Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler have had vastly different fortunes on the PGA Tour this season, and nothing sums that fact up more than the world number one's caddie has earned more than the Northern Irishman this season.
Although four-time major champion McIlroy began 2024 in style with a big win on the DP World Tour, clinching the Dubai Desert Classic title, it has been a tricky start to the season on the PGA Tour. The 34-year-old's best result in the United States this year was his tied-19th finish at TPC Sawgrass at the weekend.
McIlroy has earned £631,000 in prize money in his five starts so far, sitting 63rd in the FedEx Cup standings. Scheffler's caddie Ted Scott, however, has enjoyed a hugely fruitful couple of weeks with Scheffler scooping back-to-back victories.
The American banked £3.2million for winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill on March 10, romping to victory by five shots. And seven days later, the 27-year-old stormed through the field with an eight-under-par final round of 64 to defeat Xander Schauffele, Wyndham Clark and Brian Harman to win The Players at TPC Sawgrass, earning a cool £3.6m in the process.
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On the presumption Scheffler and Scott have the standard 10 per cent agreement that most players have with their cadies, Scott has earned £680,000, eclipsing McIlroy's earnings on the PGA Tour this year as a whole.
The caddie's earnings over the past two weeks alone are more than the average tour player this season, and with income of approximately £870,000 this season, he would rank in the top 50 players in the PGA Tour money list in 2024.
Scott has worked on tour for 24 years, helping Bubba Watson win The Masters twice. He also worked with Paul Azinger and Grant Waite. But after parting ways with Watson, Scott has had a huge influence on Scheffler's game.
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The 2022 Masters champion had struggled to get his first PGA Tour win despite often being in contention several times after rising from the Korn Ferry Tour, but since employing Scott in late 2021, he has won eight times including The Players and the Waste Management Phoenix Open twice respectively.
McIlroy is not playing poorly, ranking highly in strokes gained from off the tee this season, but his approach play has been error-strewn. The result has been some solid performances but not winning golf, and the Northern Irishman knows he has plenty to work on before he tees it up again at the Valero Texas Open on April 4.
“I think it’s swing-related [rather than mental]," McIlroy said after his final round at Sawgrass. "My misses last week [in Bay Hill] were predominantly to the left. So I really tried to eradicate that [in Sawgrass] and, for the most part with the irons, I did. But [then] started to get a left miss off the tee.
“Golf is a very fickle game. It gives you one thing and then takes away something else from you. It’s just, again, like, I feel I’ve got all the components there but just trying to put them all together on a given week, that’s the tricky part at the minute.”