Credit: APA/Getty Images via AFP/GETTY IMAGES/GREGORY SHAMUS
Starting today, the top 30 professional golfers on the elite US PGA Tour will play on the East Lake course near Atlanta for the highest prize money that can be won at a single sporting event. The jackpot of the FedEx Cup Finals is filled with 75 million dollars (approx. 69.4 million euros), the winner can look forward to 18 million dollars.
In 30th place, Sepp Straka just made it to Atlanta for the million-dollar show for professional golfers. The 30-year-old from Vienna will have a hard time competing at the top because of the regulations, but financially his chances of winning are excellent. Even for the 30th, so last place, you get a bonus of 500,000 dollars at the final of the FedExCup series.
“It’s incredibly difficult to get to Atlanta. You first have to have a great year and then survive the playoffs when the going gets tough,” Straka is happy to be able to take part in the final like last year. In 2022, he finished seventh as the second best European and was delighted with a prize of $1.635 million. A similar success should hardly be possible this year, which is due to the special rules of the final. The pro golfers start by placing in the PGA Tour rankings and take a credit of shots into the finals. Straka starts as 30th from zero, leader Scottie Scheffler starts at minus 10 – so he has ten strokes ahead of the Viennese.
The Money Scheffler
The 27-year-old US star is the first contender for the winner’s check. Last year Scheffler was defeated by three-time FedEx Cup winner Rory McIlroy (he starts at -7 today), but he can look forward to a consistently outstanding year in the race for the professional golfer’s jackpot. He finished in the top three in ten of his 22 event appearances on the PGA Tour.
That’s another reason why Scheffler is the leader in the season’s prize money ranking with $21 million. Due to the new competition with the Saudi Arabia-sponsored LIV tour, the prize money on the US tour also skyrocketed.
Golf circus as a show for millions
The $500 million mark was surpassed for the first time, an increase of approximately $140 million over the previous year. Before 2022, only one player (Jordan Spieth/2015) had ever brought in more than ten million dollars in pure tournament prize money per year, this year there are already seven tour professionals with eight-digit amounts.
Straka’s account received $5.29 million. His second PGA title at the John Deere Classic, two second places and a total of eight top 25 finishes are mainly responsible for the most profitable season in the career of the Viennese, both financially and in terms of sport. Overall, Straka, who debuted on the PGA Tour in 2019, has career earnings of $13.51 million.
Source: Nachrichten
