Dustin Johnson's Reported Payday For Joining LIV Golf? A Cool $150 Million

Andrew Redington/WME IMG. Getty Images.

The Telegraph UK - Dustin Johnson was paid around £100 million [$125million] in a last-ditch swoop by Greg Norman to complete a shock about-turn and lure him to the Saudi-backed rebel golf league, Telegraph Sport understands.

The extraordinary signing-on fee was tabled amid Norman's desperation to land a stellar name after Phil Mickelson, who has not been named on the initial 42-man entry list, suggested he was taking too much heat.

Former world No 1 Johnson has rocked the world of golf with his decision, but, according to insiders, he could now receive up to $150million (£119m) just for stating commitment to the series.

A record-breaking fee will more than compensate for the inevitable storm around him and an expected exodus of major sponsors linked to his commitments on the PGA Tour.

Oooo baby that's a lot of green. That's more or less what I had expected when I wrote my blog on this earlier today, but the number is still astounding. $150 mil just to show up? Ooooooweeeeee. 

Plus I crunched some numbers on the prize payouts, which are:

1. $25M total prize pool for each of the 8 events - $20M of which goes to individual finishers ($4M for the winner, $120k for last place) and $5M to the top 3 teams ($3M to the top team, which will be split as $750k evenly among the 4 players)

2. Season long individual prize pool of $30M - paid out to the top 3 finishers ($18M to the winner, $8M to 2nd, $4M to 3rd)

3. Season-ending 12-team championship prize pool of $50M - paid out to all 12 teams, with the winners getting $16M (split evenly among the 4 players) and the last place team getting $1M.

So just some back of the napkin math here has DJ (or whoever) with the potential to earn another:

8 events x $4M for winning each = $32M

8 events x $750k each for winning the team portion = $6M

$18M as the season long points winner

$4M for the team share of the season-ending championship.

That adds up to a grand total of…….

Another $60M PER SEASON. That's on top of the $150M he's getting just for jumping ship. 

Of course it's unreasonable to think or expect he could even sweep entire seasons, but you gotta think he's cleaning up a good chunk of that $60M. He's only 37. A lot of these guys joining him are either nobodies or are well into their 40's. That's a LOT of runway for DJ to clean up on an annual basis while only showing up for a handful of weekends a year.

So when you start to lay it all out there like that, it becomes a LOT more understandable how DJ could make this move. To some it may tarnish a legacy. To DJ, he probably don't care one bit. That's a whole lotta boat money. Among other things. And the world tour Paulina is about to go on just might bring Trent out of blogging retirement. Good lord.

Wild times man, wild times out here.

PS: Always shoot your shot.