Scottie Scheffler is one good finish away from taking the PGA Tour career money lead from Tiger Woods. A top-13 result at the Tour Championship on Sunday would be enough to push Scheffler past Woods, who has held the No. 1 spot since February 2000.
The math is simple now because Scheffler keeps cashing checks at a pace few in the sport have ever matched. He made $3.6 million with an eight-shot victory at the FedEx St. Jude Championship on Aug. 16, then added $426,250 for a T12 finish at the BMW Championship last week. After a bogey-free 66 on Saturday at East Lake, he moved into a tie for third and entered the final round three shots behind Viktor Hovland.
Woods’ career total stands at $120,199,166, and Scheffler needs just more than $600,000 more at the Tour Championship to move ahead. That threshold is right in play because the winner’s check is $10 million, second place pays $5 million, third pays $3.7 million and fourth pays $3.2 million. Even a modest finish inside the top 13 would be enough to end Woods’ 26-year run atop the PGA Tour earnings list.
The list, though, is not a complete measure of wealth or legacy. It counts only official prize money and leaves out FedEx Cup bonus payouts, the old Player Impact Program, endorsements and sponsorships. That is why the comparison gets complicated almost as soon as it is made: Woods also won 82 times on the PGA Tour, while Scheffler has reached 21 wins, and the career money race reflects purse growth as much as it reflects performance.
That gap becomes even clearer when the totals are adjusted for inflation. Using the U.S. Consumer Price Index year by year, Woods’ career earnings rise to $202.8 million, a figure that puts the nominal list in a different light. His 2002 Masters winner’s check was $1.008 million, an amount that would be worth the third-place prize at East Lake today, while Rory McIlroy, the 2026 champion, took home $4.5 million. In raw dollars, though, Scheffler is now at the edge of the top spot and needs only one steady round to claim it.
Scheffler has been matter-of-fact about the climb, saying after his St. Jude victory that he was roughly a fourth of the way there and thanking Woods for helping lift purses for everyone who followed. He has also said he does not view this as beating a Tiger record. Sunday may not change what Woods meant to the game, but it could change the name at the top of the earnings board.
