After news broke that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund would cease backing LIV Golf beyond this season, putting its future in doubt, Jon Rahm was asked in May about the status of his contract with the tour. “I don’t see many ways out,” the 31-year-old Spaniard answered pragmatically.

Rahm’s next steps appear dependent on whether LIV can secure external funding to continue operating beyond this year—if its 2026 schedule can even be completed—but in the meantime, his golden handcuffs haven’t been so bad. Rahm’s contract, which reportedly guaranteed him at least $300 million when the former world No. 1 left the PGA Tour in December 2023 to sign with LIV, has made him the world’s highest-paid golfer for the third consecutive year.

Forbes estimates Rahm hauled in $111 million over the last 12 months before taxes and agent fees, sending his total pay for the past three years north of $400 million. His compensation since last June includes an estimated $101 million in prize money and on-course bonuses as well as $10 million in off-course earnings from brand partnerships, appearance fees and licensing income. In addition to his contractual guarantee with LIV, which Forbes estimates to be worth $50 million for the past year, Rahm pulled in an $18 million bonus in 2025 as LIV’s individual champion for the second year in a row, and he has won two tournaments so far this season, helping push his total up 9% from the estimated $102 million he pocketed in the 12 months that ended in June 2025.

As a whole, however, golf’s biggest stars have seen their paychecks dip. Together, the sport’s ten top earners have made an estimated $536 million since last year’s U.S. Open, down 12% from last year’s $612 million and 29% from the record $752 million of 2023, the first full year to incorporate LIV’s initial wave of massive signing bonuses.

The decline is in part the result of LIV golfers Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson dropping off the list, with their original 2022 contracts having expired or nearing completion. The embattled tour also hasn’t made any big-ticket additions to its roster recently, leaving Bryson Dechambeau (No. 4 among the world’s highest-paid golfers with $52 million) and Joaquin Niemann (tied for seventh with $34 million) as the only LIV golfers to make the cut other than Rahm.

In addition, increased parity on the PGA Tour, more limited playing schedules, changes to the tour’s bonus structure and plateauing purses at its events meant some of the game’s established stars just didn’t win as much as they had in 2024 and early 2025. All six PGA golfers appearing in the earnings ranking for at least a second straight year—Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods, Xander Schauffele, Hideki Matsuyama and Collin Morikawa—made less on the course than they did for the 2025 list. (The lone newcomer to the top ten is 35-year-old Englishman Tommy Fleetwood, who won $10 million last year for his first-ever PGA Tour victory, at the Tour Championship in August, and whose $36 million in total income was good for sixth place in the 2026 ranking.)

Still, as the dust starts to settle on the PGA Tour’s war with LIV, golfers are much better off now than they were in 2022, when the........

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