Ben Hogan’s career numbers speak for themselves: 64 PGA Tour wins, including nine majors have permanently carved him a spot among’s golf all-time greats. Numbers that undoubtedly would have been even better if not for a nearly life-ending car accident in 1950. But as is the case with any of the older generation of golfers, his timing could also have been better when it comes to earning a tournament check.
As staggering as Hogan’s win totals are, it may shock fans to know he only collected $332,517 in career earnings. Again, we know these guys go paid less back then, but $332 grand? That’s less than what Ryan Palmer made for finishing in fourth place at Kapalua a couple weeks ago.
Of course, Hogan made a lot more than that away from the course and that on-course number goes way up when accounting for inflation and today’s PGA Tour purses. But just how much? In steps GolferLogic’s David McSweeney with the answer.
McSweeney has uncovered some fun money-related facts in the past, and this one is no different. It also was a bit of a task to crunch all the numbers. You can see how he figured it out more in depth here, but we’re going to focus on his findings.
Based on the current value of the dollar and today’s purses, Ben Hogan’s career earnings jump to a whopping $176,728,205. Yep, that’s 176.7 MILLION. Not too shabby.
But as McSweeney points out, that’s not a completely fair comparison either since the current value of the dollar and those current purses haven’t always been as high as they are now. So his next step was to overlay Hogan’s results on a sliding scale against the past 25 years, AKA the Tiger Woods Era.
Based on that, Hogan’s total goes back down to $91.8 million, which would put him at No. 3 on the all-time money list, just behind Phil Mickelson ($92.2M), and trailing Tiger by a bit at $120.9M.
Of course, there are a LOT of variables here. Most notably, that had Hogan and Tiger played in the same era, neither player would have won quite as much. And, as McSweeney points out, you would get similar results for other legends like Jack Nicklaus and Sam Snead. Still, it’s fun to look at. Unless, of course, you’re related to Hogan or any of his former agents.