It’s a good time to be a golfer, no matter what professional tour you play on.
Millions upon millions of dollars have been pumped into the game at its highest level for an extended period now, but the stakes got higher when LIV Golf burst on to the scene in 2022.
The Saudi-funded league made $4 million winner’s cheques the rule instead of the exception and, in response to the uprising of a rival entity, the PGA Tour upped the ante as well. The US circuit outlined a series of Signature Events that dished out similar cash to its new opponent.
Even the DP World Tour, formerly named the European Tour, can now boast that it pays out over $150 million to its players across the calendar. Golfers from all corners of the planet are benefiting, as long as they play good golf, of course.
Astronomic prize money isn’t a completely new thing. Tiger Woods, arguably the best golfer ever, has earned over $120 million in his PGA Tour career. This was after winning 15 major championships and 82 titles on the circuit, the bulk of which he won between 1996 and 2013. Quite the career.
One might wonder how much on-course cash Woods could’ve racked up with 82 wins in the current climate. The mind boggles, as they say. With this in mind, OLBG analysed the all-time earnings of golfers, and the results speak to the particulars of the sport that I’ve tried to explain above.
This isn’t a measure of the greatest golfers ever, though. The likes of Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player would come into that conversation, but they played in a period where prize money was less than a fraction of today.
Nicklaus, an 18-time major winner, has just less than $6 million in PGA Tour earnings.
Here are the figures of the richest golfers in history…
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Richest golfers of all time
| Rank | Player | PGA Tour | DP World Tour | LIV Golf | Combined |
| 1 | Rory McIlroy | $108,000,000 | $77,800,000 | $185,800,000 | |
| 2 | Jon Rahm | $53,500,000 | $34,700,000 | $75,000,000 | $163,200,000 |
| 3 | Dustin Johnson | $75,700,000 | $60,900,000 | $136,600,000 | |
| 4 | Sergio Garcia | $55,100,000 | $35,500,000 | $44,700,000 | $135,300,000 |
| 5 | Tiger Woods | $121,000,000 | $121,000,000 | ||
| 6 | Justin Rose | $73,700,000 | $40,300,000 | $114,000,000 | |
| 7 | Phil Mickelson | $96,700,000 | $12,100,000 | $108,800,000 | |
| 8 | Scottie Scheffler | $99,500,000 | $99,500,000 | ||
| 9 | Patrick Reed | $40,200,000 | $14,900,000 | $37,500,000 | $92,500,000 |
| 10 | Brooks Koepka | $43,800,000 | $2,200,000 | $44,700,000 | $90,700,000 |
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These figures were compiled in the week prior to the 2025 Ryder Cup, so Rory McIlroy is the richest golfer in the world, when it comes to cash pocketed from on the golf course. This table doesn’t take endorsement deals and sponsorship into account.
Up to the end of September 2025, McIlroy had earned $108 million on the PGA Tour. The last 12 months have been incredible for the Northern Irishman, winning the Masters, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the Players Championship and the Irish Open. It was capped off by winning the Ryder Cup with Europe against America on away soil.
Coupled with his earnings on the DP World Tour, this takes his count to $185,000,000 according to the OLBG figures. Behind him is Jon Rahm, who moved to LIV Golf for the start of its 2024 season.
ALSO: How much has each LIV golfer made compared to their PGA Tour earnings?
Rahm won the US Open and the Masters before switching to the new tour, and his on-course worth has significantly spiked by playing in the 54-man fields of LIV. His earnings there have already topped his PGA Tour count, on which he won nine times in regular events.
He is followed by Dustin Johnson, who has been a LIV Golfer since the first event in the summer of 2022. He is also a two-time major champion and has won countless times on the PGA Tour, which explains his figure of $75 million in earnings. He has won three times with LIV, which has constituted $12 million of prize money itself.
He is followed by former Masters champion Sergio Garcia, who has a spread of cash across all three tours. And then we have Woods, who OLBG has found to be the fifth richest golfer of all time in on-course earnings.
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Woods remarkably won his 15th major title at the 2019 Masters, at a time when all of us had written him off and 11 years after his 14th major title at the US Open at Torrey Pines. He followed this up with a victory at the ZOZO Championship in the same year, which is his most recent win to speak of.
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Are you shocked by the list of the richest golfers of all time? Has prize money gone mad, and does this list of the richest golfers of all time show this? Tell us on X!
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