He’s not got the following of Bryson DeChambeau, but Michael Kim is one of the best golfers to follow on social media due to the insights he provides of life on the PGA Tour.
And in an eye-catching post on X, he’s lifted the lid on that thorny issue of money – and just how much a top PGA Tour pro takes home in a year, looking beyond the bare stats of prize money.
In a lengthy series of posts on X, in association with online wealth management sponsor Range, Kim detailed the long list of expenses tour pros have to shell out to compete all season on the PGA Tour.
And they all add up – from caddies and fitness staff to taxes and travel, the numbers are pretty big and soon eat away huge chunks of the prize money we see dished out week after week.
It’s a frequent question of how much do PGA Tour caddies earn, and Kim has set an average of 8% of earnings plus a base salary which adds up to around $450,000 per year for a top player’s bagman.
Then there’s the obvious expenses of travel and accommodation, which can vary wildly depending on what mode of transport players opt for and what qualify of hotel they decide on too.
Kim estimates this, along with food, to be around $5,000 a week and $125,000 for a 25-tournament season – although he admits it would be much higher if players opt to take private jets to events.
All players have different teams around them, consisting of coaches, physios and trainers, either full-time or just occasional usage, so this is a tough one to estimate.
The average on course earnings for a top 50 player on the PGA Tour are about $5 million. But what’s our actual take home amount? 🤔Presented by my partners @Range_finance pic.twitter.com/7RBFJkUdZKJuly 9, 2025
But Kim puts it at $400,000 from his own experience and from obviously knowing a thing or two about these expenses from his time on the PGA Tour.
And so those expenses could cost a PGA Tour pro around $1m already from that average of $5m yearly earnings – and that’s before tax.
Kim points out an issue that not many will have thought of, and that’s the different rate of taxes among different states in the USA – which means not every tournament pay cheque is equal.
“We pay state income tax based on the state we earned money in,” says Kim.
“For ex. The difference between winning the ATT…
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