For years, professional golfers have held high positions on the annual Forbes’ list of highest-earning athletes in the world, with Tiger Woods dominating the top of the list until fairly recently.

 
The new Forbes list came out earlier this week, and while several golfers are in the top 100, just one made the top 10: 2016 FedEx Cup Champion Rory McIlroy, who came in at sixth.

Bullets

• High Rank: With $50 million in earnings between salary and endorsements, the 28-year-old four time major winner McIlroy tied the NFL’s Andrew Luck in the sixth position on the Forbes Top 100 athlete earnings list.
• Millions Earned: McIlroy is credited with $16 million in salary alone, an enormous number for a golfer, in addition to $34 million in endorsements. McIlroy earned $10 million for winning the 2016 FedEx Cup and was fourth on the PGA Tour in earnings, with $5.7 million in earnings. Seven finishes inside the top five in 2016 aided that number strongly.
• Solid Season: Rory is off to another successful season in 2017. Injuries have limited him to just six starts, but he has four top 10s, including T4s at the WGC-HSBC Champions and the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
• Five Higher: The only higher earning athletes in 2016 were Cristiano Renaldo (soccer- $93 million), LeBron James (basketball- $86.2 million), Lionel Messi (soccer- $80 million), Roger Federer (tennis- $64 million), and Kevin Durant (basketball- $60.6 million).
• Other Golfers: The other golfers in the top 100 were Phil Mickelson (12^th– $43.5 million), Tiger Woods (17^th– $37.1 million), Jordan Spieth (21^st– $34.5 million), and Dustin Johnson (48^th– $27.6 million)

Quotable

“Luckily, that amount of money doesn’t sort of mean much to me anymore.”
–Rory McIlroy in 2016 after winning the $10 million FedEx Cup Champion Bonus.