TELFER’S TAKE 24.8.26

Ryan Fox, our top male golfer, has enjoyed a handful of seven-figure pay days over the last 12 months or so, but potentially he’s in line for another this week when he lines up in the FedEx Cup Championship final in Atlanta.

Talk about an elite field… this event is limited to just 30 golfers, only the top 30-point scorers across the entire season of the USPGA Tour.

And never before, in my memory anyway, has so much money been thrown at any field of professional golfers, large or small. By all accounts US$140 million, that’s getting close to NZ$200 million, is up for grabs. Not even LIV Golf can match these sorts of figures for a single tournament.

Take the winnings, for example, of Scottie Scheffler on the PGA Tour this season. To date he’s banked US$43.5 million before he even tees off in the FedEx Championship final. Scheffler’s money comes from a combination of tournament prize money and his share of a $100 million Bonus Points scheme.

This Bonus Points fund is shared among the top 125 golfers from this past season at season’s end. Money is scaled down from $20 million for the top player down to $125,000 for the 125th ranked player.

Now Foxy, by virtue of his scraping into the top 30, is nicely placed towards the top end of these massive pay outs, so he could take home millions if he plays as well as he did a month ago in the Open Championship. Even if he has a very ordinary week scoring-wise by his standards and finishes somewhere near the bottom of the field of 30, he’ll probably pocket in NZ money over a million dollars by the time Bonus Points money is added to his prize winnings. By grabbing that 30th spot at last week’s penultimate FedEx event, Foxy is guaranteed around NZ$700,000 in Bonus Points payment for his troubles. Added to that will be his prize money from Atlanta this week where 30th

place earns around NZ$600,000.

Trying to get one’s head around these figures is as mind-numbing as it is mind-boggling. I hope the 30 golfers in Atlanta this week remember to put LIV Golf on their Christmas card list this year. If they’re not on their list yet, they should be.

Anyway to the golf itself… Last week in Missouri Ryan grabbed that last spot, but after posting 4 bogeys in his last 5 holes at the end of the third round, he must have been thinking he might have blown his chances. But a typically solid fighting final round of 71 on a tough day saw him retain his place inside the top 30. The eventual winner in Missouri was Wyndham Clark who held off a fast-finishing Rory McIlroy. Clark could only post a 1 under 70 on the final day.

And a final number to dwell on… For the past 25 years Tiger Woods has been the top all-time money winner on the PGA Tour. His winnings stand at the moment at US$121 million, accumulated over 15 years on tour. At the moment Scottie Scheffler is in second place with $120 million in winnings from just 6 years on tour. Another top week in Atlanta and he’ll surpass Tiger’s long-standing record.