DALLAS — Everywhere Scottie Scheffler goes, a giant bag of money tends to follow. $4 million here. $2 million there. Even his Olympic gold medal came with enough cash to buy a nice pickup truck.
This was again the case Tuesday night in Las Vegas, where Scheffler, a Dallas resident, and PGA Tour pal Rory McIlroy teamed up in an exhibition match against LIV Golf stars Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau.
But don't let the exhibition label fool you: There was, indeed, money on the line, and the Scheffler-led duo won the made-for-TV event pretty easily; in fact, Scheffler and McIlroy never trailed during the match, which featured three different formats split between six holes each.
As a result, both Scheffler and McIlroy pocketed $5 million, more than Scheffler received for winning the Masters last year.
Except it wasn't in the form of cash, per se.
Instead, Scheffler and McIlroy received their $5 million in the form of cryptocurrency, as part of the event's partnership with Crypto.com. Add that to the pile of Scheffler's earnings this year, and well, his accountant will be busy after the first of the year. Scheffler's on-course prize money neared $70 million in 2024, across nine wins (10, if you count Tuesday night).
Scheffler gave a very Scottie response to receiving the $5 million in Cronos, the Crypto.com currency awarded Tuesday night.
"You know, I don't know a whole lot about Crypto, but this is good motivation to do some research ... figure out what's going on," he told the TNT broadcast.
Here's the clip:
DeChambeau -- another North Texas resident -- and Koepka didn't go home emptyhanded. The pair likely received a lucrative appearance fee for even participating in the event, one of the first head-to-head matchups of PGA Tour and LIV players outside of the majors. The match also came as talks appear to be progressing in the PGA Tour-LIV merger, which was first reported in the summer of 2023.
