For the man who operates as Xander Schauffele’s caddie, Austin Kaiser, 2024 has been pretty sweet. On the bag of someone who was already a world-class golfer, Schauffele cemented his standing in the game by going on to win, and win big, this year.
While Scottie Scheffler has more overall victories than the Californian (six), Schauffele ended the campaign with one more Major – having collected his first ever at the PGA Championship before quickly going on to notch his second via The Open Championship at Royal Troon.
Sprinkled in amongst those red-letter days were 17 top-25 finishes and 12 top-10 results in 18 starts prior to The Olympic Games in France, with an extraordinary mound of cash piling up as a result.
So far in 2024, Schauffele has earned almost $16 million, although he is second to PGA Tour money leader Scheffler by about $12.5 million…
Although Schauffele has made it look very easy at times, the man himself has admitted on several occasions that his success is very much a team triumph and could not have been achieved without his trusted sidekick.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
And Kaiser – who has been Schauffele’s looper throughout his entire PGA Tour career so far – has likely been extremely well compensated for his hard work, too.
It is widely believed that the standard cut of a player’s prize money the caddie receives out on tour will range from 5-10%, depending on how high up the leaderboard they end up. It is usually around 10% for a victory and drops to 7% for a top-10 finish – anything between 11th and making the cut could well be in the area of 5%.
Bag staff are often paid a yearly salary or kept on a retainer anyway, with each week offering a fresh chance for an extra bump in their earnings. With all that said, Kaiser could well have collected an extra $1.28 million in 2024 alone.
That is, remarkably, well short of the amount of money that Ted Scott – Scheffler’s caddie – has potentially picked up this year with Scott collecting roughly $2.7 million through 16 events.
Meanwhile, Joaquin Niemann’s looper, Gary Matthews banked a possible $800,000 in just two events earlier this season after the Chilean won both LIV Golf Mayakoba and LIV Golf Jeddah.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Turning attention back to Schauffele and Kaiser, the Californian started 2024…
..
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Golf Monthly…