Money Matters
Dustin Johnson quietly surpassed this impressive financial milestone at the Palmetto Championship
Dustin Johnson plays his shot from the 12th fairway during the second round of the 2021 Palmetto Championship.
Mike Ehrmann
It wasn’t exactly a Sunday to remember for Dustin Johnson at the Palmetto Championship, not in the traditional sense for a 24-time PGA Tour winner. Johnson started the final round at Conagree Golf Club seven shots off the lead, and while he crept within one on the back nine, a triple bogey on the par-4 16th hole derailed his chances of winning a PGA Tour event for the first time in his home state of South Carolina.
Ultimately, Johnson settled for a tie for 10th, three strokes back of winner Garrick Higgo. That earned Johnson $177,025, which won’t go down in history as the biggest he’s ever cashed. Still, it wound up being part of a milestone moment for the 36-year-old. That 177 grand lifted DJ’s overall earnings to $71,605,482, passing Jim Furyk ($71,479,894) for third place on the all-time PGA Tour money list.
Johnson hit the mark in his 287th career start on tour; Furyk has played in 632. In November, when he won the Masters, Johnson became just the fifth player to break the $70 million mark in career earnings. In April at the RBC Heritage, Johnson’s T-13 finish and subsequent $130,995 payday let him jump over Vijay Singh into fourth place on the list.
While Johnson has seen rapid movement on the career money chart in recent months, it’s going to be a while, if ever, that he climbs another spot up the all-time list. Sitting at No. 2 is Phil Mickelson, who has $94.6 million in career earnings (and counting fter his recent PGA Championship win). The $23 million gap between Lefty and DJ is significant, obviously. Then again, it’s actually smaller than the gap between Mickelson and the man who’s No. 1 on the list, Tiger Woods. Tiger’s all-time career earnings are $120.8 million, or $49 million more than DJ.
Suffice it to say, Johnson had plenty more to shoot for.