Which Golfer Has Earned The Most Career Prize Money Without Ever Winning A Tournament?

The stark reality of top professional golf is that most players will not win – in a given tournament, in a season, perhaps even across a whole career.

Three of the four Majors have fields of 156, as does the Scottish Open. The standard full PGA Tour or DP World Tour event used to comprise 156 players, before fields were dropped this year to 144 players, only one of whom could win.

But a lot of the field still receives prize money at tournaments – and in LIV Golf all the field won prize money.

Prize money is earned on the PGA and DP World Tours by all those who make the cut in a tournament. The cut is typically made after the first two of the four rounds and, for a standard PGA and DP World Tour event, it is the top 65 and ties who go through to the final two rounds.

Typical payouts

In a standard DP World Tour event, the winner receives 17% of the total purse, and a stand-alone 65th-place finisher receives roughly 0.24%. On the PGA Tour, you are looking at figures of 18% and 0.215% respectively.

On the PGA Tour, a stand-alone 10th-placed finish wins 2.725% of the purse, and on the DP World Tour it is a roughly similar percentage.

So, if a player gets through to the weekend, the prize money comes in. Not in huge bundles necessarily, but it still flows.

The last full field event this year in the regular PGA Tour season was the Wyndham Championship. It was won by Michael Brennan, who got $1,530,000. Runner-up was Beau Hossler (more of whom later), who won $926,500.

The five golfers tied in 7th got $249,475. The three in 19th, $112,625. The nine golfers tied in 29th, among them Denny McCarthy (more on him later, too), were awarded $51,047. Peter Malnati, in 80th and last place, won $15,725.

Changing world

With the rocketing of tournament purses, and the advent of LIV Golf, much money can be made by the modern generation of tour pros.

Jack Nicklaus won 73 PGA Tour events, including a record 18 Majors, but that only places him a plummeting 351st on the PGA Tour career money leaders list. His official tournament earnings are $5,734,031.

So, who is the answer to the question in the title?

The answer

It is Cameron Tringale. He has amassed $36,669,634 in total career prize money.

In 12 winless seasons, and 338 starts, on the PGA Tour, he won $17,310,004. He then signed up to LIV Golf, where he has again failed to win, and won a further $18,309,252.

The 39-year-old has played in 16 Majors, making the cut nine times with a best finish of T14 at the US Open of 2022, which is the only time he has made the top 25 in a Major. He has won a further $1,050,378 in his Major appearances.

Tringale, however, won an unofficial Tour event, the Franklin Templeton Shootout in 2014, with Jason Day. This was a three-day 54-hole strokeplay event for teams of two.

Proxime accessit

The career money list of those without even an unofficial win on any top-tier global golf circuit is headed by Denny McCarthy. Twice a loser in play-offs, at the 2023 Memorial Tournament and the Texas Open of 2024, he has won $23 million.

This places him above Patrick Rodgers, who has four second-place finishes on the PGA Tour and $20.75 million in prize money.

But both these players have a win each on the Korn Ferry Tour. Beau Hossler, at the Wyndham Championship, earned his fifth runner-up position on tour, two of which came in play-off losses. Winless on the PGA Tour and the Korn Ferry Tour, he has now won $15.48m.

By way of a further indication of how purses have rocketed on tour, if you were to adjust Jack Nicklaus’ winnings by cost-of-living inflation, his $5.73 million equates to roughly $30–$40 million today. Or about the amount Cameron Tringale has won.