The Triangle’s stars on the PGA Tour made serious bank this season.
In fact, the four Triangle natives in the top 40 of the money list took home about $28.4 million in official PGA Tour earnings, according to figures from Golfweek Magazine.
Of course that doesn’t include endorsements, appearance fees, corporate outings, equipment contracts and the PGA Tour’s Player Impact Program. Nor does it factor in regular expenses including travel, caddie, manager, agent and instructors.
Raleigh native and UNC graduate Ryan Gerard led the way with $10.004 million, followed by Wake Forest native Akshay Bhatia with $8.4 million, Wake Forest native and Duke grad Alex Smalley with $5.8 million and Chapel Hill native and UNC grad Ben Griffin with $4.2 million.
Though not from the Triangle, J.T. Poston of Hickory and Western Carolina also had a highly successful year with earnings of $5.97 million.
Gerard, whose third-place finish in last weekend’s season-ending Tour Championship was worth more than $3 million, finished ninth in money on the tour, followed by Bhatia (14), Poston (23), Smalley (25) and Griffin (39).
Scottie Scheffler’s $10-million prize for winning the Tour Championship pushed his earnings to almost $31 million. Wake Forest University grad Cameron Young was No. 2 on the list at more than $15 million.
The top 50 also included WFU’s Alex Fitzpatrick (21st at almost $6.4 million) and Michael Brennan (47th at almost $3.36 million).
On the LIV Golf tour, Raleigh’s Michael La Sasso (N.C. State, Ole Miss) made $5.67 million in individual and team earnings.
Harold Varner III (Gastonia, East Carolina) earned $7.47 million. Varner has $29.8 million in tournament payouts in five LIV seasons. Varner made his career-high $2.03 million on the PGA Tour in 2021-2022, the last of his seven seasons.
