If Scottie Scheffler wins the FedEx Cup Playoffs this week at East Lake, he can finally afford that new car. You see, Scheffler famously drives an old SUV that has transversed 200,000 miles. While he is in such a financial situation that he obviously could have replaced the vehicle long ago, perhaps another $18 million in his bank account -- capping off the richest single season in PGA Tour history -- will be the final straw.
"When I'm at home, I go to the golf course, I go to the place where I work out, and then if we're going to dinner, it's probably no more than 5 minutes from my house," Scheffler said two weeks ago. "We usually take [my wife's] car because she doesn't want to ride in mine. I wish I could put more miles on it. It would definitely improve kind of the story around the car, but I don't really drive much when I'm at home."
It's a humorous nod to just how much dough Scheffler has made in this breakout season, one in which he has held onto the No. 1 world ranking for 22 consecutive weeks.
Scheffler, who has already earned just over $14 million this season, previously reset the regular-season record for most money earned by a player prior to the FedEx Cup Playoffs, eclipsing Jordan Spieth's 2015 campaign ($12 million). Scheffler has deposited a sum just shy of Greg Norman's career earnings ($14.5 million) to this point. That's the Greg Norman who was both contending for majors in the 1990s and more recently constructed a competitor to the PGA Tour in an attempt to deconstruct the organization he dominated for such a long time.
If Scheffler wins the FedEx Cup Playoffs this weekend, he'll do it starting two shots clear of the field at 10 under. The additional $18 million that he could tack onto his regular-season earnings -- the biggest prize in FedEx Cup history -- would push him to over $32 million. That is tantamount to Henrik Stenson's entire career (not including FedEx Cup earnings), and it's over $9 million more than Rory McIlroy took home in 2019 ($22.8 million).
Of course, these are just numbers. And in a sea of numbers -- when money has never been more talked about at the professional level -- they will likely be lost or perhaps even ignored. More importantly for Scheffler, they represent the type of year he's put together -- arguably the best of the last five years.
"I think I saw Scottie came in and did his interview yesterday and I'm sure he got asked about what was going on, and he's had one of the best seasons of all time," said Justin Thomas recently. "I mean, the most money that's ever been earned and winning the FedEx Cup by a mile, and I'm sure there weren't as many questions about that as there should have been."
It's fitting that Thomas was the one to discuss Scheffler's sterling campaign because Thomas is part of a club Scheffler is trying to join. J.T. is the last golfer to lead the PGA Tour in wins with more than five in a single year. In fact, there have only been six golfers since 1994 who have earned five or more PGA Tour victories in a single campaign: Nick Price, Tiger Woods (eight times), Vijay Singh, Jason Day, Spieth and Thomas.
If Scheffler wins this weekend, he joins that group. Throw in the fact that Scheffler won the Masters, a World Golf Championship and events featuring four of the 12 best fields of the year -- all while rising to No. 1 in the process -- and it is truly one of the great seasons in modern PGA Tour history.
Money can tell a lot of different stories, and it has told a lot of different stories in the world of professional golf so far this season. For Scheffler, it represents a secure financial future but also an absolutely torrid recent past. One informs the other, of course.
Though it's doubtful that Scheffler will actually replace that SUV any time soon, the fact that he easily could purchase 100 new SUVs -- and plenty more if he maintains his lead at East Lake this week for four straight days -- signifies something far more important: that he's been the best player on the planet for the entirety of the year.
