No-one has earned more in prize money from playing on the PGA Tour than Tiger Woods has. But how much does all this prize money equate to on a shot-by-shot basis?

tiger woods with a cheque

Tiger Woods has enjoyed a lot of huge paydays over the course of his career (Image credit: Getty Images)

How much money has Tiger Woods earned per shot in his PGA Tour career? Well how about you hazard a guess now at the figure and then read on to see how close you were?

Tiger Woods turned pro on August 29, 1996, after winning his third US Amateur title. He had already played on the PGA Tour as an amateur 14 times by then, five of these appearances being in Majors. He made his PGA Tour debut as a 16-year-old at the Los Angeles Open of 1992. He missed the cut there, as he did in his first seven PGA Tour starts, before he tied for 41st at the Masters of 1995.

Unlike a handful of amateurs who have won on professional tours, he never did. His best result as an amateur on the PGA Tour was coming 22nd in The Open Championship of 1996, which was also his last PGA Tour appearance as an amateur.

Once he was no longer an amateur, Tiger was able to start winning prize money. In his first outing as a pro he took home $2,544 for his tied 60th place in the Greater Milwaukee Open. He won on his fifth outing as a professional – squirrel that bit of info away incidentally if you are going to take part in our Tiger Woods quiz – which was at the Las Vegas Invitational. He won $297,000 for that victory.

Up until the 2024 season, Tiger Woods had played 359 PGA Tour tournaments, winning 82 of them, coming runner-up 31 times and third 19 times. He had made the top-10 in 199 of these tournaments, and made the cut 333 times.

It is one of the quirks of golf that people play the game because, presumably, they like hitting a golf ball. But golfers also trend to like it most when they hit the ball the fewest times during a round. Hitting the ball the fewest times of anyone was a speciality of Tiger’s. In both the 2000 and 2007 season’s his average round score was 67.8.

In the course of his PGA Tour career he has won almost $121 million in prize money. On the PGA Tour, he has hit approximately 72,100 shots in tournament play as a pro. This means he has earned, on average, about $1,678 per shot.