ATLANTA — Scottie Scheffler opened the Tour Championship on Thursday with a 5-under 65 at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, and a finish of 13th or better over the next three rounds would make him the career earnings leader in PGA Tour history.
Entering East Lake, Scheffler sat $608,505 behind Tiger Woods, according to The Dallas Morning News, after a tie for 12th at last week’s BMW Championship. A two-way tie for 13th or higher clears the number. Woods holds the record at $120,999,166 in official PGA Tour prize money and has been No. 1 on the list since his runner-up finish at Torrey Pines on Feb. 13, 2000. Scheffler had not yet moved from New Jersey to Dallas.
Eighth place at East Lake pays $1,070,000 out of the $40 million purse. The winner takes $10 million. All 30 players in the field began the week at even par, and there is no cut.
Scheffler traces the size of the purses he plays for to Woods’ impact on the sport.
“You’re kind of comparing apples and oranges,” Scheffler said Wednesday. “But I think a lot of success we’ve had out here, especially when you look at it from a financial perspective, Tiger has a lot to do with that. Like I said, it’s apples and oranges. The reason our purses are so large today is because of the influence and impact that Tiger had on the game.”
“I wouldn’t really consider that a Tiger record being broken,” Scheffler continued. “I think it’s more, I think it just shows one of the many effects he had on the game of golf in a positive way. Like the Tour is only getting more competitive as it goes forward, and I think that’s part of kind of how he played the game.”
Min Woo Lee shot an 8-under 62 on Thursday to take a two-shot lead into the second round. Collin Morikawa, Viktor Hovland, and Chris Gotterup are tied for second at 6 under. Scheffler is tied for fifth at 5 under with Ryan Gerard, Akshay Bhatia, and Ludvig Åberg. East Lake is playing as a par 70 at 7,440 yards this week.
Scottie Scheffler’s Health at East Lake
Scheffler said he is about 95% healthy and mostly past the hand, foot and mouth disease he had last week in St. Louis, where gripping most of his clubs hurt. He still tied for 12th at the BMW Championship. On Tuesday he played the front nine at East Lake, and he went back out for the back nine on Wednesday.
“The only thing, maybe just still a couple of sores in my throat. But other than that, I feel really good,” Scheffler explained.
What Scottie Scheffler Took From Tiger Woods at the 2020 Masters
Neither player had much left to play for that week at Augusta National. Dustin Johnson was well ahead of the field. The pairing sat in 20th place.
“When I talk about competitive instincts and talk about intensity each week, that’s stuff that I learned just by watching Tiger,” Scheffler said. “We’re in 20th place. He doesn’t have a ton to play for. He’s won like five green jackets, and we don’t have a chance of winning. Dustin was pretty far ahead that year. I just remember walking up onto the 1st green and watching him read his putt, and I was like, holy smokes, this guy is into it.”
“That’s the intensity he brought into each and every shot, and that’s something I’ve tried to model in my game,” Scheffler added.
Woods won 82 times on the PGA Tour across 378 starts. Scheffler has 21 wins at age 30, which The Dallas Morning News reported is the third-fastest anyone has reached that total, behind Jack Nicklaus at 27 and Woods at 24. Four of the 21 are majors: the Masters in 2022 and 2024, the PGA Championship in 2025, and the Open Championship in 2025.
Born in Ridgewood, New Jersey, Scheffler was raised in Dallas. He played basketball and golf at Highland Park High School and won three consecutive individual state golf titles from 2012 to 2014 before going to the University of Texas.
Adjusted for inflation, Woods’ PGA Tour earnings come to roughly $207 million in today’s dollars, according to The Dallas Morning News. Scheffler’s figure is about $131 million.
Neither total counts bonus money. The Tour paid out its $100 million FedEx Cup bonus pool on the standings after the BMW Championship, and Scheffler collected $23 million of it for finishing that stretch at No. 1.
His second victory of the year came on Aug. 16 at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, where he won by eight shots and earned $3.6 million. That check moved him past Rory McIlroy into second on the career earnings list. McIlroy is $4.5 million back of Woods.
Scheffler is paired with Åberg for the second round Friday at 12:24 p.m. CT. Coverage runs from 10 a.m. to noon CT on ESPN and from noon to 5 p.m. CT on Golf Channel.
