Let’s take a closer look at the lefties on the PGA Tour.
About 10 percent of the U.S. population is left-handed but there has only been 17 lefties to win on the PGA Tour.
One place they can find common ground is the official website of being left-handed, lefthandersday.com, where it appears the struggle is real:
“August 13th is a chance to tell your family and friends how proud you are of being left-handed, and also raise awareness of the everyday issues that lefties face as we live in a world designed for right-handers.”
August 13, 2024, marked the 33rd annual International Lefthanders Day. On that site, you can purchase things such as left-handed scissors. For left-handed golf clubs, you’re probably better off looking elsewhere.
Fifteen non-righties have combined to win 86 times on the PGA Tour, led by you-know-who, Phil Mickelson.
With Brian Harman’s win at Royal Liverpool in 2023, there have now been three lefties to win the Open Championship, joining Bob Charles (1963) and Phil Mickelson (2013).
This list is updated through the 2024 Procore Championship.
There’s a lot of money to be made in professional golf.
Tiger Woods maintains his overall lead atop the PGA Tour’s all-time money list. He is the first golfer to surpass the $120,000,000 mark in on-course career earnings and the only one over the $100 million mark.
Phil Mickelson, before departing for the LIV Golf League, surpassed the $90 million mark. Rory McIlroy is third on this list. He has gone past $90 million as well. Scottie Scheffler is now the seventh to break the $70 million mark. Jason Day was the 11th to surpass the $60 million mark. Every golfer on this top 18 list is now a member of the $50 million club.
With the bigger pots at stake in the PGA Tour’s signature events, expect a lot of movement up in the next few years on this list. There are now 83 golfers who have surpassed the $25 million mark in career on-course earnings.
With that in mind, let’s look at the top money earners of all-time, as measured by on-course winnings. Some of the names may surprise you.
Editor’s note: This list is updated through the 2024 Procore Championship.
LIV Golf’s third season will come to a close Sunday, and then the league will enter the offseason before going international to begin its 2025 campaign. As for what’s next for the league? Other than the early-season schedule release, not many details have been released.
Perhaps it’s because the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which finances LIV Golf, are still working on a deal to bring the top players from both tours back together. Or it could be because the initial momentum LIV Golf had after its first two years has slowed.
A follow-up question was asked: “Do you want to expand on that any?”
“No.”
Two questions, a pair of one-word answers and the result is left trying to figure out what it all means.
Perhaps Mickelson is speaking to players about possibly joining the league. But unlike in year’s past, there’s hardly any chatter going on about folks who could move defect from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf. Or maybe LIV is in a holding pattern, waiting to see what’s next for professional golf, like the rest of us.
Based on other questions and answers Thursday from Mickelson and other LIV Golf captains, the league is moving forward like business as usual. There were even some hints at more team-only events in the future, similar to this week in Dallas.
But as always, Lefty’s choice to not talk about conversations he has had will leave people guessing. Is it a smokescreen, or is LIV Golf preparing for another major offseason splash?
It’s been nearly six years since the first edition of The Match, the made-for-TV series of silly season golf events featuring everyone from PGA Tour legends to current NFL and NBA all-stars.
In that time, golf fans have been treated to seven different matches, most recently the first to be played using a mixed-team format.
Even though the first edition of The Match – Woods vs. Phil Mickelson in November 2018 in Las Vegas – didn’t quite live up to the hype, it proved there was a market for the competition. Over the years the matches have grown into charitable causes benefitting COVID-19 relief and HBCU’s while still providing golf fans a unique product outside of 72-hole stroke-play tournaments.
Some of the league’s stars have been told they won’t see renewals on the scale that lured them to LIV.
The pithy ‘3 R’s’ rubric has been used to summarize fundamentals in many areas, from the New Deal (Relief, Recovery, Reform), to early learning (Relationships, Repetition, Routines), to the environment (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle). The same formula can illuminate what matters most in golf these days: Reward, Reputation, Relevance.
The economics that have warped the men’s professional game ensure ample reward, but for some that has come at the cost of both reputation and relevance, none moreso than Jon Rahm. Golf Digest’s Jaime Diaz reports that the Spaniard regrets his December move to LIV Golf, and while Rahm himself is unlikely to ever confirm such a sentiment, Diaz is a fastidious reporter and his account squares with what many others in the game have heard. Even in his (at times bizarre) public comments, Rahm sounds more notes of poignant yearning for the tour he left than of fierce advocacy for the one he joined.
He was rewarded though, even if the oft-cited contract amount ($500 million) is wholly unsourced and — according to someone close to Rahm — wildly exaggerated. Whatever the figure, it was sufficient for a man who emphatically pledged fealty to the PGA Tour to don a LIV letterman jacket and stand next to Greg Norman. Rahm’s isn’t the only reputation bruised after a volte-face, and at least he didn’t explicitly express his willingness to overlook murder and human rights abuses if doing so gave him leverage over the PGA Tour, that being the putrid pyre on which Phil Mickelson’s legacy was incinerated.
Yet a day is nearing when Saudi subsidies cease to provide a dominant advantage when it comes to player rewards, because LIV’s irrational economy faces a retraction. A few player contracts expire in 2024, more in ’25. Some of the league’s stars have been told they won’t see renewals on the scale that lured them to LIV, so those who extend will be doing so for less. Assuming extensions are even offered. Perhaps they will be, but if no deal is reached between the Public Investment Fund and the PGA Tour, then the Saudi government has a call to make: throw good money after bad with another round of contracts for an execrable product with zero market traction, or cut loose. And they have been known to favor chopping those deemed inconvenient.
Across town, it’s a bull market, for now. Scottie Scheffler has earned more than $28 million in prize money this season on the PGA Tour. Throw in his Comcast bonus ($8 million), two lucrative events this week and next (each paying $3.6 million to the winner) and the eye-watering FedEx Cup bonuses disbursed later this month at East Lake (top payout: $25 million), and Scheffler could clear well north of $60 million. And that excludes endorsements, the value of the equity grant he received in PGA Tour Enterprises, and a pension scheme that would make Congressional grifters feel shortchanged.
But how sustainable is that model? Strategic Sports Group injected $1.5 billion into the Tour with the promise of the same again, but that’s not intended to be debited directly into players’ pockets as purses. An accounting will come in Ponte Vedra as surely as it will in Riyadh. “Sustainability is living on nature’s income rather than living on its capital,” wrote the late physicist, Murray Gell-Mann. His aphorism has currency when applied to the golf economy, regardless of which tour one looks at.
That said, one tour has attracted investors who see the potential for significant returns. The other survives on the whims of a solitary banker, and he works for a mercurial authoritarian. That’s a shaky foundation for long-term sustainability. The popular narrative has the PGA Tour unable to withstand more poaching, having its product strength bled out, seeing its sponsors and fans fleeing. There are very minor elements of truth in those assertions, but the Saudis are even more incentivized to seek a face-saving deal. The PGA Tour is looking less like LIV’s rival and more like its life raft.
For some guys who cashed out with LIV, most of what happens next won’t matter. They got theirs. But not everyone who went to LIV lacked the weaponry or the stomach for the fight at the elite level. Certainly not Rahm. He was by far the most competitive player to jump, and while he hasn’t performed well since—at least outside the 54-hole exhibition ecosystem—it’s too limited a data sample to say LIV has diminished him as a force. But it’s not too early to say LIV has made him less relevant.
He is missed by fans on the PGA Tour since he’s obviously among the best in the world, regardless of who signs his check. But those fans have not followed him across the Rubicon and won’t be scrambling to The CW in hopes of seeing him between reruns of “Jack Hanna’s Into the Wild” and “Crime Nation.” The third pillar of golf’s ‘3 R’s’ — relevance — is something LIV players now experience four weeks a year, at major championships. Their own tour can’t deliver it, no matter how many bot farms fertilize social media on its behalf. Rahm has learned that his relevance wasn’t based solely on being Jon Rahm, but on being Jon Rahm with a credible platform and an audience of scale.
TROON, Scotland – It used to be that if you asked Phil Mickelson a question, you were bound to get a lengthy answer of some sort. He loved to expound on a variety of topics and any time he was scheduled to speak to the press you wanted to be there to listen, uncapped pen at the ready knowing you could count on him to fill a notebook and provide snappy quotes and anecdotes that would jump off the page. In short, he was good copy.
But these days, ever since he went to LIV and really dating to the moment he got burned by some of what he believed to be off-the-record remarks being published, Mickelson has gone mute.
He rarely does pre-tournament press conferences anymore, even this week at the return to the site of his famous duel with Henrik Stenson in 2016 he was not one of the players to participate, and he declined to speak to the media after the first two rounds. But on Saturday, after posting a 1-over 72 in the third round of the 152nd British Open, Mickelson agreed to stop and field questions from the media.
He said he enjoyed the round and always loves coming to Troon, a place with fond memories despite coming up short in 2004 and 2016.
He detailed his adventures at the Postage Stamp, where he found The Coffin Bunker and had to contort his legs and aim away from the flag to extricate himself from a dreadful lie.
“That hole is one of the greats,” he said. “I’m trying to make par. I’m not trying to make two. If I make four, I’m not that upset. It’s a hole that you’ve seen it dismantle a bunch of opportunities for players to win, and you just don’t want to make the big number. Bogeys are fine there if it happens, but it’s just one of the great holes in the game.”
Asked to name where this week’s test ranked among the British Opens he’s played in, he said it was premature to say with another round to go. “I’ve played this course in all different winds, and it’s like playing the course for the first time,” he said. “Every time you get a different wind. It’s incredible. It’s just one of the best designs in the world.”
On the subject of his wearing joggers after losing a bet to YouTube star Grant Horvath, Mickelson waxed on and on about discovering the YouTube audience and over several follow-up questions blathered on about why a 54-year-old man would be wearing joggers again for Sunday’s final round.
“Out here where the wind is blowing and my pants are getting caught on the socks, whatever, they’re not. I really do like them,” he said.
But when the subject shifted to Tiger Woods and PGA Tour and LIV Mickelson suddenly became reticent. Asked if he conversed with Tiger on the range earlier this week when the two greats were set up next to each other, he said, “We said hi. Yeah, we said hi, but we were both preparing. It’s not like we’re going to sit there and chat. But we said hello, yeah.”
Could he and Tiger work out the golf world’s problems?
“I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll see,” said Mickelson.
Two timeless competitors. 💪
Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson warm up next to each other on the range at Royal Troon. pic.twitter.com/p67aAqb4yo
Asked what he would say if he’d been told a year ago that the PGA Tour-PIF negotiations hadn’t resulted in any changes or resolution yet, he said, “ Look, I don’t know about that stuff. I’m not involved. I’m not sitting in those rooms. I am enjoying where I’m at and what I’m doing and playing. I’ll let other people figure that stuff out. “
Another reporter wondered if Mickelson would prefer there to be peace in the pro golf ranks, “that everybody was happy about it?”
Mickelson paused and considered his words. A man who used to love to hear himself speak said simply, “You know, it would be great. It would be great.”
And with that Mickelson was done engaging, although it’s debatable whether he had ever started at all.
“I was surprised at the pick, and I think it’s a great pick the more I think about it.”
Phil Mickelson has plenty of history at the Ryder Cup with Keegan Bradley. So it’s no surprise the first question he was asked Wednesday at his pre-tournament press conference ahead of 2024 LIV Golf Andalucia was about the new United States Ryder Cup captain.
“I was surprised at the pick, and I think it’s a great pick the more I think about it,” Lefty said. “He played a lot of golf at Bethpage when he went to St. John’s. His passion for the Ryder Cup is greater than just about any player I’ve ever seen. His love for the Ryder Cup is more than anybody I know. I think he’s going to lead with that type of passion.”
Mickelson and Bradley were 4–1 as teammates across two Ryder Cups, accounting for all of Bradley’s wins in the competition. They were also 2–1–1 at the 2013 Presidents Cup.
“I think he’s incredible,” Mickelson said. “I’m really, really happy for him. I think we all are really happy for him knowing how gut-wrenching it was to not be part of the team last year, but to now have the opportunity to lead and go forward I think is great.”
Bradley, as documented in the Netflix series “Full Swing,” was heartbroken when not selected for the U.S. team last year in Rome, which the Americans eventually lost 16½-11½. Bradley is well known for still not unpacking his suitcase from the 2014 Ryder Cup, a U.S. defeat at Glen Eagles in Scotland.
Mickelson wasn’t the only person in the golf world surprised by the pick. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing, 2024 U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau said.
“I’m excited for him,” DeChambeau said Wednesday. “I think it’s a great opportunity for him, especially as it relates to younger players. He’s going to see that younger threshold, and obviously relate to them a lot more, I would say, because of his age. I mean, what is he, 38 or something like that?
“So yeah, he’s seeing the younger generation game. He’s out there still playing, and competing and it’s great to have some relate-ability. As far as picking the best players, that’s the right approach and I couldn’t be more happy for him as captain.”
Bradley said Tuesday his picks for the team would be the 12 best players, regardless of where they play. More than a year out, DeChambeau is second in the standings, trailing only Scottie Scheffler, but he was also left off the team last year, which featured Brooks Koepka as the only LIV Golf player competing in Italy.
A week after one of its members claimed the U.S. Open title at Pinehurst No. 2, LIV Golf is in Tennessee for LIV Golf Nashville, its ninth event of the season.
Play gets underway Friday at The Grove — last week’s winner Bryson DeChambeau is the betting favorite at +750 — but HyFlyers GC and its captain Phil Mickelson got the party going a little bit early in the Music City.
Mickelson and teammates Brendan Steele, Cameron Tringale and Andy Ogletree tried their hands, or should we say feet, at line dancing.
The team currently is 11th in the points standings out of 13 teams.
Mickelson has been a member at this golf club, which sits about 30 minutes north of San Diego.
Phil Mickelson was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2001. He’s the winner of 45 PGA Tour titles, his most recent coming unexpectedly in the 2021 PGA Championship, before he made the jump to LIV Golf.
And while Mickelson has played golf all over the world, he’s chosen to reside in Rancho Santa Fe, California, an area where he’s been purchasing land for decades.
One course where Mickelson has been a member is The Farms, which sits about 30 minutes north of San Diego.
According to the club’s website, Mickelson uses the club to prepare for majors.
“The Farms is one of the most challenging courses off the tee in Southern California,” Mickelson said. “When I’m preparing for a major tournament (like the U.S. Open) and really want to test my driver, I come to The Farms.”
A five-bedroom home that sits perched above the course is currently on sale for the tidy sum of $9.25 million.
Live the luxury lifestyle on this Premier lot within the gated community of The Farms, one of Rancho Santa Fe’s most beautiful, peaceful, private, and picturesque communities. Ideally situated to take advantage of the 270+ degree views of the lush golf course below all the way to the Pacific Ocean. This custom residence features high end finishes and design elements including soaring ceilings, large windows and glass doors allowing for an abundance of natural light, beautiful wood accents while encompassing over 10,000 sq feet of gracious living space. The home exudes elegance and provides the ultimate venue for indoor/outdoor living and entertaining. As you enter the gated courtyard with large wooden gates you feel a sense of beauty and warmth and are mesmerized by the stunning views. The formal living room with stone fireplace and service bar has access to an extensive rear loggia through multiple sets of French doors, which is perfect for entertaining, and for capturing views of the pool, pristine grounds and the views of the golf course, mountains, ocean, and sunsets. There is a large formal dining room and an oversized wood flanked office/library/ game room. The kitchen is a true chef’s dream, perfectly detailed with top-of-the-line appliances, crisp slabs of stone, custom cabinetry, large center island, oversized butler’s pantry, and a spacious informal dining area. The kitchen opens to a warm and inviting family room with large media center, fireplace and doors that open to the oversized veranda….the ideal venue for indoor/outdoor dining, entertaining and relaxing. The primary suite comes with fireplace and has dual dressing rooms and bathrooms with French doors leading to a balcony overlooking the sun splashed pool and spa, with ocean and sunset views. There are an additional oversized 4 bedrooms all ensuite, a theatre, gym, second family room with fireplace and bar, wine cellar with room for tasting, secondary kitchen or workshop, sauna and steam shower, outdoor living room with fireplace, putting green, elevator, garaging for 4 vehicles. Living in the Farms community you can take advantage of all The Farms has to offer with 24 hour guarded security entrance gate, opportunity to join The Farms Country Club and Rancho Valencia Resort. Access to some of the best schools, close to some of the best beaches, restaurants, shopping.
Here’s a look at the home, which is currently on the market for $9.25 million.
Tears were welling in his eyes as this columnist wrote about the end.
BENTON HARBOR, Mich. — When the final putt dropped in the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship at the Golf Club of Harbor Shores on May 26 — ironically, the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend and won by England’s Richard Bland — there might have been a few tears running down cheeks of golfers and golf fans in the Michigan and Indiana region known as Michiana.
You can count mine among them. Tears are already welling in my eyes as I write.
On and off since 1963 — with some breaks in between — driving any compass point in Michiana into southwestern Michigan’s glorious fruit belt to watch this grand game has been a relaxing and enjoyable experience.
Watching future greats play in the Western Amateur at Point O’Woods Golf & Country Club near Millburg and then seeing many of them return many years later to compete in the Senior PGA at Harbor Shores in Benton Harbor — two great courses in Berrien County separated by a little under eight miles — have provided wonderful bookends to almost a half-century of golf memories.
It doesn’t matter whether the trip lasted 42 miles from South Bend via M-140 and then down Territorial Road into Millburg and a short jaunt north up Roslin Road to Point O’Woods, the tree-lined design of noted architect Robert Trent Jones Sr. that was home to 41 Western Amateur championships, 38 in a row beginning in 1971.
The same is also true of the 40-mile drive from South Bend via the St. Joseph Valley Parkway (U.S. 31) through acres and acres of farmlands to Harbor Shores in Benton Harbor. Situated on reclaimed Whirlpool Corporation properties through which the Paw Paw River meanders and with three holes built along the dunes of Lake Michigan, this Jack Nicklaus design hosted its sixth and final Senior PGA May 23-26. Whirlpool, parent of Kitchenaid, announced they would not continue their sponsorship of the event.
Now, our future golfing springs and summers will never be the same. To paraphrase “Caddyshack” greenskeeper Carl Spackler (actor Bill Murray): “Au Revoir, Golfers.”
My first visit to Point O’Woods occurred during the “Sweet Sixteen” weekend of the 1975 tournament when another assigned staffer at the Niles Daily Star could not work. The winner was the late Andy Bean, a 6-foot-4 recent Florida graduate who, we all learned, once bit the cover off a golf ball after three-putting during a college match against Jay Haas.
Bean, who beat Randy Simmons 1 up for the Western title, enjoyed a memorable PGA Tour career as did others from the “Sweet Sixteen” that year — Peter Jacobsen, Mike Reid and Curtis Strange. Another “Sweet Sixteen” member that year was Fred Ridley, a Gators teammate of Bean who later won the U.S. Amateur, became a lawyer and is now the chairman of Augusta National and the Masters.
The late Tom Weiskopf won the first Western Amateur at the Point in 1963, and Strange’s 1974 “double” — he won 72-hole stroke-play medal before winning four 18-hole matches for the overall title — followed Ben Crenshaw’s 1973 title sweep.
Tom Weiskopf, shown here at the Augusta National Golf Course during the 1983 Masters, won the first Western Amateur in 1963. Mandatory Credit: Lannis Waters -The Augusta Chronicle via USA TODAY NETWORK
That “double” would later be matched by Rick Fehr (1982), Scott Verplank (1985), Phil Mickelson (1991), Joel Kribel (1996), Steve Scott (1999), Bubba Dickerson (2001) and Danny Lee, whose 2008 “double” coincided with the end of the Point’s 38-year run. When the Western Golf Association returned in 2019, Canadian Garrett Rank, a 31-year-old NHL referee, beat Daniel Wetterich, 3 and 2, for the title.
Mickelson, an Arizona State golfer who won on the PGA Tour earlier in 1991, completed his Western Amateur “double” by beating 19-year-old University of Texas up-and-comer Justin Leonard, 2 and 1. Leonard, who later won the 1997 Open Championship and made the winning putt for Capt. Crenshaw’s winning 1999 U.S. Ryder Cup team, completed a Western Amateur “double” of a different sort – back-to-back titles, matching Hal Sutton’s effort in 1979 and ’80. Leonard won titles in 1992 and ’93, and in 2018, he was named a special honorary member of the Point.
In 1994, the Western Amateur was won by an 18-year-old recent high school graduate – Eldrick Tont “Tiger” Woods, who then was told by father Earl to sign autographs for the dozens of African-American youngsters who followed him.
You just never knew who you would encounter walking “The Point.” In 1991, NBA great Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls was paired for the first two rounds with Mickelson and local Chris Smith of Rochester, Ind., a former Western Junior champion. Baseball home-run smasher Mark McGwire played the first two rounds of the 2004 tournament with current PGA Tour member Kevin Kisner.
And, yes, that was former Masters champion Craig Stadler, a 1973 “Sweet Sixteen” qualifier, carrying the bag for son Kevin during the hot and humid days of the 1998 tournament.
Johnny Miller, then NBC’s lead golf analyst, shared his microphone skills for WSJM radio’s broadcasts during son Andy’s “Sweet Sixteen” championship matches in 1997 and ’99.
And who can forget the 1985 sighting of a Golden Bear? Nicklaus, then on a diet, flew up daily from Dublin, Ohio, to watch son Jackie play that year. While in Millburg, Jack cheated on his diet, enjoying the homemade butter pecan ice cream sold by the first tee. The following spring, Nicklaus donned the Masters green jacket for a sixth time.
Jack Nicklaus smiles after teeing off on the fourth hole during the Champions for Change Golf Challenge at Harbor Shores Golf Club in Benton Harbor, Mich., Aug. 10, 2010.
Nicklaus later returned to design Harbor Shores, and for its grand opening on Aug. 10, 2010, he invited Miller, Tom Watson and Arnold Palmer to tour the course for a charity skins event. When Miller pulled out a wedge instead of a putter on the multi-tiered, 10,500-square foot green on the 10th hole to execute his remaining 102 feet to the pin, Nicklaus stomped down the hill, dropped a ball and, without lining it up, putted it up the terrain and into the cup — much to the delight of Palmer, Watson and the more than 5,000 fans in attendance.
Two years later, England’s Roger Chapman totaled 13-under 271 to beat John Cook, Hale Irwin, Bernhard Langer and others for the first Senior PGA Championship title at Harbor Shores. In 2014, Scotland’s Colin Montgomerie totaled the same score for a four-stroke victory over Watson, who edged out Langer and Jay Haas by two more.
In 2016, Rocco Mediate of Greensburg, Pa., shot 19-under 265 to beat Montgomerie by three strokes and Langer and Brandt Jobe by five, reinforcing Mediate’s love affair with southwestern Michigan golf courses that dates back to 1983; That year he pre-qualified for the Western Amateur at Dowagiac’s Hampshire Country Club and then made the 36-hole cut. The following summer, Mediate would lose the final to John Inman with both golfers wearing plus-fours.
England’s Paul Broadhurst would match Mediate’s winning total in 2018 to beat Tim Petrovic by four shots as nine golfers, including Montgomery, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Jerry Kelly and Scott McCarron, shot 10-under or better for four rounds.
Two years after the 2020 return to Harbor Shores was canceled by the COVID-19 pandemic, New Zealand’s Steven Alker shot an 8-under 63 in the final round for a 16-under 268 total that was three strokes better than Canada’s Stephen Ames and six ahead of Langer.
Steve Stricker, a 1989 “Sweet Sixteen” qualifier at the Western Amateur, was expected to play in that 2022 Senior PGA after captaining the U.S. Ryder Cup team to victory in 2021 over the European team captained by Ireland’s Padraig Harrington. But Stricker tested positive for COVID-19 and had to withdraw.
Last year at the Senior PGA held at Fields Ranch East in Frisco, Texas, the 57-year-old Stricker and Harrington renewed their rivalry as players, shooting 18-under 270s before Stricker won his sixth senior major title on the first playoff hole. The Top 10 included Alker, Jimenez, Stewart Cink, Y.E. Yang, Darren Clarke and Vijay Singh. All of them — and many others from past Western Amateurs at the Point — were in this year’s farewell field at Harbor Shores.
