Lee closes in on top money spot
He may not be highly-rated by Kiwi sports fans, but Danny Lee is racing towards being our richest golfer.
Lee – with over NZ $18 million – trails only 2005 US Open winner Michael Campbell (NZ$23.8M) as the top-earning New Zealand golfer and could assume top spot in a couple of years.
Former world No 1 Lydia Ko sits in third place on the NZ career earnings moneylist – just ahead of this country’s only other male major winner, Sir Bob Charles – but could struggle to keep pace with Lee due to the discrepancy in prizemoney on the men’s and women’s PGA Tours.
Lee won almost NZ$2 million this year on the US PGA Tour despite at times battling to keep his card among the top 125 players. He had three top-10 finishes and ended the season ranked 97th. Injuries and inconsistent form have been features of recent years and Lee is often chided by Kiwi sports fans for failing to reach the upper echelons of the pro game after a stellar amateur career.
Ko, in contrast, had a disappointing year by her lofty standards. Yet she scored a tournament win, added seven top-10 finishes and had a tour ranking of 11 – which was rewarded with prizemoney of NZ$1.25M.
The career earnings referred to here are unofficial and collated from the PGA Tour, European Tour, Japan Tour and Australian PGA Tour records but provide a strong guide to NZ’S most prolific moneywinners.
The 28-year-old Lee, who turned professional in 2009, had his best year on tour in 2015 when he won his first – and to date only PGA Tour tournament – at The Greenbrier Classic – and collected almost NZ$6 million. Another year like that would see him shoot past Campbell, who had a 22-year pro career, highlighted by his US Open victory and a tie for third at the 1995 British Open.
The top 50 players on the US PGA Tour this year all won more than NZ$3.4M.
Campbell may have the opportunity to increase his earnings should he follow up noises he made late last year of competing on the ‘Seniors’ Tours in Europe and the US after turning 50 in February next year.
The over-50 tours have allowed golfers to extend their professional careers – the top 20 money-earners on the PGA Tour Champions in the US this year have each won more than NZ$1M. This season’s top money-winner, Spain’s Miguel Angel Jimenez, has won NZ$2,642,330. Kiwi Grant Waite has also added to his PGA Tour earnings by playing on the PGA Tour Champions to be our seventhhighest money earner.
Charles, who won the 1963 British Open, made just NZ$476,861 from 1971 onwards on the European Tour but earned NZ$13,574,460 on the US Seniors Tour.
The leading player on the LPGA Tour this year, Thailand’s Ariya Jutanugarn, has won NZ$3.4M.
The Japan Tour has also proved a profitable avenue for David Smail, with the 48-year-old earning almost NZ$10M on that tour alone.
New Zealand’s top-ranked men’s golfer Ryan Fox – at No 82, Lee is at No 129 – has made NZ$5,144,711 and is set to climb into the Kiwi top 10 shortly after making almost half of his career earnings in 2018.