Rory McIlroy fell into some serious green over the weekend, winning the FedEx Cup and the US$10 million (NZ$14m) that comes with it.
Possibly only one person was happier about that payday: His caddie, J.P. Fitzgerald, gleefully fired off a text message when his boss's gratuity got to him.
"I think his words were, 'A tsunami just hit my bank account, so thank you very much,'" McIlroy said Wednesday as he prepared to play in the HSBC Champions in Shanghai. "J.P. got a nice percentage of that, so I knew at that point it was already there."
What, exactly, constitutes a nice percentage? Weeeeeellll, the winning player in the bonus pool receives $9 million in cash, with $1 million deferred into a retirement account because, really, everyone should have a solid retirement plan. McIlroy also pocketed $1.53 million from winning the Tour Championship, which gave him the FedEx Cup, over the weekend.
McIlroy said he is a 10-percent tipper, "so the total was $1.05 million," he said. If 10 percent seems a wee bit cheap, note that golfers have debated whether caddies should get a share of bonus money beyond tournament winnings. Not McIlroy. Fitzgerald, he pointed out, is "a big part of what we do. He was with me when I was number 210 in the world and when I was number one."
