By Roger Pielke Jr
6 August 2014
With the final Major of the golf season starting on Thursday at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky, most of the talk in anticipation of the PGA Championship is about a player who almost certainly has no chance of winning, even if he were to play. I’m of course referring to Tiger Woods.
Woods reinjured his back last week at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational leading to questions about his future – not just this week, but as a professional golfer. With Tiger on everyone’s mind, I thought it worth taking a look at his impact on the game, specifically Tiger’s role in boosting purses and the corresponding financial benefits to his peers.
From 1990 to 1996 the total purses on the PGA Tour increased from $82 million to $101 million, a respectable increase of about 3.4% per year. (All data in this post comes from PGATour.com and is adjusted to constant 2014 dollars to eliminate the effects of inflation). Tiger burst on the scene as a professional in 1996, winning 2 of the 8 events that he entered.
Before the Masters this year, Phil Mickelson explained what Tiger’s success and corresponding fame did to the game:
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“Look at what he’s doing for the game the last 17 years he’s played as a professional. It’s been incredible. .. I remember when I was an amateur and I won my first tournament in Tucson in 1991, the entire purse was $1 million, first place was $180,000 and Steve [Loy, my agent] and I would sit down and say, ‘I wonder if in my lifetime, probably not in my career, we would have play for a $1 million first-place check.’
“[Now] it’s every week. It’s unbelievable the growth of this game. And Tiger has been the instigator. He’s been the one that’s really propelled and driven the bus because he’s brought increased ratings, increased sponsors, increased interest and we have all benefited, but nobody has benefited more than I have, and we’re all appreciative. That’s why we miss him so much; we all know what he’s meant to the game.”
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The numbers bear out Mickelson’s observations. By 2008 purses totaled $292 million, representing an increase of 9.3% per year since Tiger joined the Tour. This difference in the growth in prize money from 3.4% in the years before Tiger joined the Tour to 9.3% in the years after can be called the ‘Tiger Woods effect.” I was curious as to what financial impact the “Tiger effect” had on his peers, so I looked at the data.
The results are astonishing. Tiger effectively more than doubled the prize money for every other golfer, adding billions of dollars to fellow players’ pockets. How can we demonstrate this?
Here is what I did. I considered all players who earned a pay cheque on the Tour in 2013. I then calculated their total earnings from 1997 to 2008 (176 players). I then calculated how much of those earnings were due to the “Tiger Woods effect” under the assumption that golf purses would have grown at the earlier rate of increase. I then subtracted this value from what they actually earned leaving a residual due to the “Tiger Woods effect.”
Other assumptions are of course possible, but the overall conclusions will be much the same – Tiger’s peers have benefited enormously in competition from his successes, even though Woods himself took home almost $100 million in prize money over that period.
Looking at the data Mickelson is almost right. He has benefitted more than anyone except Vijay Singh from the “Tiger Woods effect.” Singh earned an extra $36 million over his career thanks to Tiger and Phil an extra $29 million. (This is PGA tour alone). Here is a table with the top 10, and a full list appears at the end of this post.
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Further evidence for the “Tiger Woods effect” can be seen in the fact that since Woods’ infamous car crash in 2009, and subsequent loss of form, purses have decreased by 2.3% per year. It was a remarkable run, but one that now appears to be over.
It is important to point out that these numbers for the 176 players on the 2013 money list represents just a portion of the overall PGA Tour prize money from 1997 to 2008.
Those 176 golfers earned about $1.7 billion over that time period with about $867 million due to the “Tiger Woods effect.” In other words, slightly more than half the prize money was down to the ‘Tiger effect’. Overall, however, there was about $3.1 billion in total prize money won over that period, meaning that the overall Tiger Woods effect Tour-wide was more than $1.6 billion. This does not even begin to consider the possible knock-on effects on increased prize money in the other major international golf associations. So even if we were to ascribe only a fraction of the improved fortunes of golfers from 1997 to 2008 to the “Tiger Woods effect” it would still be a very, very large number.
Here is the list of the other players not in the graphic above who benefitted from the “Tiger Woods effect” from 1997 to 2008 on the PGA Tour. It’s safe to say that Tiger will never again have to buy a round at the 19th hole.
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Player / 1997-2008 Earnings / Due to the “Tiger Woods Effect”
Stuart Appleby $27,069,938 / $14,076,368
Kenny Perry $26,961,363 / $14,019,909
Scott Verplank $25,897,096 / $13,466,490
Chris DiMarco $24,968,127 / $12,983,426
Retief Goosen $23,663,124 / $12,304,824
Robert Allenby $23,332,671/ $12,132,989
Adam Scott $22,762,323 / $11,836,408
K.J. Choi $22,369,711 / $11,632,250
Jerry Kelly $21,514,784/ $11,187,687
Rory Sabbatini $21,140,214 / $10,992,911
Steve Flesch $20,956,948 / $10,897,613
Chad Campbell $19,450,954 / $10,114,496
Geoff Ogilvy $19,085,741 / $9,924,585
Tom Lehman $18,710,749 / $9,729,589
Stephen Ames $18,673,342 / $9,710,138
Bob Estes $18,317,272 / $9,524,982
Tim Herron $18,111,067 / $9,417,755
Charles Howell III $17,872,120 / $9,293,502
Steve Stricker $17,777,975 / $9,244,547
David Duval $17,736,622 / $9,223,044
Jesper Parnevik $17,212,977 / $8,950,748
Billy Mayfair $16,745,084 / $8,707,443
Frank Lickliter II $16,524,062 / $8,592,512
Jeff Maggert $15,643,691 / $8,134,719
Kevin Sutherland $15,304,258 / $7,958,214
Luke Donald $14,999,283 / $7,799,627
Fred Couples $14,936,589 / $7,767,027
Joe Durant $14,573,984 / $7,578,472
Zach Johnson $14,355,856 / $7,465,045
Woody Austin $14,243,436 / $7,406,587
John Rollins $14,162,658 / $7,364,582
Rod Pampling $13,992,920 / $7,276,318
Tim Clark $13,640,723 / $7,093,176
Carl Pettersson $13,373,838 / $6,954,396
Jose Maria Olazabal $13,253,510 / $6,891,825
Chris Riley $12,430,834 / $6,464,034
Padraig Harrington $12,427,442 / $6,462,270
Bart Bryant $11,864,046 / $6,169,304
Lee Janzen $11,752,711 / $6,111,410
Scott McCarron $11,741,850 / $6,105,762
Billy Andrade $11,344,069 / $5,898,916
Duffy Waldorf $10,896,552 $5,666,207
Peter Lonard $10,843,814 / $5,638,784
Ben Crane $10,843,207 $5,638,468
Heath Slocum $10,816,834 / $5,624,754
Jonathan Byrd $10,805,101 / $5,618,652
Brian Gay $10,688,178 / $5,557,853
Aaron Baddeley $10,653,603 $5,539,874
J.J. Henry $10,057,300 / $5,229,796
Skip Kendall $9,914,401 / $5,155,489
Tim Petrovic $9,662,516 / $5,024,508
Pat Perez $9,622,105 / $5,003,495
Lucas Glover $9,567,037 / $4,974,859
Ben Curtis $9,448,947 / $4,913,453
Glen Day $9,441,199 / $4,909,424
Joe Ogilvie $9,433,871 / $4,905,613
Trevor Immelman $9,242,956 / $4,806,337
Justin Rose $9,210,276 / $4,789,344
Sean O’Hair $8,994,327 /$4,677,050
Camilo Villegas $8,895,967 / $4,625,903
Bernhard Langer $8,807,491 / $4,579,895
John Senden $8,807,100 / $4,579,692
John Daly $8,688,582 / $4,518,062
Hunter Mahan $8,587,849 / $4,465,681
Matt Kuchar $8,530,993 / $4,436,116
Bo Van Pelt $8,446,441 / $4,392,149
Vaughn Taylor $8,307,598 / $4,319,951
Dean Wilson $8,276,009 / $4,303,524
D.J. Trahan $8,268,906 / $4,299,831
Cameron Beckman $8,249,619 / $4,289,802
Brandt Jobe $7,865,093 / $4,089,848
Ted Purdy $7,698,420 / $4,003,178
Robert Gamez $7,629,100 / $3,967,132
Mark O’Meara $7,550,361 / $3,926,188
Ryan Palmer $6,915,552 / $3,596,087
Ryuji Imada $6,819,511 / $3,546,146
Jason Bohn $6,421,360 / $3,339,107
Ian Poulter $6,143,533 / $3,194,637
Neal Lancaster $6,084,437 /$3,163,907
Paul Stankowski $6,051,261 / $3,146,656
Todd Hamilton $6,025,489 / $3,133,254
Mark Wilson $5,743,377 / $2,986,556
Boo Weekley $5,654,770 / $2,940,481
Charlie Wi $5,529,715 / $2,875,452
Kent Jones $5,352,222 / $2,783,156
Nick Watney $5,175,327 / $2,691,170
Kevin Na $5,116,818 / $2,660,745
Nick O’Hern $5,071,805 / $2,637,339
J.B. Holmes $5,044,949 / $2,623,373
Ken Duke $4,959,224 / $2,578,796
Greg Chalmers $4,882,436 / $2,538,866
Brandt Snedeker $4,844,096 / $2,518,930
Troy Matteson $4,807,491 / $2,499,895
Lee Westwood $4,722,506 / $2,455,703
Bubba Watson $4,696,308 / $2,442,080
Brian Davis $4,607,788 / $2,396,050
Nathan Green $4,503,907 / $2,342,031
Ryan Moore $4,358,163 / $2,266,245
Charley Hoffman $4,209,967 / $2,189,183
David Frost $4,153,357 / $2,159,746
Kevin Streelman $3,814,208 / $1,983,388
Greg Owen $3,614,521 / $1,879,551
Steve Marino $3,590,828 / $1,867,230
Angel Cabrera $3,511,173 / $1,825,810
Tag Ridings $3,457,862 / $1,798,088
Marco Dawson $3,446,424 / $1,792,140
Bill Haas $3,194,965 / $1,661,382
John Mallinger $3,189,475 / $1,658,527
George McNeill $3,163,681 / $1,645,114
Dicky Pride $3,151,821 / $1,638,947
Russ Cochran $3,056,177 / $1,589,212
Michael Letzig $3,029,926 / $1,575,561
Robert Garrigus $2,855,665 / $1,484,946
Jeff Overton $2,764,765 / $1,437,678
Johnson Wagner $2,686,510 /$1,396,985
Tom Watson $2,681,860 / $1,394,567
Jeff Gove $2,612,659 / $1,358,583
Arjun Atwal $2,536,872 / $1,319,173
James Driscoll $2,374,530 / $1,234,756
Nicholas Thompson $2,328,498/ $1,210,819
Sandy Lyle $2,276,029 / $1,183,535
Andres Romero $2,233,902 / $1,161,629
John Merrick $2,149,254 / $1,117,612
Henrik Stenson $2,131,978 / $1,108,628
Hank Kuehne $2,002,238 / $1,041,164
Kevin Stadler $1,997,796 / $1,038,854
Michael Bradley $1,971,492 / $1,025,176
Dustin Johnson $1,936,659 $1,007,063
Wes Short, Jr. $1,856,870 / $965,572
Darron Stiles $1,619,522 /$842,151
Chez Reavie $1,562,513 / $812,507
Russell Knox $1,537,423 / $799,460
Paul Casey $1,484,065 / $771,714
Shawn Stefani $1,456,317 / $757,285
Marc Turnesa $1,438,968 / $748,263
Jason Dufner $1,345,346 / $699,580
Chris Stroud $1,278,222 / $664,675
Alexandre Rocha $1,274,125 / $662,545
Joey Snyder III $1,259,266 / $654,818
Brendan Steele $1,213,240 / $630,885
Andre Stolz $1,121,887 / $583,381
Tom Gillis $1,049,304 / $545,638
Doug LaBelle II $1,045,187 / $543,497
D.A. Points $946,902 / $492,389
Martin Laird $937,646 / $487,576
Justin Bolli $852,046 / $443,064
Matt Jones $839,520 / $436,550
Jason Day $830,316 / $431,764
Jimmy Walker $669,188 / $347,978
Peter Hanson $668,180 / $347,454
Will Claxton $650,806 / $338,419
Tommy Gainey $608,304 / $316,318
Brendon de Jonge $502,416 / $261,256
Y.E. Yang $499,586 / $259,785
Graeme McDowell $413,570 / $215,057
Andres Gonzales $360,427 / $187,422
Bryce Molder $289,416 / $150,496
Jin Park $245,723 /$127,776
David Hearn $235,525 / $122,473
Russell Henley $225,910 / $117,473
Steven Bowditch $164,890 / $85,743
Robert Karlsson $152,054 / $79,068
Brendon Todd $66,520 / $34,590
Troy Kelly $54,483 / $28,331
Steve LeBrun $19,348 / $10,061
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Roger Pielke Jr. is a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, where he also directs its Center for Science and technology Policy Research. He studies, teaches and writes about science, innovation, politics and sports. He has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, FiveThirtyEight, and The Wall Street Journal among many other places. He is thrilled to join Sportingintelligence as a regular contributor. Follow Roger on Twitter: @RogerPielkeJR and on his blog
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