Second-year PGA TOUR member Austin Eckroat won $1.62M this weekend with his victory in Palm Beach at the Cognizant. Nowhere near chump change, but also nowhere near what the LIV crew won at their exhibition in Saudi Arabia.
The mystical figure Anthony Kim collected $50k (and a hefty LIV signing-on fee) for finishing DFL in Jeddah, 33 strokes behind winner Joaquin Niemann, who had himself a week, earning invites to the Masters and the PGA Championship along with $4M+ in Jeddah.
The disparity between how much a PGA TOUR player can earn for a top-25 finish in a non-Signature tour event (e.g. Cognizant/Waste Management) vs. a Signature event (Pebble/Genesis) is significant. And then when you compare the further disparity between PGA TOUR Signature events to LIV events (especially when adding the team component), there really are three economic classes of upper-echelon professional golfers being created. The dichotomy is even further magnified when you add in the DP World Tour and Korn Ferry Tour. With five varying degrees of financially rewarding golf tiers/tours, it begins to resemble the professional soccer associations with tiered leagues across Europe, especially in Great Britain. The main difference between professional soccer and golf is there is no true relegation and promotion across all golf circuits. There are aspects of it (PGA up/down to KORN; DP up to PGA), but no true relegation exists thanks to LIV’s team/contract model.
Once a “good” player joins that circuit, like the vilified Super League soccer model that has been thrown around for a decade or more now, you maintain your top position no matter how crappy you play. For fun, watch the LIV results flow in this season. Like last season, some players will consistently pile up enough crap play to jumpstart a working farm. And if under contract in ’25 and beyond, they’ll be going nowhere next season.
Whether you feel this is right or wrong, or ardently stand by the PGA TOUR vs. LIV, there’s no arguing that the Saudi money is unattainably different and will never stop flowing into golf as long as PIF finds value or wants to continue to screw with the old guard. If LIV isn’t the definition of an exhibition circuit, with limited to non-existent consequences for poor play, then nothing is.
The 2024 Cognizant Classic Payouts:
| Position | Player | Score | Earnings |
| 1 | Austin Eckroat | -17 | $1,620,000 |
| T2 | Erik van Rooyen | -14 | $801,000 |
| T2 | Min Woo Lee | -14 | $801,000 |
| T4 | K.H. Lee | -13 | $344,250 |
| T4 | Cameron Young | -13 | $344,250 |
| T4 | Jake Knapp | -13 | $344,250 |
| T4 | Shane Lowry | -13 | $344,250 |
| T4 | David Skinns | -13 | $344,250 |
| T9 | Keith Mitchell | -12 | $210,536 |
| T9 | Billy Horschel | -12 | $210,536 |
| T9 | Alex Noren | -12 | $210,536 |
| T9 | Peter Malnati | -12 | $210,536 |
| T9 | Andrew Novak | -12 | $210,536 |
| T9 | Martin Laird | -12 | $210,536 |
| T9 | Kevin Yu | -12 | $210,536 |
| T16 | Doug Ghim | -11 | $137,250 |
| T16 | Tyson Alexander | -11 | $137,250 |
| T16 | Ben Silverman | -11 | $137,250 |
| T16 | Garrick Higgo | -11 | $137,250 |
| T16 | Victor Perez | -11 | $137,250 |
| T21 | Byeong Hun An | -10 | $87,750 |
| T21 | Zach Johnson | -10 | $87,750 |
| T21 | Sam Ryder | -10 | $87,750 |
| T21 | Matt Fitzpatrick | -10 | $87,750 |
| T21 | Rory McIlroy | -10 | $87,750 |
| T21 | Nico Echavarria | -10 | $87,750 |
| T21 | Bud Cauley | -10 | $87,750 |
| T28 | Beau Hossler | -9 | $59,014 |
| T28 | Chris Kirk | -9 | $59,014 |
| T28 | Chan Kim | -9 | $59,014 |
| T28 | Tom Hoge | -9 | $59,014 |
| T28 | Matthieu Pavon | -9 | $59,014 |
| T28 | C.T. Pan | -9 | $59,014 |
| T28 | Jacob Bridgeman | -9 | $59,014 |
| T35 | Ryan Fox | -8 | $43,875 |
| T35 | Lucas Glover | -8 | $43,875 |
| T35 | Chris Gotterup | -8 | $43,875 |
| T35 | Jimmy Stanger | -8 | $43,875 |
| T35 | Chesson Hadley | -8 | $43,875 |
| T35 | Chad Ramey | -8 | $43,875 |
| T41 | Corey Conners | -7 | $32,850 |
| T41 | Joseph Bramlett | -7 | $32,850 |
| T41 | Maverick McNealy | -7 | $32,850 |
| T41 | Russell Henley | -7 | $32,850 |
| T41 | David Lipsky | -7 | $32,850 |
| T41 | Rickie Fowler | -7 | $32,850 |
| T47 | Troy Merritt | -6 | $23,880 |
| T47 | Davis Thompson | -6 | $23,880 |
| T47 | Vincent Norrman | -6 | $23,880 |
| T47 | Alexander Björk | -6 | $23,880 |
| T47 | Max Greyserman | -6 | $23,880 |
| T47 | Parker Coody | -6 | $23,880 |
| T53 | Jorge Campillo | -5 | $21,390 |
| T53 | Mac Meissner | -5 | $21,390 |
| T53 | Nick Dunlap | -5 | $21,390 |
| T56 | Adam Schenk | -4 | $20,700 |
| T56 | Greyson Sigg | -4 | $20,700 |
| T56 | Carson Young | -4 | $20,700 |
| T56 | Rico Hoey | -4 | $20,700 |
| T60 | Taylor Montgomery | -3 | $20,160 |
| T60 | Robert MacIntyre | -3 | $20,160 |
| T62 | Davis Riley | -2 | $19,800 |
| T62 | Tom Kim | -2 | $19,800 |
| T64 | Mark Hubbard | -1 | $19,440 |
| T64 | Justin Rose | -1 | $19,440 |
| 66 | J.T. Poston | E | $19,170 |
| T67 | Camilo Villegas | 1 | $18,900 |
| T67 | S.H. Kim | 1 | $18,900 |
The 2024 LIV Golf Jeddah Individual Payouts:
| Position | Player | Score | Earnings |
| 1 | Joaquin Niemann | -17 | $4,000,000 |
| T2 | Louis Oosthuizen | -13 | $1,875,000 |
| T2 | Charl Schwartzel | -13 | $1,875,000 |
| 4 | Bryson DeChambeau | -12 | $1,000,000 |
| 5 | Jon Rahm | -11 | $800,000 |
| T6 | Charles Howell III | -10 | $508,750 |
| T6 | Anirban Lahiri | -10 | $508,750 |
| T6 | Phil Mickelson | -10 | $508,750 |
| T6 | Talor Gooch | -10 | $508,750 |
| T6 | Adrian Meronk | -10 | $508,750 |
| T6 | Jason Kokrak | -10 | $508,750 |
| T12 | Brooks Koepka | -9 | $350,000 |
| T12 | Abraham Ancer | -9 | $350,000 |
| 14 | Matt Jones | -8 | $320,000 |
| T15 | Carlos Ortiz | -7 | $262,143 |
| T15 | Sergio Garcia | -7 | $262,143 |
| T15 | David Puig | -7 | $262,143 |
| T15 | Dean Burmester | -7 | $262,143 |
| T15 | Tyrrell Hatton | -7 | $262,143 |
| T15 | Branden Grace | -7 | $262,143 |
| T15 | Kevin Na | -7 | $262,143 |
| T22 | Pat Perez | -6 | $203,000 |
| T22 | Sebastian Munoz | -6 | $203,000 |
| T22 | Cameron Tringale | -6 | $203,000 |
| T22 | Brendan Steele | -6 | $203,000 |
| T22 | Lucas Herbert | -6 | $203,000 |
| T27 | Danny Lee | -5 | $182,500 |
| T27 | Dustin Johnson | -5 | $182,500 |
| T29 | Sam Horsfield | -4 | $172,500 |
| T29 | Paul Casey | -4 | $172,500 |
| T31 | Graeme McDowell | -3 | $153,750 |
| T31 | Mito Pereira | -3 | $153,750 |
| T31 | Henrik Stenson | -3 | $153,750 |
| T31 | Richard Bland | -3 | $153,750 |
| T31 | Jinichiro Kozuma | -3 | $153,750 |
| T31 | Kieran Vincent | -3 | $153,750 |
| T37 | Peter Uihlein | -2 | $138,750 |
| T37 | Thomas Pieters | -2 | $138,750 |
| T37 | Harold Varner III | -2 | $138,750 |
| T37 | Patrick Reed | -2 | $138,750 |
| T41 | Andy Ogletree | -1 | $129,375 |
| T41 | Cameron Smith | -1 | $129,375 |
| T41 | Marc Leishman | -1 | $129,375 |
| T41 | Scott Vincent | -1 | $129,375 |
| 45 | Martin Kaymer | E | $125,000 |
| T46 | Bubba Watson | 1 | $123,750 |
| T46 | Kalle Samooja | 1 | $123,750 |
| T48 | Caleb Surratt | 2 | $90,000 |
| T48 | Eugenio Chacarra | 2 | $90,000 |
| 50 | Lee Westwood | 3 | $60,000 |
| 51 | Ian Poulter | 4 | $60,000 |
| 52 | Hudson Swafford | 5 | $50,000 |
| 53 | Anthony Kim | 16 | $50,000 |
| – | Matthew Wolff | WD | $16,500 |
| – | Wade Ormsby | Reserve | $16,500 |
The 2024 LIV Golf Jeddah Team Payouts:
| Position | Team | Score | Earnings |
| 1 | Crushers GC | -38 | $3 million |
| 2 | Stinger GC | -34 | $1.5 million |
| 3 | Smash GC | -33 | $500,000 |