How this LIV golfer won $18 million for finishing second

Talor Gooch didn’t win LIV Jeddah over the weekend — but he still walked away with a pretty nice payday.

Despite falling in a playoff to Brooks Koepka, Gooch’s runner-up finish in the Middle East put the finishing touches on a career year. For the 2023 season, the 31-year-old nabbed three wins and added a runner-up finish to boot, good enough to become the LIV Golf season-long individual champion.

“It’s special,” Gooch said. “I’ve always felt that I was good enough to be a professional golfer and play against the best in the world. Now to be here to, I think, consider myself one of the best in the world, it’s what I’ve been dreaming about since I was nine years old. To get to this point in my career and to have this validating of a season, yeah, words can’t describe how much it means and just how satisfying it is.”

With the win in the individual season-long points race, Gooch takes home a massive payday of $18 million. That sum is nearly double his career earnings on the PGA Tour of $9,250,299.

“Man, it’s awesome,” Gooch said. “From January 1 until now, that’s what we’ve been working for, so to get here and to be the champion, man, I’m proud, I’m honored, and I’m excited.”

Gooch entered the final regular-season event trailing Cameron Smith and Bryson DeChambeau in the season-long standings, but his runner-up finish was enough to jump both. Smith finished T24 to secure second in the season-long standings, while DeChambeau’s T11 performance dropped him to fourth. With his second victory of the year, Koepka moved to third.

“For me, again, it’s a validation to all the hard work, all the patience and the years it took to get my game to this spot to, I think, be considered one of the best players in the world,” Gooch said.