Regardless of the sport, there is nothing like being up there in the major leagues alongside the greats of the game. Whenever you hear stories about minor league athletes who get their first taste of the big time, you invariably hear the same wide-eyed story. Going from baseball or basketball”s minor leagues to the highest level, the initial first shock always entails the charter flights, the quality locker room buffets (unless of course you”re Randy Moss), the high-class hotels and finding your way around New York or Los Angeles instead of Grand Rapids or Albany. As an added incentive, the money is really good, too.
The same is true for golf with its million-dollar paydays, courtesy cars and complimentary gifts such as top-notch seats to NBA games. We”re now at the stage of the calendar year whereby the top 125 money winners on the PGA Tour will be finalized and exempt status for 2011 will be determined. Those outside the top 125 will find themselves returning to the PGA Tour”s Qualifying School or, worse yet, could be relegated to golf”s minor leagues. This week”s PGA Tour event at Disney World in Orlando will mark the final official event in the rush to get within the top 125.
Matt Kuchar sits atop the tour”s money list with just less than $5 million in earnings. This year has been a breakthrough season for the former United States Amateur champion who won early in his career, struggled during the mid-point of the decade, and has now found his way among golf”s elite. He”s No. 1 in earnings because he played in a lot more tournaments than the game”s top guns, 26 to be exact, had a bundle of top-10 finishes, and won the big-money Barclays Championship, the first playoff tournament of the Fed Ex Cup series.
Jim Furyk, the Fed Ex Cup champ and a three-time winner on the tour this year, is second on the money list, about $100,000 behind Kuchar. Ernie Els is third, the greatly improved Dustin Johnson is fourth, steady Steve Stricker is fifth, and Masters champion Phil Mickelson is sixth.
Australian Stuart Appleby, who is 38th on the money list with just less than $2 million in earnings, shot a final-round 59 at the Greenbrier to win this past August. Amazingly, Appleby played in 31 tourneys in 2010, the most tourneys entered by a top-notch golfer. A trio of those ranked farther down in the top 125 also played 31 tournaments, including Brian Davis, Tim Petrovic, and Northern California Matt Bettencourt. By the way, Bettencourt, a regular on the NCGA amateur golf circuit, won the first tour event of his short professional career this past August.
Moving down the money list to where the bubble boys reign, Troy Matteson is in 125th place in earnings with $723,328 banked this year. He has a $13,000 lead over Briny Bair, who is in 126th place at the moment. Another NorCal golfer, Michael Allen, is near the bubble in 124th place. However, Allen is the exception to the majority of the bubble boys who are sweating it out this week at Disney World. The 51-year-old Allen divides his time between the PGA Tour and the Senior Tour. He”s played just 16 tour events whereas Matteson and Baird have entered 27 tournaments. Last year Allen captured the Senior PGA Championship, a major for the over-50 set, and he is fully exempt on that circuit.
All of the golfers ranked from 120th to 130th place are in the field at Disney World except for Henrik Stenson, who is five places on the wrong side of the top 125. Yet Stenson, who is a full-time member of the European Tour, isn”t worried about his status for 2011. Because he won the Tour Championship in 2009, one of the PGA Tour”s more prestigious events, he is exempt through the 2012 season. Trevor Immelman is in the same situation as Stenson. Currently 162nd on the money list, the 2008 Masters champion has a five-year exemption on the tour through 2013, one of the many perks for winning a Grand Slam event.
A lot of familiar names are well beyond 125th place, including Billy Mayfair, Lee Janzen, Mike Weir and Chris DiMarco. They”ve all played in 25 or more tourneys this year and most of them have been on tour for more than two decades, but they haven”t played top-level golf in 2010 and haven”t won on tour in some time.
Meanwhile, there will be 25 new tour members in 2011, namely the recent graduating class from the Nationwide Tour. Former UCLA All-American Jamie Lovemark led golf”s version of AAA minor league golf with $452,951 in earnings during the course of 22 events. Among the top five on this year”s Nationwide money list are such familiar names as Hunter Haas, Tommy “Two Gloves” Gainey, and Daniel Summerhays.
The top 25 are obviously looking forward to the big money that awaits them. Freddie Couples, who plays most of his golf on the Senior Tour, entered just seven PGA Tour events this year and took home $397,406. That was good enough for 167th place on tour although it turns out to be $6,000 more than Summerhays made for his fifth-place Nationwide finish.
The most telling number is average salary. The tour average at this point in 2010 is $1.1 million. A total of 87 professionals earned more than $1 million this year. Of course, no one even earned half as much as $1 million on the Nationwide Tour and the average earnings on that circuit was $62,823.
Golf is one of those merit sports. No long-term contracts, no guarantees, and no certainty that winning two U.S. Opens, as Lee Janzen has done over the course of his career, can get you a place on the PGA Tour to tee it up in 2011. It just so happens to be a time when the pecking order is going to be shaken up. It will all be finalized this Sunday evening when the circuit”s season concludes at Disney World.
