Money Matters
Meet the PGA Tour pro who just topped $10 million in career earnings but also joined this not-so-popular club
Sam Greenwood
There’s the potential that Alex Noren isn’t even aware of what he “accomplished” on Sunday at the CJ Cup. An even-par 71 to close things out at Congaree Golf Club in Ridgeland, S.C., left the 40-year-old Swede in a ho-hum tie for 37th place, earning him a respectable if unremarkable $46,830.
However, Noren’s payday in his 137th career PGA Tour start allowed him to become the latest member of an discomfiting club. Added to the $9,982,706 he had made previously, Noren passed the $10 million mark in tour earnings but becamer the 13th player to reach the milestone without having won a tournament on tour.
Let’s make one thing perfectly clear: Noren is hardly unfamiliar with winning. The former All-American at Oklahoma State is a 10-time champ on the DP World Tour, where he’s earned €16,727,499.50 in 287 starts. His last victory came at the French Open in 2018, which preceded him playing for the victorious European Ryder Cup team at Le Golf National outside Paris.
Still, Noren’s play on the PGA Tour has been steady if non-descript. The closest he’s come in his career to winning was a playoff defeat to Jason Day at the 2018 Farmers Insurance Open. Noren led by one starting the final round and shot a closing 73 at Torrey Pines South. He wound up in a three-way playoff, Ryan Palmer bowing out after the first extra hole. Day and Noren then went four more holes before darkness forced them to come back on Monday. Returning the next morning, Day made birdie and Noren bogey on the first extra-day extra hole.
Additionally, Noren was a runner-up in July at the Barracuda Championship, losing by a point to Chez Reavie, and has three third-place finishes to his credit. But all told he has just 17 top-10s, or 12.4 percent of his career starts.
Noren joins Byeong Hun An as the second golfer to pass the $10 million mark without a win during the 2022-23 tour season. An passed that milestone at last month’s Fortinet Championship.
You can find the complete list of 13 players here. Four of the 14—Noren, An, Tommy Fleetwood and David Hearn—are active players, with Fleetwood like Noren being a multiple DP World Tour winner who is still looking for a first title on the PGA Tour.
Fleetwood ranks No. 2 on the list with nearly $14.3 million, trailing a player who will likely never play his way out of the club. The all-time leader in money earned on tour without a win is Cameron Tringale with $17,310,004. Tringale was suspended from the PGA Tour in September after joining LIV Golf. As part of his discipline, his name no longer appears on the official PGA Tour money list.