A Tiger Woods Record That Once Felt Untouchable Is Finally Gone After More Than 26 Years

The 2000 Buick Invitational marked the end of a remarkable run of PGA Tour wins for Tiger Woods.

Heading to Torrey Pines for the tournament that February, Woods was looking for his seventh consecutive PGA Tour title to continue a run that began the previous August at the WGC NEC Invitational.

In the end, Woods came close to yet another title, but not quite close enough, sharing runner-up with Shigeki Maruyama as Phil Mickelson took the honors.

A victory would have seen Woods surpass Ben Hogan’s winning run, set in 1948, and taken him within four of the all-time winning streak of 11 achieved by Byron Nelson in 1945.

However, despite the disappointment of coming up short, his $264,000 runner-up check gave him another record – it sent him to the top of the all-time PGA Tour career money list, overtaking Davis Love III with earnings of $12,828,128.

Even though Woods was already dominant and in month two of what would become the most successful year of his career, few could have imagined he would remain at the top of the money list for as long as he did.

In fact, Woods had stood proudly on top of the career money list for 9,695 days – until August 30th 2026 and the final round of the Tour Championship.

By that point, Woods’ career PGA Tour earnings stood at a huge $120,999,166.

That figure would surely have been considerably higher, too, but for the injuries and personal setbacks that have severely limited his PGA Tour appearances at various stages of his career.

In fact, Woods’ total hasn’t budged at all for over 28 months, when a 60th place finish at the 2024 Masters handed him a payout of $44,400.

At the beginning of that year, the chances of Woods being caught anytime soon still seemed remote, with his $120,955,766 in career earnings being over $40m more than the player in second, Rory McIlroy.

Meanwhile, Scottie Scheffler had considerably more ground to make up, still more than $78m behind the 15-time Major winner in 20th on the list.

Fast forward to the final round at East Lake, and suddenly, Woods’ 26-year unbroken run at the top appeared extremely vulnerable, with both Scheffler and McIlroy looking poised to overtake him.

At the start of play in the $40m event, both players were in the top 10 on the leaderboard.

Scheffler began the day needing a payday of $608,505 or more to overtake Woods, having amassed PGA Tour career earnings of $120,390,661.

McIlroy had a little more to do, beginning the day in third on the career money list with $117,848,372, leaving him $3,150,794 short of Woods’ total.

While that may seem like a lot, solo fourth would have handed McIlroy $3,200,000, enough to leapfrog Woods.

In the end, McIlroy’s quest for his fourth FedExCup title narrowly short. Instead of the solo fourth he needed, he placed tied for fourth with six others, reducing his prize money to $1,707,142.86 and missing out on Woods’ total by a little less than $1.5m.

However, Scheffler did more than enough to ensure the Tour Championship marked a changing of the guard at the top of the career money list.

In fact, he blew past Woods with a $10m payout for claiming his second FedExCup title in three years, taking his career earnings to $130,390,661 and leaving him looking down on every PGA Tour professional in history, Woods included.

In doing so, it brought to an end a remarkable run that began when Woods was still just 24 years old, when most of his staggering success, and earnings, were still ahead of him.