2021 Study of Professional Golfers’ Future Career Value

Dustin Johnson sits atop the Official World Golf Ranking—but does he lead the playing field in Future Career Value (FCV)? See how Johnson and other male professional golfers rank on Duff & Phelps’ second annual FCV leaderboard. Our study ranked the world’s top 60 golfers according to their expected future earnings.

We created a database of over 1,000 professional golfers to help us forecast how current golfers’ careers through age 50 might unfold. After matching each professional to a subset of comparable athletes, we used statistical analysis and mathematical modeling to estimate the present value of each golfer’s potential earnings through age 50. Our calculations account for three sources of income: tournament winnings, endorsement income and projected earnings from the PGA Tour’s Player Impact Program.

Report Highlights:

• The top 10 professional golfers have a combined FCV of $2.2 billion. Rory McIlroy earned the No. 1 spot on our leaderboard for the second time with $401 million in FCV. Half of the top 60 golfers’ FCV is concentrated among the top 13 players.
• U.S. golfers claim two-thirds of the value on our leaderboard, and 53% of the top 60. But there are signals that geographic diversity is rising. Golfers from outside the U.S., Europe and Asia Pacific doubled their presence in our top 60 and increased their FCV by 70%.
• Based on our projections, only a third of professional golfers’ earnings will be from tournament winnings, with the rest coming from endorsements and the Player Impact Program.

Use the interactive graphic below to see who ranked in our top 60 Leaderboard. You can also view the top players from each country by using the “Select a Country” option.

NR: Not ranked in our 2020 Professional Golfers' Future Career Value Study.