Guess who’s still the top earner in golf?
On today’s professional golf landscape, some players are big winners and some players are big earners. And the two categories don’t always overlap.
Of course, we’re talking about money here. Piles of it.
Golf Digest magazine compiles an annual list of the biggest money-earners in golf, and the top of the latest one features precious few who have actually won a tournament lately.
The list, found in the February issue of Golf Digest, features the 50 golfers who made the most money – in tournament winnings and endorsements – during 2011. The key term for the top players on the list is endorsements, because some of them haven’t played competitively in years.
Here’s the top 10:
No. 1 – Tiger Woods ($62 million). Woods, according to Golf Digest, made more than $2 million on the course in 2011 and a whopping $62 million in endorsements. That’s still a lot of money, but it pales compared to the $122 million the magazine says Woods made in 2009. Woods hasn’t won an official event on the PGA Tour since the 2009 BMW Championship.
No. 2 – Phil Mickelson ($41.9 million). Mickelson won once in 2011, at the Shell Houston Open in March.
No. 3 – Arnold Palmer ($36 million). Palmer last played a couple unofficial events on the Champions Tour in 2008. Palmer won his final PGA Tour title in 1973 and what looks to be his last Champions Tour victory in 1988.
No. 4 – Jack Nicklaus ($28.9 million). Last official win on the PGA Tour was the 1986 Masters. The most recent of his 10 Champions Tour victories came in 1996.
No. 5 – Greg Norman ($22.8 million). Norman hasn’t won on the PGA Tour since 1997. In 2011, Norman didn’t play on either the PGA Tour or Champions Tour for the second straight season.
No. 6 – Luke Donald ($21.6 million). Donald won two PGA Tour titles and two tournaments in Europe and became the first player in history to lead the money lists on both tours. He topped the PGA Tour with more than $6.6 million in earnings.
No. 7 – Ernie Els ($18.4 million). Els hasn’t won a tournament of note since 2010, when he won two titles on the PGA Tour and the South African Open in his homeland.
No. 8 – Gary Player ($16 million). Player has amassed more than 150 tournament victories worldwide over a long career of globetrotting, but he won his last individual stroke play title in 1998 on the Champions Tour.
No. 9 – Sergio Garcia ($15.8 million). Garcia won titles on the PGA Tour and the European Tour in 2008, but not since.
No. 10 – Bill Haas ($15.3 million). Haas captured the Tour Championship last fall to win the FedEx Cup playoffs. His money total includes the $10 million FedEx Cup bonus.
Combined, the top-10 on the list won merely four PGA Tour tournaments in 2011, plus a handful of overseas events.
However, the next 10 spots on the list are populated by some of the most dynamic players in the game. Nos. 11-20 are Rory McIlroy, Lee Westwood, K.J. Choi, Adam Scott, Matt Kuchar, Webb Simpson, Dustin Johnson, Padraig Harrington, Ryo Ishikawa and Darren Clarke.
Players 11-20 on the list compiled seven PGA Tour victories in 2011, two major championships and several other wins worldwide.
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Editor Rick Pledl joined Killarney Golf Media in 1995. A longtime member of the Golf Writer’s Association of America, Pledl is also an award-winning outdoor writer. He previously worked as a freelance journalist and as a reporter at various daily and weekly newspapers in Wisconsin. Email him at 
