Earning millions every season in professional golf, it’s not easy to keep count of how much you’re making. That’s why most pros hire financial services and accounting firms to manage their earnings. Michael Kim advertised one such Wealth Management website to reveal some surprising facts about his paychecks.

He tweeted, “The winners check at the standard 18% of the purse was 552k. Pgatour and DP world tour wires the money straight into my bank account. Instead of the full 552k, DP world tour withholds the 15% tax which was 82k. So my payout is 469k.”

Most European countries have an autotaxation system called ‘Pay As You Earn’ or PAYE. This deducts the taxes and social security from an employee’s salary automatically before depositing the money into their account. Kim has experienced the same as his paychecks were deposited after they deducted the income tax.

Kim got a series of great results in the DP World Tour towards the end of last season. One of them was his first European Tour win after he grabbed the 2025 FedEx Open de France title in September. As per the prize money distribution, you can see that he was supposed to win $552,500. However, he ended up banking only $469,000, as he mentioned.

Unfortunately, the taxation doesn’t end there. As Kim mentioned, “The fun part, I have to file a tax return in France for 2025. Not only for the tournament earnings but also a % for my endorsement earnings (on my shirt and hat) based on the days I spent in France. All of which I have to hire an international accountant to file in France. The US has a tax treaty so any taxes paid will be credited against my taxes in the US 😮‍💨.”

This clarifies that the figures he was talking about were indeed from the Open de France. But wait, there’s more. “There’s also my expenses which includes the air, hotel, caddie, coach, and food. That counts against my taxable income. ” You can call it a Kafkaesque situation and Kim will likely nod in agreement. But Kim is far from the only player to face this.

From Kevin Kisner to Talor Gooch, golfers across PGA Tour and LIV Golf have talked about how much they actually take home from the hefty paycheck. The disparity is staggering.

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Michael Kim only scratched the surface of the final payments pros receive

The Pay As You Earn system must have been eye-opening for Michael Kim. But what Talor Gooch faced was even more absurd. The LIV golfer earned $4M after winning the Adelaide event in 2023. He took home only $2.1M from that. “It was a little bit disheartening seeing 47 and a half percent because Australian taxes [do] not enter the account,” Gooch said in the ‘Fore the People’ podcast.

On the other hand, Kevin Kisner, a four-time winner on the PGA Tour, discussed how much the players actually receive after all the deductions and salaries. Speaking to Josh Baylin of Market Swings, he revealed, “I usually call it about 30%. 8% to a caddie, 3% to a coach, 1% to a putting coach. What’s that up to? 12%. Then you got your ‘state you played in’ taxes. South Carolina 7% taxes, and your federal taxes.” After paying taxes, salaries of their team, and all other expenses, the pros are only left with a third of their winnings.

And there are unique situations where they are also taxed twice. Winning an event in a different state within the United States forces them to pay taxes for both states. In such a situation, the paycheck margin narrows even further. Golfers just don’t share it openly, hence it’s not a commonly discussed subject.