Measuring the 'Tiger effect' - doubling of Tour prizes, billions into players' pockets
By Roger Pielke Jr 6 August 2014 With the final Major of the golf season starting on Thursday at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky, most of the talk in anticipation of the PGA Championship is about a player who almost certainly has no chance of winning, even if he were to play. I’m of course referring to Tiger Woods. Woods reinjured his back last week at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational leading to questions about his future – not just this week, but as a professional golfer. With Tiger on everyone’s mind, I thought it worth taking a look at his impact on the game, specifically Tiger’s role in boosting purses and the corresponding financial benefits to his peers. From 1990 to 1996 the total purses on the PGA Tour increased from $82 million to $101 million, a respectable increase of about 3.4% per year. (All data in this post comes from PGATour.com and is adjusted to constant 2014 dollars to eliminate the effects of inflation). Tiger burst on the scene as a professional in 1996, winning 2 of the 8 events that he entered. Before the Masters this year, Phil Mickelson explained what Tiger’s success and corresponding fame did to the game:
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"Look at what he's doing for the game the last 17 years he's played as a professional. It's been incredible. .. I remember when I was an amateur and I won my first tournament in Tucson in 1991, the entire purse was $1 million, first place was $180,000 and Steve [Loy, my agent] and I would sit down and say, 'I wonder if in my lifetime, probably not in my career, we would have play for a $1 million first-place check.'
"[Now] it's every week. It's unbelievable the growth of this game. And Tiger has been the instigator. He's been the one that's really propelled and driven the bus because he's brought increased ratings, increased sponsors, increased interest and we have all benefited, but nobody has benefited more than I have, and we're all appreciative. That's why we miss him so much; we all know what he's meant to the game."
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The numbers bear out Mickelson’s observations. By 2008 purses totaled $292 million, representing an increase of 9.3% per year since Tiger joined the Tour. This difference in the growth in prize money from 3.4% in the years before Tiger joined the Tour to 9.3% in the years after can be called the ‘Tiger Woods effect.” I was curious as to what financial impact the “Tiger effect” had on his peers, so I looked at the data. The results are astonishing. Tiger effectively more than doubled the prize money for every other golfer, adding billions of dollars to fellow players’ pockets. How can we demonstrate this? Here is what I did. I considered all players who earned a pay cheque on the Tour in 2013. I then calculated their total earnings from 1997 to 2008 (176 players). I then calculated how much of those earnings were due to the “Tiger Woods effect” under the assumption that golf purses would have grown at the earlier rate of increase. I then subtracted this value from what they actually earned leaving a residual due to the “Tiger Woods effect.” Other assumptions are of course possible, but the overall conclusions will be much the same – Tiger’s peers have benefited enormously in competition from his successes, even though Woods himself took home almost $100 million in prize money over that period. Looking at the data Mickelson is almost right. He has benefitted more than anyone except Vijay Singh from the “Tiger Woods effect.” Singh earned an extra $36 million over his career thanks to Tiger and Phil an extra $29 million. (This is PGA tour alone). Here is a table with the top 10, and a full list appears at the end of this post. Article continues below
Further evidence for the “Tiger Woods effect” can be seen in the fact that since Woods’ infamous car crash in 2009, and subsequent loss of form, purses have decreased by 2.3% per year. It was a remarkable run, but one that now appears to be over. It is important to point out that these numbers for the 176 players on the 2013 money list represents just a portion of the overall PGA Tour prize money from 1997 to 2008. Those 176 golfers earned about $1.7 billion over that time period with about $867 million due to the "Tiger Woods effect." In other words, slightly more than half the prize money was down to the 'Tiger effect'. Overall, however, there was about $3.1 billion in total prize money won over that period, meaning that the overall Tiger Woods effect Tour-wide was more than $1.6 billion. This does not even begin to consider the possible knock-on effects on increased prize money in the other major international golf associations. So even if we were to ascribe only a fraction of the improved fortunes of golfers from 1997 to 2008 to the "Tiger Woods effect" it would still be a very, very large number. Here is the list of the other players not in the graphic above who benefitted from the “Tiger Woods effect” from 1997 to 2008 on the PGA Tour. It’s safe to say that Tiger will never again have to buy a round at the 19th hole. . Player / 1997-2008 Earnings / Due to the "Tiger Woods Effect" Stuart Appleby $27,069,938 / $14,076,368 Kenny Perry $26,961,363 / $14,019,909 Scott Verplank $25,897,096 / $13,466,490 Chris DiMarco $24,968,127 / $12,983,426 Retief Goosen $23,663,124 / $12,304,824 Robert Allenby $23,332,671/ $12,132,989 Adam Scott $22,762,323 / $11,836,408 K.J. Choi $22,369,711 / $11,632,250 Jerry Kelly $21,514,784/ $11,187,687 Rory Sabbatini $21,140,214 / $10,992,911 Steve Flesch $20,956,948 / $10,897,613 Chad Campbell $19,450,954 / $10,114,496 Geoff Ogilvy $19,085,741 / $9,924,585 Tom Lehman $18,710,749 / $9,729,589 Stephen Ames $18,673,342 / $9,710,138 Bob Estes $18,317,272 / $9,524,982 Tim Herron $18,111,067 / $9,417,755 Charles Howell III $17,872,120 / $9,293,502 Steve Stricker $17,777,975 / $9,244,547 David Duval $17,736,622 / $9,223,044 Jesper Parnevik $17,212,977 / $8,950,748 Billy Mayfair $16,745,084 / $8,707,443 Frank Lickliter II $16,524,062 / $8,592,512 Jeff Maggert $15,643,691 / $8,134,719 Kevin Sutherland $15,304,258 / $7,958,214 Luke Donald $14,999,283 / $7,799,627 Fred Couples $14,936,589 / $7,767,027 Joe Durant $14,573,984 / $7,578,472 Zach Johnson $14,355,856 / $7,465,045 Woody Austin $14,243,436 / $7,406,587 John Rollins $14,162,658 / $7,364,582 Rod Pampling $13,992,920 / $7,276,318 Tim Clark $13,640,723 / $7,093,176 Carl Pettersson $13,373,838 / $6,954,396 Jose Maria Olazabal $13,253,510 / $6,891,825 Chris Riley $12,430,834 / $6,464,034 Padraig Harrington $12,427,442 / $6,462,270 Bart Bryant $11,864,046 / $6,169,304 Lee Janzen $11,752,711 / $6,111,410 Scott McCarron $11,741,850 / $6,105,762 Billy Andrade $11,344,069 / $5,898,916 Duffy Waldorf $10,896,552 $5,666,207 Peter Lonard $10,843,814 / $5,638,784 Ben Crane $10,843,207 $5,638,468 Heath Slocum $10,816,834 / $5,624,754 Jonathan Byrd $10,805,101 / $5,618,652 Brian Gay $10,688,178 / $5,557,853 Aaron Baddeley $10,653,603 $5,539,874 J.J. Henry $10,057,300 / $5,229,796 Skip Kendall $9,914,401 / $5,155,489 Tim Petrovic $9,662,516 / $5,024,508 Pat Perez $9,622,105 / $5,003,495 Lucas Glover $9,567,037 / $4,974,859 Ben Curtis $9,448,947 / $4,913,453 Glen Day $9,441,199 / $4,909,424 Joe Ogilvie $9,433,871 / $4,905,613 Trevor Immelman $9,242,956 / $4,806,337 Justin Rose $9,210,276 / $4,789,344 Sean O'Hair $8,994,327 /$4,677,050 Camilo Villegas $8,895,967 / $4,625,903 Bernhard Langer $8,807,491 / $4,579,895 John Senden $8,807,100 / $4,579,692 John Daly $8,688,582 / $4,518,062 Hunter Mahan $8,587,849 / $4,465,681 Matt Kuchar $8,530,993 / $4,436,116 Bo Van Pelt $8,446,441 / $4,392,149 Vaughn Taylor $8,307,598 / $4,319,951 Dean Wilson $8,276,009 / $4,303,524 D.J. Trahan $8,268,906 / $4,299,831 Cameron Beckman $8,249,619 / $4,289,802 Brandt Jobe $7,865,093 / $4,089,848 Ted Purdy $7,698,420 / $4,003,178 Robert Gamez $7,629,100 / $3,967,132 Mark O'Meara $7,550,361 / $3,926,188 Ryan Palmer $6,915,552 / $3,596,087 Ryuji Imada $6,819,511 / $3,546,146 Jason Bohn $6,421,360 / $3,339,107 Ian Poulter $6,143,533 / $3,194,637 Neal Lancaster $6,084,437 /$3,163,907 Paul Stankowski $6,051,261 / $3,146,656 Todd Hamilton $6,025,489 / $3,133,254 Mark Wilson $5,743,377 / $2,986,556 Boo Weekley $5,654,770 / $2,940,481 Charlie Wi $5,529,715 / $2,875,452 Kent Jones $5,352,222 / $2,783,156 Nick Watney $5,175,327 / $2,691,170 Kevin Na $5,116,818 / $2,660,745 Nick O'Hern $5,071,805 / $2,637,339 J.B. Holmes $5,044,949 / $2,623,373 Ken Duke $4,959,224 / $2,578,796 Greg Chalmers $4,882,436 / $2,538,866 Brandt Snedeker $4,844,096 / $2,518,930 Troy Matteson $4,807,491 / $2,499,895 Lee Westwood $4,722,506 / $2,455,703 Bubba Watson $4,696,308 / $2,442,080 Brian Davis $4,607,788 / $2,396,050 Nathan Green $4,503,907 / $2,342,031 Ryan Moore $4,358,163 / $2,266,245 Charley Hoffman $4,209,967 / $2,189,183 David Frost $4,153,357 / $2,159,746 Kevin Streelman $3,814,208 / $1,983,388 Greg Owen $3,614,521 / $1,879,551 Steve Marino $3,590,828 / $1,867,230 Angel Cabrera $3,511,173 / $1,825,810 Tag Ridings $3,457,862 / $1,798,088 Marco Dawson $3,446,424 / $1,792,140 Bill Haas $3,194,965 / $1,661,382 John Mallinger $3,189,475 / $1,658,527 George McNeill $3,163,681 / $1,645,114 Dicky Pride $3,151,821 / $1,638,947 Russ Cochran $3,056,177 / $1,589,212 Michael Letzig $3,029,926 / $1,575,561 Robert Garrigus $2,855,665 / $1,484,946 Jeff Overton $2,764,765 / $1,437,678 Johnson Wagner $2,686,510 /$1,396,985 Tom Watson $2,681,860 / $1,394,567 Jeff Gove $2,612,659 / $1,358,583 Arjun Atwal $2,536,872 / $1,319,173 James Driscoll $2,374,530 / $1,234,756 Nicholas Thompson $2,328,498/ $1,210,819 Sandy Lyle $2,276,029 / $1,183,535 Andres Romero $2,233,902 / $1,161,629 John Merrick $2,149,254 / $1,117,612 Henrik Stenson $2,131,978 / $1,108,628 Hank Kuehne $2,002,238 / $1,041,164 Kevin Stadler $1,997,796 / $1,038,854 Michael Bradley $1,971,492 / $1,025,176 Dustin Johnson $1,936,659 $1,007,063 Wes Short, Jr. $1,856,870 / $965,572 Darron Stiles $1,619,522 /$842,151 Chez Reavie $1,562,513 / $812,507 Russell Knox $1,537,423 / $799,460 Paul Casey $1,484,065 / $771,714 Shawn Stefani $1,456,317 / $757,285 Marc Turnesa $1,438,968 / $748,263 Jason Dufner $1,345,346 / $699,580 Chris Stroud $1,278,222 / $664,675 Alexandre Rocha $1,274,125 / $662,545 Joey Snyder III $1,259,266 / $654,818 Brendan Steele $1,213,240 / $630,885 Andre Stolz $1,121,887 / $583,381 Tom Gillis $1,049,304 / $545,638 Doug LaBelle II $1,045,187 / $543,497 D.A. Points $946,902 / $492,389 Martin Laird $937,646 / $487,576 Justin Bolli $852,046 / $443,064 Matt Jones $839,520 / $436,550 Jason Day $830,316 / $431,764 Jimmy Walker $669,188 / $347,978 Peter Hanson $668,180 / $347,454 Will Claxton $650,806 / $338,419 Tommy Gainey $608,304 / $316,318 Brendon de Jonge $502,416 / $261,256 Y.E. Yang $499,586 / $259,785 Graeme McDowell $413,570 / $215,057 Andres Gonzales $360,427 / $187,422 Bryce Molder $289,416 / $150,496 Jin Park $245,723 /$127,776 David Hearn $235,525 / $122,473 Russell Henley $225,910 / $117,473 Steven Bowditch $164,890 / $85,743 Robert Karlsson $152,054 / $79,068 Brendon Todd $66,520 / $34,590 Troy Kelly $54,483 / $28,331 Steve LeBrun $19,348 / $10,061 . Roger Pielke Jr. is a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado, where he also directs its Center for Science and technology Policy Research. He studies, teaches and writes about science, innovation, politics and sports. He has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, FiveThirtyEight, and The Wall Street Journal among many other places. He is thrilled to join Sportingintelligence as a regular contributor. Follow Roger on Twitter: @RogerPielkeJR and on his blog . More on this site mentioning sport and money Follow SPORTINGINTELLIGENCE on Twitter