After Jordan Spieth's victory at the Tour Championship, the 22-year-old broke the single-season PGA Tour record for earnings. He took home over $12 million in the past year, and his caddie, Michael Greller, earned more than Tiger Woods.
Woods played in 11 events this year and made $448,598, according to PGATour.com. His season was cut short after he underwent a second back surgery in the last year and a half and he also missed a good chunk of time after he took some time off from golf to work on his game.
As for Greller, well he earned about $2 million.
"Caddie-player contracts run the gamut, but most established players pay around 8% of winnings and 10% for a win to their caddie, according to James Edmondson, who is president of the Association of Professional Tour Caddies and loops for Ryan Palmer," writes Kurt Badenhausen of Forbes.com.
Don't forget Spieth's tournament earnings go beyond that $12 million. He also collected a $10 million bonus for winning the FedExCup. That's a total of $22 million on the year. If Spieth gave Greller just 8% of his total earnings, the former sixth-grade teacher would have still made $1.76 million, which is way more than Woods (and many others) earned.
"We can't know the financial arrangements that Spieth and Greller have, so for this exercise we'll go with a standard five percent of Spieth's purse, seven percent for a top 10, and 10 percent for a victory (meanwhile disregarding the weekly stipend players usually pay their caddies, regardless of performance)," writes John Strege of Golf Digest.
"On that basis alone, Greller earned $1,040,613 during the PGA Tour's 2014-'15 wraparound season. Throw in another $100,000 for Spieth's victory in the unofficial Hero World Challenge and about $85,000 for Spieth winning the Australian Open and Greller's take for those 12 months moves to $1,225,613.
"Then there is Spieth's $10 million bonus for winning the FedEx Cup. There is no reason to believe that Spieth would not follow Billy Horschel's example from the year before of giving his caddie a 10 percent share of that, too. Spieth frequently credits Greller for helping him succeed.
"So throw another $1 million on the pile and it's possible that Greller, the former sixth-grade teacher turned caddie, earned $2,225,613."
He didn't earn more than just Tiger Woods. If we actually go by the $2.25 million figure that Strege provided, Greller earned more than Phil Mickelson ($2.154 million), who finished 38th on the PGA Tour's money list, and EVERY other golfer that finished beneath him.
Greller was earning $77,000 a year as a sixth-grade teacher before taking over as Spieth's full-time caddie. It's safe to say he made an excellent career decision in opting to join Spieth on the PGA Tour.
