Mo money, mo money, mo money in men’s professional golf

Scottie Scheffler picked the right time to start winning PGA Tour titles and climb to No. 1 in the world.

Thanks to the PGA Tour’s new long-term lucrative TV deal kicking in and purses surging this year, he set a new single-season record with $12,896,849 in prize money in 19 starts. There’s still 10 weeks remaining in the Tour’s 2021-22 season. Nice work, if you can get it.

“I never dreamt of playing for this much money,” Scheffler said. “I don’t know how much money I’ve made this year, but it’s definitely more than I deserve for whacking a little white golf ball around.”

Those words were in direct response to Scheffler being asked if there was any amount of money that would change his mind about staying with the Tour. “I don’t think so,” Scheffler said. “I think if there was, there’s a place you can find it now.”

Scheffler laughed at his own joke – not all the way to the bank like Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and most recently Brooks Koepka, who officially joined LIV Golf on Wednesday.

Scheffler continued: “I grew up wanting to be on the PGA Tour. I grew up dreaming of playing in these events. I didn’t grow up playing in the Centurion Club in London or whatever it is or in — I grew up wanting to play in the Masters. I grew up wanting to play in Austin. I grew up wanting to play Colonial, the Byron Nelson. I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything at this moment in time. Those memories, to me, are invaluable. I would never risk going and losing the opportunity to bring, go back to Augusta every year or to do any of it. There’s nothing that I would want to do right now that would risk having any sort of effect on the way my life is now.”

For Scheffler and other prominent stars such as Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm and Justin Thomas, the decision to stay loyal to the Tour is black and white. For others, such as Koepka, it’s not a shade of gray necessarily but rather green. Scheffler, who shares the same management team as Koepka, conceded that he was surprised to see Koepka jump ship.

“I was at a function with him last week and definitely wasn’t what he had in mind,” Scheffler said. “We were focused on building the PGA Tour and getting the guys that are staying here together and kind of just having talks and figuring out what how we can help benefit the Tour. So to see Brooks leave was definitely a surprise for us.”

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