Dustin Johnson pockets $18m bonus after winning LIV's individual title

Dustin Johnson pockets $18m bonus after winning LIV Golf’s individual title, taking his total earnings from six events to a massive $30MILLION – more than he has ever made during a PGA Tour season

  • Dustin Johnson clinched the individual title with a 16th-place finish in Bangkok
  • The finish left him with an insurmountable 42-point lead over Branden Grace
  • The two-time major champion already has earned $12,758,600 during the series
  • The American star has one individual win and has four victories with his team 
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Dustin Johnson won $18million after clinching the individual title in the inaugural LIV Series with a 16th-place finish at the latest event in Bangkok, Thailand, the Saudi-backed circuit said on Monday.

The two-time major champion already has earned $12,758,600 – $3m of that from four team victories in the LIV Golf Invitational series – with one individual title, taking his total earnings during the series to a massive $30m. 

The 38-year-old is said to have already pocketed a lucrative $125m signing on fee to defect to the rebel tour.  

Dustin Johnson won $18million after clinching the individual title in the inaugural LIV Series

Johnson has already earned $12,758,60 with one individual win and four team victories

The American shot a five-under-par 67 on Sunday to finish on nine-under par, leaving him with an insurmountable 42-point lead over Branden Grace of South Africa.

Players gain 40 points for winning an event, meaning even if Grace emerges triumphant in the next event, he cannot topple Johnson. 

Johnson finished in the top five in four of the previous five events, taking home $4 million for his only win of the series in Boston in September.

‘Locking up the individual competition is big. It’s an honor to be LIV’s first individual season champion,’ Johnson said.

The 38-year-old American had pocketed $3million from his team wins with the ‘4 Aces’

Patrick Reed, the 2018 Masters winner, sits in third in the overall standings while British Open champion Cameron Smith is in fourth spot. The runner-up will be awarded $8 million while the third-placed player earns $4 million.

The individual competition concludes in Jeddah from October 14-16 before a final team championship at former President Donald Trump’s Doral course in Miami.

‘The first chapter of LIV Golf’s history could not be written without Dustin Johnson’s name,’ LIV chief executive Greg Norman said.

‘By any measure, DJ is among the elite players in the world. From the start he’s been an LIV Golf cornerstone. He has more than lived up to his billing and deserves immense credit.’

However, there had been speculation that the Saudi Tour rebels were not earning mega-money prize purses in addition to lucrative signing-on fees. 

British Open champion Cameron Smith (right) currently sits in fourth behind Patrick Reed

In August, a LIV Golf lawyer implied that the Saudi-backed series has lied about prize purses after claiming winnings were ‘recouped against’ the rebels’ huge contracts. 

The breakaway later insisted that the purses were in addition to the signing on bonuses but regardless, Johnson made more money this year from six events than in any other full season during his 15-year PGA Tour career. 

LIV Golf has lured away some of the U.S.-based PGA Tour’s top members with huge sums of money, leading to a simmering feud between the sport’s top players and organizers.

LIV tournaments do not count towards the world rankings, and players who compete in the breakaway series have been suspended from the PGA Tour.

The series is s bankrolled by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund and critics have accused it of being a vehicle for the country to attempt to improve its reputation in the face of criticism of its human rights record.

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