Compleat Golfer‘s playing editor opens up about what it takes, financially, to pursue a dream as a full-time golfer.
I was amazed when I saw the prize-money breakdown for this year’s Players Championship, with the winner, Scottie Scheffler, taking home close to $4.5-million. While this is the absolute top of golf’s totem pole, I thought I should draw a more accurate illustration of professional golf’s finances.
Before we can even look at professional golf, we should have a look at the cost of amateur golf in South Africa. After all, the likelihood of someone having not played amateur golf and then making the pro ranks is low, to say the very least.
A typical amateur golf season would consist of around 20 tournaments. Let’s say you’re lucky enough to be able to stay at home for half of those events, meaning you’ll travel for 10 events. Let’s break down what a week’s expenses would be. Firstly there are the flights, which would set you back about R2 000 on average. A hotel will cost you around R1,000 a night, totalling R7,000 for the week. Food and drinks tend to average around R400 a day, so let’s say that’s another R3,000 for the week.
That’s just the bare minimum, I haven’t spoken about entrance fees, caddie fees and other bits and bobs. By that simple estimate, you’re looking at expenses near R120,000 to travel to 10 events around South Africa. That is a lot of money! There’s no two ways about it. But, if you’re one of the lucky few to turn professional, the expenses go up.
Every year there are close to 500 players, each paying an R8,000 entrance fee, who go to the Sunshine Tour Qualifying School, with only 30 players earning playing rights for the following season; giving each participant a 6% chance of making it on to the Sunshine Tour. So, if you’re one of the 6%, the following season will provide you with a different level of financial pressure.
The average Sunshine Tour professional will play around 25 events in a season. Again, using the same logic as earlier, you’ll probably travel to 13 events. Each week you’ll be paying around R2,000 for flights, a minimum R3,000 for the caddie, rental car is R2,000, around R7,000 in accommodation and close to R3,000 in food and beverages. That makes your minimum weekly expenses in excess of R17,000. That brings your season’s expenses, for the travelling events alone, quite comfortably exceeding R220,000.
You’ll still, at the very least, have the usual expenses such as caddie fees at the local events. So let’s say the average tournament week, when you can stay at home, costs you around R6,000. That adds around another R80,000 to your yearly expenses. That brings your season expenses to an estimated total of R300,000.
When I look at those numbers it really shows how cut-throat South African professional golf really is. But perhaps the biggest indication of the brutality of professional golf is the Sunshine Tour Order of Merit.
Every year the top 100 players on the Sunshine Tour’s Luno Order of Merit will keep their cards. Keeping your card basically means you keep your job for the following season. Anyone finishing outside the top 100 will have to go back to Qualifying School. So one would presume that the player finishing 100th would make some decent money over the season. How wrong you are.
Going off our estimated yearly expenses of R300,000, the first player to make more than that amount finished 63rd on the 2022 Sunshine Tour Order of Merit. Meaning that the 37 players who kept their cards, but finished behind the 63rd player all operated at a loss. Basically meaning it cost them money to go to work. The last man, 100th on the Order of Merit, made R85,000 on the course in 2022; a net loss of over R200,000.
Paying R25,000 a month to go to work seems somewhat odd. I don’t see many occupations that have a similar business model. Yet, that’s a basic breakdown of how professional golf works in South Africa. I do also believe I’ve been very conservative with the above figures. I haven’t included fees like coaches, physios, a psychologist, etc.
Those figures are unique to South Africa. Numbers that most Compleat Golfer readers can relate to. But every professional golfer has dreams of playing abroad. Whether it be the Asian Tour, DP World Tour or PGA Tour. I’m very fortunate to have been playing professional golf abroad now for the better part of a decade. So, here’s what my expenses would look like over a season.
Typically, I would play around 30 tournaments a season, five of them being in South Africa, meaning I’d travel abroad 25 times a year. I’d also do stints away from home, usually around five weeks at a time. So let’s say I’d do five stints of five events at a time. The reason I break it down into stints is because it’s the easiest way for me to budget accurately.
Over that five-week stint I’d have to pay for one long-haul flight (return flight to SA), which would average about R50,000. The four short flights to the following tournaments will average R2,000 ($100) per week. Each tournament will always have an official hotel. These, at times, are pricey, but it removes the need for having a rental car, which is great. You’ll average around R4,000 ($200) a night; that’s R28,000 per week, R140,000 per stint.
I pay my caddie a base weekly wage of $1 000 per week and 10% commission of whatever I make that week. That comes to around R100,000 per stint, before commission. You’re lucky to spend anything less that R2,000 ($100) a day on food and beverage. That means food and beverage is around R70,000 per stint. Those will be my basic expenses every week or stint.
By the simple sums, every five-week stint will cost me around R400 000. Multiply that by five stints and you see it costs me in excess of R2-million a year to play abroad.
Now I’m not trying to make any aspiring young golfers give up on their dreams. In fact, I’m doing the complete opposite. Knowing how demanding the profession is should only motivate those who really want it even more. Like any job, professional golf is brutal, demanding and unforgiving. But there’s no better feeling than living your dreams and strutting the fairways at a Major championship. So put your heads down and get to work.
I can promise you one thing … it’s all worth it.
– This column first appeared in the May 2023 issue of Compleat Golfer magazine.
