(Best E Casino) - Anthony Kim received a $1.152 million check for winning the Wachovia Championship on Sunday, surpassing the $2 million mark in season earnings for the first time in his career and bringing his total earnings for this year to around $2.062 million.
Just 12 years ago, that number would have made Kim the PGA Tour's leading money winner for the entire season. On Sunday, it meant he was just one of six players who have already passed $2 million in 2008 earnings, and only one of 33 who have won at least $1 million this year on the PGA Tour.
In fact, just his check from the Wachovia on Sunday would have made Kim the tour's top earner in 1991, when Corey Pavin walked off with the money title at $979,430.
We offer Kim a belated welcome to the Tiger Woods Era, where financial windfalls have become the norm for even the most middling of professional golfers.
Which is not to say that's what Kim is. The 22-year-old American is certainly a rising star in professional golf.
By winning the Wachovia Championship, Anthony Kim became just one of six players who have already passed $2 million in 2008 earnings. But there were nearly 150 players worldwide who won at least $1 million in the men's game last season. And we hardly believe there are that many elite professionals.
There are a lot of reasons golfers are earning astronomical amounts of money these days -- rock-solid television, sponsorship and endorsement deals are among them -- but there's one reason that can't be overlooked or underrated in its impact.
His name is Tiger Woods.
Undoubtedly the world's most recognizable athlete -- and perhaps its most dominant -- Woods has moved the game to a new, more-marketable level since he burst onto the scene in the mid-1990s.
Purses have increased three-fold since then, and he's the main reason.
For the purposes of this column, we'll set the beginning of the Tiger Woods Era at 1997, the same year this writer graduated from high school and the year Woods set an Augusta scoring record while winning his first Masters.
He beat Tom Kite by an astonishing 12 strokes that year -- also a record and the same number of shots between this year's winner, Trevor Immelman, and the 25th place finisher.
There were just nine players who won $1 million on the PGA Tour the year before, but that number jumped to 18 in 1997 and then doubled again to 36 in 1999.
Last year, there were 99 players who earned at least $1 million on the PGA Tour, and 138 worldwide in the men's game. Just 20 years ago, in 1988, Curtis Strange became the PGA Tour's first million-dollar player.
Here's a taste of what's happened in the meantime.
THE MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR BARRIER
Woods became the first player to win $2 million on the PGA Tour in 1997, when his runaway victory at the Masters netted him a $486,000 check.
He also won the Mercedes-Benz Championship ($216,000), the EDS Byron Nelson Classic ($324,000) and the BMW Championship ($360,000) that year and collected $2,066,833 overall.
In 1998, there were three players who won more than $2 million -- and Woods wasn't one of them. David Duval won four times and finished on top of the money list with $2,591,031, followed by Vijay Singh ($2,238,998) and Jim Furyk($2,054,334).
One year later, those numbers looked paltry.
THE WORLD GOLF CHAMPIONSHIPS AND A MONEY BOOM
1999 was the first year for the World Golf Championships, a new series of events that featured elite fields and million-dollar payouts to the winners.
Golf's money lists would never be the same.
When Jeff Maggert won the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in February, he was the first player to claim a $1 million winner's paycheck, a windfall that would help him become one of nine players to win $2 million on the PGA Tour that season.
Woods -- now a well-known WGC killer, but then still just emerging as the game's top star -- won the last two WGC events, the Bridgestone Invitational and the CA Championship, for $1 million apiece.
He claimed six other titles that season -- including the PGA Championship for $630,000 and the Tour Championship for $900,000 -- on the way to earning $6,616,585.
Woods became the first player to break the 4, 5 and $6 million barriers on the PGA Tour. Duval beat him to the $3 million mark by two weeks, moving past it after the Travelers Championship, while Woods passed it after winning the PGA Championship. The other seven players who won $2 million that season were Davis Love III,Singh, Chris Perry, Hal Sutton, Payne Stewart, Justin Leonard and Maggert.
Carlos Franco and Notah Begay III became the first rookies to pass the $1 million mark -- a feat that would be accomplished by 32 first-year players over the next eight years.
A NEW DECADE AND THE $10 MILLION BARRIER
In 2000, Woods flirted with winning $10 million in a single season for the first time. He claimed nine victories that season, including the first three legs of the "Tiger Slam" -- the U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship-- and another WGC title.
But it wasn't until 2004 that a player was able to break the $10 million barrier. And it wasn't Woods who did it.
One season after he became the PGA Tour's second $7 million-plus earner, Singh earned $10,905,166 in 2004 while winning nine times and snatching the No. 1 ranking from Woods.
It remains the most money earned by a player in a single season on the PGA Tour.
Woods has won the money title each year since, only failing to earn $10 million once -- in 2006, when he was just $58,437 from the mark.
The highest-paid athlete in the world due mostly to his lucrative endorsement deals, Woods was growing rich off of golf. But he wasn't the only one.
A golfer who made the PGA Tour, played in enough events, and made enough money to stay there, could do very well for himself even if he wasn't winning. There was just so much money to go around.
GROWING PURSES, GROWING BANK ACCOUNTS
The advent of the WGC increased the total money awarded on the PGA Tour from$96.4 million in 1998 to $134.95 million in 1999, an increase of about 40 percent.
Other factors would increase the purses even more, and they have been listed above.
In 2007, the total money awarded on the PGA Tour reached $270.3 million, and it is expected to be $278.95 million this year. In 1996, the season-long purse was just $70.7 million -- $208.25 million less than it's expected to be this year.
That's a nearly 300-percent growth for a 13-year period.
Not bad for any business.
