Tiger Woods, with 82 PGA Tour wins and 15 majors since 1996, spent three decades as golf’s biggest earner. Few can imagine another golfer matching his career earnings in a fraction of the time. Yet Jon Rahm has done that. In just over a decade as a professional golfer, the Spaniard has pushed his combined career earnings from the PGA Tour, LIV Golf, and major championships past Woods’ lifetime total.

Rahm’s career earnings currently sit at $187.8 million, according to Spotrac. Tiger Woods, who last competed in a professional event at the 2024 Open Championship, has earned $154.4 million in career earnings. That puts Rahm roughly $33.4 million ahead, a gap he built in under 11 years. But this gap highlights a crucial shift in professional golf.

How did Rahm earn more than Woods despite playing less?

Tiger Woods has played 378 events on the PGA Tour alone. Add in the DP World Tour events and some other professional tournaments he has played across the globe, like the New Zealand Open in 2002, and Woods has competed in around 500 tournaments. Jon Rahm? Well, across LIV Golf, the PGA Tour, and the DP World Tour, he has played barely 300 tournaments. So how has he surpassed Woods?

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The purse size has increased exponentially across all tours. Consider this: at Woods’s prime, the average purse size of the PGA Tour events was approximately $3.2 million to $5 million. Cut to 2026: the average purse size has nearly doubled.

LIV Golf winners earn $4 million in prize money. Most PGA Tour signature events pay the same amount, with other tournaments paying over a million. In fact, you don’t have to go 100 years back. Just consider what Woods earned in 2013, his comeback season.

• Woods won the Farmers Insurance Open, WGC Cadillac, Arnold Palmer Invitational, The Players Championship, and WGC Bridgestone.
• Among all these, he pocketed the highest amount of money in the Players Championship: a paycheck of $1.71 million.
• This year’s champion, Cameron Young, earned $4.5 million.

The ever-growing financial race has also pushed majors to join the bandwagon, and there, Jon Rahm has benefited as well.

Jon Rahm’s growing career earnings

Jon Rahm turned pro in June 2016 and quickly built his career on the PGA Tour. When he left for LIV Golf in December 2023, he had earned $42.4 million in official PGA Tour money, excluding the bonuses. If you add the PGA Tour bonuses and earnings from major championships, Rahm nabbed a further $47.7 million.

The Spaniard won the U.S. Open in 2021 and then the Masters in 2023. He earned $2.265 million for the former and $3.24 million for the latter. Then there is LIV, which has sent a jaw-dropping amount to this bank account, and no, we are not talking about his contract here.

• Jon Rahm has earned $97.6 million on the Saudi-backed league across three seasons. His LIV earnings have exceeded his entire PGA Tour career earnings combined.
• The 2024 season alone brought in $38.3 million ($16.3 million in official individual income, $21.5 million in team + bonus, and $500,000 in majors).
• Although he got $3 million less in official individual income in 2025, he earned $400,000 more in total cash.
• In 2026, the official individual income rose to $18 million, but the team bonus fell to $3 million because of consistent financial lapses, bringing his LIV total down to $24.5 million.

Rahm closed out his 2026 season with a T-41 finish at LIV Golf New York on August 6. Despite the Team Championship bonus dropping, he has earned prize money of $48,806,708, with other bonuses of $42,000,000 [captains earn a share of their team’s prize money when their team wins a tournament].

Across 16 events between LIV Golf and the majors, he won twice—at Hong Kong and Mexico City—with each victory worth $4 million. Add that to a runner-up finish at the PGA Championship for $1.8 million. Overall, his career individual earnings have pushed him past $90 million.

Meanwhile, for Woods, it’s the polar opposite.

Woods’ growing fortunes hit a pause

Woods turned pro in August 1996. By 2006, he topped the PGA Tour money list for that year with $9.94 million. It was a figure nobody could match then. By 2009, Woods had crossed $1 billion in overall career earnings, and by 2012, $100 million in PGA Tour career earnings.

His earnings growth has stalled since 2024. Woods finished 60th at that year’s Masters and missed the cut in three of the four majors, including the Open Championship. Since then, he has had multiple surgeries and hasn’t played a single competitive round.

According to Spotrac, his official PGA Tour career earnings currently stand at $126.2 million, with the other $28.2 million earned from majors alone. That’s what 15 majors and seven runner-up finishes earn you.

But yes, being absent from professional golf hasn’t helped Woods keep up with the youngsters. Think of this fact: a golfer without any major wins is closing in on Woods.

Joaquin Niemann has turned his fortunes since joining LIV

Another surprising name near the top of the list is Niemann. He turned pro in 2018 and spent four seasons on the PGA Tour before joining LIV Golf in August 2022. Niemann won twice on the PGA Tour in that stretch. Overall, he left with $15.5 million in official PGA Tour earnings.

His numbers on LIV have also grown fast since.

Niemann’s LIV Golf earnings stand at $86.1 million, and his major championship money adds another $2.6 million. That’s despite not winning any major. By comparison, Woods earned about $2.07 million for winning the Masters in 2019—the highest paycheck of his career.

Niemann has won nine times on LIV overall, including two wins in 2025—one in Korea and another at LIV Golf New York. His career bonus money sits at $20 million. Niemann competed in 14 LIV Golf events and three major championships this year. Overall, the Chilean pro has earned $104,220,511 in his career.

As for Woods, his wealth extends beyond tournament earnings. He is golf’s first and, to date, the only billionaire. On the flip side, Rahm and Niemann demonstrate how LIV Golf and its ripple effect have accelerated career earnings.