How Tiger Woods Has Produced Hundreds of Millionaires on the PGA Tour

Believe it or not, there are people out there who believe Tiger Woods’ domination of the PGA Tour has made the game less interesting.

There are also numerous people out there who in some way pity the rest of the Tour players for rarely being able to beat Woods.

The fact of the matter is that Tiger Woods has done more for the game of golf and more for the rest of the players on tour than could have ever been foreseen.

In 1986, ten years before Tiger’s arrival on the tour, Greg Norman was the Tour’s leading money winner with total earnings of $653,296.

In 1986, a golfer by the name of Bill Isrealson was ranked 130^th on the money list , the cutoff point to keep his Tour card, with total earnings of $58,236.

The top 130 players on Tour qualify to keep their tour card without the demoralizing thought of having to attend Q-School again.

Jumping ten years ahead to 1996, the year Tiger arrived on the Tour, the leading money winner on tour was Tom Lehman, who’s earnings totaled $1.78 million. The 130^th ranked player on the money list, Stuart Appleby, earned $164,483.

In 2005, ten years after Tiger’s arrival on the PGA Tour, The leading money winner was Woods himself with total earnings of $10.6 million, the 130^th ranked player on the money list, Michael Allen, earned $591,829.

In 2007, Tiger topped the PGA Tour money list with earnings of $10.9 million. Brett Quigley was ranked 130^th on the money list with earnings of $717,411.

To put all of these numbers into perspective, in the ten years prior to Woods’ arrival, the total earnings of the PGA Tour’s leading money winner increased by 62%.

Ten year’s after Tiger’s arrival, the earnings of the Tour’s leading money winner increased by nearly 84%.

This essentially indicates that in Woods’ first ten years on Tour, he played a large part in making everyone on Tour at least 22% richer than they would have been had he not been there.

The winner of the 1996 Masters won $450,000. Trevor Immelman just earned $1.35 million with his victory at the 2008 Masters. That is an increase of 67% in the twelve years since Woods has been playing in the Masters.

In 1996, it was rare to see a tournament where the first place prize money amounted to more than $500,000.

In 2008, a golfer’s life can literally change in a period of 4 days as you will be hard pressed to find a tournament where the first place prize money isn’t somewhere around $1 million.

Back in 1996, the 130^th player on the money list, Stuart Appleby, was struggling to regain his tour card and was earning a mere $164,483. After travel costs and the 10% paid to his caddie, Appleby would have severely struggled to make a living playing golf.

In 2007, the 130^th

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