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Playing golf for a living can be a very lucrative venture, but it can also be a pricey one if you fail to make the cut due to out-of-pocket expenses that can really add up. Korn Ferry Tour pro James Nicholas has spent years chronicling his wins and losses on the circuit, and he broke down how much he actually won after winning his first tournament.
Most professional athletes don’t have to spent time (or their own money) worrying about the logistics of traveling over the course of a season. However, that is not the case for pro golfers, who are required to cover the bulk of the tab when it comes to flying, staying, and eating at the tournaments they compete in.
Those expenses can be a bit of an afterthought if you’re one of the best players on the PGA Tour, but they are infinitely more significant for the guys who are grinding for the right to join those ranks on the Korn Ferry Tour.
That includes James Nicholas, the New York City native who played college golf at Yale before making his Korn Ferry debut in 2020. Prior to last week, he had made a little more than $290,000 from his performance in those events and was still in search of his first win, and that number is significantly higher now that he’s checked that box.
Korn Ferry Tour golfer James Nicholas broke down how much he really earned after accounting for expenses following his first tournament victory
There’s no guarantee you’re going to end up in the green even if you make the cut on the Korn Ferry Tour, as you have to settle for some fairly meager payouts that might not cover the cost of flights, hotels, and other expenses if you don’t end up finishing near the top of the leaderboard.
Nicholas has done an awesome job providing a transparent look at that reality with the videos where he routinely breaks down how much money he’s spent and earned while competing, including one where he noted he only took home a little more than $100K last year despite raking in over $250,000.
It is safe to assume both of those numbers are going to be higher when everything is said and done in 2026. On Sunday, Nicholas took home the $180,000 paycheck reserved for the winner of the Astara Golf Championship in Bogota, Colombia after beating the rest of the field by two strokes to secure his first Korn Ferry victory.
On Tuesday, he made a video to shed some light on exactly how much he made during what he described as “one of the best weeks of my career,” and it’s safe to say he did pretty well for himself despite his expenditures.
Nicholas says his costs included:
- Flights for himself and his girlfriend: $1,050
- AirBnb: $253
- Ubers: $72
- Caddie’s base pay and bonus: $19,750
- Food and groceries: $1,096
- Locker room fees and tip: $520
- Massage: $42
That added up to $22,785, and when you subtract that from the $210,000 he earned thanks to the sponsor bonuses that supplement his tournament winnings, he ended up with a grand total of $187,215.
Not too shabby.