Breaking Down The FedEx Cup Payouts

The FedEx Cup payouts are wildly lucrative and interesting to understand.

Aug 30, 2021

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Hey Golfers -

Holy buckets, the BMW Championship was absolutely thrilling; I couldn’t get enough of it!

The Tour Championship kicks off this week as the final leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs. The PGA Tour uses a starting stroke format; each player is assigned a number heading into the event. Below are the Top 10. You can find the full field here.

Patrick Cantlay -10
Tony Finau -8
Bryson DeChambeau -7
Jon Rahm -6
Cam Smith -5
Justin Thomas -4
Harris English -4
Abraham Ancer -4
Jordan Spieth -4
Sam Burns -4

The FedEx Cup

The FedEx Cup was announced in 2005 and the first season played was 2007. The first-place prize in 2007 was $10,000,000. The FedEx Cup first-place bonus was later increased to $15,000,000 in 2019.

The FedEx Cup playoffs are a three-series tournament beginning in mid-August with the below tournaments.

The Northern Trust
BMW Championship
Tour Championship

The Northern Trust begins with the top 125 players in the FedEx Cup race. The top 70 players then move to the BMW Championship, and the final top 30 players qualifying to the Tour Championship. Each event has its own prize purse, with the winner bringing home $1,710,000.

All players are fighting for the $15,000,000 first place FedEx Cup Bonus and five-year PGA Tour exemption.

Let’s break down some key items with the FedEx Cup Bonus.

Tiger Woods Has Dominated The FedEx Cup

Tiger Woods won the inaugural FedEx Cup in 2007 and cashed in on the $10,000,000 first-place prize.

The crazy thing is, Tiger wouldn’t be eligible to receive any money until he turned 45. Tiger was 31 when he brought home the first FedEx Cup.

Initially, the FedEx Cup Playoff bonus pool was placed in a player’s tax-deferred retirement account instead of the traditional prize money. Once a player turns 45, they are eligible to start receiving monthly payments over a five-year period.

It is believed that the PGA Tour does an exceptional job managing player’s retirement accounts. So how much “could” Tiger Woods $10,000,000 from 2007 be worth today? Let's break it down using the S&P 500 historical returns.

A whopping $39,000,000. Of course, this has many assumptions, and the number could be much different.

Tiger Woods total earnings in the FedEx Cup Playoff is $28,594,000. This alone would be 47th in the PGA Tour Career Earnings.

Aaron Baddeley Might be Excited for 45

A wild stat about the 2007 FedEx Cup Playoffs has to do with Aaron Baddeley. The Australian has won four times on the PGA Tour and finished 6th in the 2007 FedEx Cup Playoffs winning $800,000. Aaron was 26 years old, meaning he will need to wait 19 years to receive that prize money. Using the same S&P 500 returns earlier, it is estimated that $800,000 is now worth around $3,000,000. Aaron still has five more years to earn interest, and this number could end up being around $5,000,000!

The FedEx Cup Playoff Gets a Tweak

Still, the PGA Tour noticed they might have an issue with possible legislation regarding deferred retirement accounts. So, in 2008 the PGA Tour changed how they paid the bonus pool. A player would receive $9,000,000 in prize money and $1,000,000 placed into their deferred retirement account for winning the FedEx Cup.

In 2019 the PGA Tour beefed up the FedEx Cup Playoff bonus pool to a massive $60,000,000, with the winner receiving $15,000,000.

Below is a look at the top 30 payouts of the FedEx Cup bonus pool in 2020.

FedEx Cup Money Talks

It pays to finish high in the FedEx Cup Playoffs. Tenth place alone nets you more money than winning the below PGA Tour tournaments.

Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship ($720,000)
Bermuda Championship ($720,000)
Puerto Rico Open ($540,000)
Barbasol Championship ($630,000)
Barracuda Championship ($630,000)

Wyndham Rewards Bonus is Dead

The last PGA Tour tournament before the FedEx Cup Playoffs begin is the Wyndham Championship. In 2019, a $10,000,000 bonus pool was introduced to encourage players to play in the season's last event instead of resting before the playoffs started. The bonus pool would be paid to the Top 10 players in FedEx Cup Points after the Wyndham Championship concluded, with the winner bringing home $2,000,000 and 10th place grabbing $500,000.

Despite not playing in the Wyndham Championship, Justin Thomas brought home the $2,000,000 bonus last year.

Unfortunately, after two short years, the Wyndham Rewards Bonus is no longer alive. However, it was replaced by the Comcast Business Tour Top 10 Bonus. And we still have similar issues; not one golfer that won money in the Comcast Business Tour Top 10 played in the Wyndham Championship.