The best player on the PGA Tour is not about to rank himself among some of the greats in the game, even as he is about to become the leader in all-time career earnings.
Scottie Scheffler will enter this week’s BMW Championship set to pass Tiger Woods on the career money list, but he scoffs at the notion that he is anywhere near to making the same impact on the PGA Tour that Woods did during a record-breaking career.
While Woods has collected $120,999,166 in earnings, Scheffler is second at $119,964,411 after he earned $3.6 million to open the FedEx Cup playoffs last week at the St. Jude Championship in Memphis.
“I mean, that has a lot to do with the purses and all that,” Scheffler said. “I’m not really too close to him in terms of career wins, so …”
Indeed, purses are far greater now than in Woods’ heyday. The last time Woods won a U.S. Open was in 2008 when the total purse was $7.5 million with a winner’s share of $1.35 million. This year’s U.S. Open had a $22.5 million total purse with a $4.5 million winner’s share.
“I mean, Tiger did a lot for the game of golf and he put us in a position where we’re able to earn some pretty good stuff financially, so that’s something we’re very grateful for,” Scheffler said. “Tiger’s contributions to the game, when you look at where the purses were at before he came out on tour to where they’re at now is a pretty stark difference and we’re very thankful for his contributions to the game and hopefully we’ll see him back out here competing again soon.”
To get to his total earnings, Woods won 82 times on the PGA Tour, which is tied for first all-time. Scheffler’s win last week was his 21st.
“What, am I like a fourth of the way there? Something like that,” Scheffler said with a laugh.
Another way to put Scheffler’s career in perspective: He has 50 top-three tournament finishes, while Jack Nicklaus had 165 of them.
He might be nowhere near Nicklaus’ top-three total, but Scheffler is proud of his number nonetheless.
“The best way to win tournaments is to give yourself as many opportunities as you can,” Scheffler said. “So that is nice for me to have some numbers where I’m giving myself opportunities to win. I think that’s most important.
“Hopefully I’ll be able to continue to do that going forward. But I think the consistency of putting myself in contention week in week out is something that I’m very proud of.”
And there are signs that Scheffler will continue to get better, as he turned 30 this year.
The 2026 season wasn’t spectacular by Scheffler’s standards. He won just once, at the early-season American Express, before entering the FedEx Cup playoffs. Even though he is the No. 1 player in the world, there was no clear-cut favorite to take next week’s Tour Championship.
But with a new driver in his bag at the St. Jude, Scheffler rolled to an eight-shot victory to launch him back into peak form. It matched his largest tournament victory, going back to the 2025 CJ Cup Byron Nelson. That was the first of his six tournament victories last year, including a win at the BMW Championship.
That new driver? It is here to stay.
“The backup (driver) I was using, … I just put it put it in the bag a few times last week when I was playing at home (and) I liked what I saw, so I figured give it the old college try in Memphis,” Scheffler said. “Yeah, it seemed to work out pretty well. But it feels like it’s a bit faster to me and definitely goes as straight, so I feel like I’m in a good spot.”
He also made a slight hand adjustment on the club. The overall improvement last week was far more than slight.
Maybe Scheffler is gearing up for improved tournament fields in the near future as more LIV Golf competitors could be on their way back to the PGA Tour. Brooks Koepka returned early this season, and Patrick Reed will be eligible to return next week but is not eligible for the Tour Championship.
“I think having those guys come back and competing with whatever happens with LIV, whether those guys want to leave, I mean, you got to ask them,” Scheffler said. “But I think for me being able to compete against the best players in the world there’s certainly some guys on that tour that can compete out here and I look forward to the chance to compete with them more often.”
