship. Despite the lack of activity as he recovered from injuries, Woods won the final year of the PIP, which carried a $10 million bonus. Woods will miss the 2025 Masters after Achilles tendon surgery last month.
5. Xander Schauffele: $55.8 million
Prize money/bonus: $33.8 million | Endorsements: $22 million | Age: 31
In May, Schauffele won his first major title at the PGA Championship, and he backed it up with a win two months later at the British Open. He was the first golfer with multiple majors in a single year since Brooks Koepka in 2018. He finished the year ranked second in the world, which triggered multiple bonuses, and his off-course earnings jumped significantly with a new apparel deal with Descente. Adidas remains a partner but only for footwear now.
6 (tie). Collin Morikawa: $43.1 million
Prize money/bonus: $30.1 million | Endorsements: $13 million | Age: 28
Morikawa won a pair of major championships before he turned 25, but has only one PGA Tour victory since the 2021 British Open. Last year, he did have two top-five majors results and finished second behind Scheffler at the Tour Championship, which meant a career-high payday of $12.5 million. Morikawa is one of the most marketable PGA Tour players and finished sixth in the PIP standings. Sponsors include Adidas, Las Vegas Sands, TaylorMade, U.S. Bank and Zurich Insurance.
6 (tie). Tyrrell Hatton: $43.1 million
Prize money/bonus: $40.1 million | Endorsements: $3 million | Age: 33
In early 2024, Hatton became the latest big-name golfer poached by LIV with an estimated $50 million signing bonus spread over several years to join Rahm’s Legion team. He’s won three events since then, including two on the European Tour and the Nashville LIV event.
8. Joaquin Niemann: $41.9 million
Prize money/bonus: $37.9 million | Endorsements: $4 million | Age: 26
Niemann is the youngest of the top-10 earners and posted a career-high prize money total of $24.9 million, including $8 million for his second-place finish behind Rahm in the LIV Golf season-long points race. The Chilean pro joined LIV in 2022 and earned more than $10 million last year as part of his LIV signing bonus.
9. Bryson DeChambeau: $37.8 million
Prize money/bonus: $33.3 million | Endorsements: $4.5 million | Age: 31
DeChambeau had more than a dozen sponsors when he joined LIV in 2022, and they almost all disappeared. Yet, the two-time U.S. Open champion, including in 2024, has become one of the sport’s biggest fan favorites, bringing sponsors back. In December, Reebok signed DeChambeau in the brand’s return to golf, which will boost his off-course earnings in 2025. Other sponsors include LA Golf, NetJets and Rolex. His popular YouTube channel has 1.8 million subscribers.
10. Brooks Koepka: $37.1 million
Prize money/bonus: $29.1 million | Endorsements: $8 million | Age: 34
Koepka’s 2023 PGA Championship made him the first LIV player to win a major after joining the upstart tour—DeChambeau’s U.S. Open win last year was the second. It was his fifth major, which ranks third among active golfers behind only Woods (18) and Phil Mickelson (six). Nike remains Koepka’s biggest endorsement partner.
