My first memory is feeling sick when he missed a tiddler on the 1st play-off hole that would have secured victory in the 1989 Masters (he lost to Faldo on the next play-off hole).   Para-phrasing from very distant memories; Chuck or Bud:  “How surprised were you that Scott Hoch missed that putt?”. Bud or Chuck:  “I’ll tell you how surprised we were.  We were packing up”.   

He has also had the misfortune to run into Montgomery in both his Ryder Cup singles.  He can run hot with a wedge.  He has a slightly querulous public image.  He wore a Stars and Stripes shirt and kept pecking at it during the 2002 US Open. But did you know that he is 8th in the all time US PGA official money stats .  Scott Hoch’s tally for all official US PGA prize money is US$17,216,624. 

There are plenty of other somewhat less than stellar names high up the list.  Hal Sutton whose career seems to have been two peaks and a long slump is 15th with US$15.1 million. Jeff Sluman is 15th with US$14.5 million, Loren Roberts 21st with US$13.1 million. Fred Funk, who somehow seems to be presented as a underdog surpassing all expectations, is 22nd with total earnings of US$12.9 million.  Bob Estes is 25th, John Houston is 27th, Scott Verplank 30th, Rocco Mediate 32nd and Jeff Maggert 35th.   

Hoch’s success has been based on steady accumulation.  His official PGA Tour.com biography observes that he is “perhaps the PGA Tours most consistent performer since joining in 1980”.  He has been in the Top 40 money earners since 1982 in every year except 1992 and 2003.  He has had 11 PGA Tour victories and a massive 158 Top 10’s.   

The explosion in prize money in recent years has meant that many great names which will live on much longer than Bob Estes or Scott Verplank are well down on the list and of course are sliding down further down each year.  Payne Stewart is 28th (US$11.8 million), Tom Kite 34th (US$10.9 million), Tom Watson 42nd (US$9.9 million), Ben Crenshaw 66th (US$7.1 million). Jack Nicklaus is 89th, sandwiched at the end of 2003 between Fuzzy Zoeller and Skip Kendall.  Skip Kendall’s 2nd place at the Bob Hope will now have shot him well ahead of the game’s greatest player. His total earnings were US$5.8 million.  Vijay Singh earned US$7.6 million in 2003 alone.  Lee Trevino is 146th (just below Brad Bryant), Johnny Miller 175th and Billy Casper 249th.  

There are no prizes for guessing who tops the career earnings list.  Tiger Woods with US$39.8 million is well clear of number two – Davis Love with US$26.1 million.  Singh who went past Mickelson in 2003 is 3rd with US$25.9 million, Mickelson is 4th, Furyk 5th, Price 6th, Els 7th and Toms and Duval round out the Top 10 below Hoch. 

Looking at the list it is clear that winning majors isn’t the key to making a lot of money.  A lot of the Top 30 money earners have won one major but only Woods (8), Price (3), Els (3), Stewart (3), Norman, 19th on the list, (2) and O’Meara, 20th on the list, (2) have more than one. 

Of the New Zealanders Grant Waite is 129th between Tom Purtzer and Dennis Paulson.  In 16 years he has accumulated US$4.1 million in prize money.  Phil Tataurangi, between Cameron Beckman and Brett Quigley,  is 162nd with US$3 million in prize money.  Frank Nobilo lies 169th with US$2.9 million.  Craig Perks one below Bob May and one above Johnny Miller in 174th position has earned US$2.8 million.  Michael Campbell flanked above by John Morse and below by Jeff Brehaut is 295th with earnings of US$1.2 million.  

It is perhaps a little surprising that no apparent attempt (at least none that I could find) has been made to convert the prize winnings into some sort of real data that could be used for meaningful comparisons.

Arguably it would be a pointless exercise to compare the real prize winning clout of Woods and Nicklaus but this is a website that can tell you the percentage of greens hit by no name players in 1983. 

And a final thought – if it was possible how many of those 158 Top 10s would Scott Hoch give up to have another go at that putt on the first play-off hole in the 1989 Masters?