Big payday for top players

PGA Tour’s new for-profit entity will dish out over 80% of the initial US$930 million (RM4.4b) of player equity grants to its top 36 golfers, according to a leaked memo reported by US media yesterday.

ESPN and Golf Digest both reported the contents of the memo from PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, which had been distributed to players.

Last month, the tour announced a deal that could eventually be worth up to US$3 billion (RM14b) with a group of billionaire sports team owners to create a new entity called PGA Tour Enterprises.

The move comes after the PGA Tour lost several top stars to the breakaway LIV Golf League, backed heavily by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF).

Under the new programme, players would collectively access more than US$1.5 billion (RM7b) in grants that vest over time with SSG investing an initial US$1.5 billion and the possibility of investing another US$1.5 billion later.

In the memo, Monahan said that US$930 million of initial player equity grants would be handed to 193 PGA Tour members.

A total of US$750 million (RM3.5b) of that amount would go to the top 36 players based on career performance, including results over the past five years and their position in the Player Impact Program (PIP) which ranks how much a player is deemed to have impacted tickets, sponsorships, media consumption and fan engagement.

There are four groupings of players outlined in the memo with group two made up of 64 players who will share out US$75 million (RM353m) based on performance over the last three years.

Group 3 includes 57 players dividing US$30 million (RM141m) in equity, having earned certain fully exempt PGA Tour status categories.

The final grant would go to 36 players who “were instrumental to building the modern PGA Tour, based on career performance.”

ESPN said the memo also stated that tour will also award “recurring player equity grant” which will be incremental to the initial grants, and will be worth an aggregate amount of US$600 million (RM2.8b).

Those grants will be awarded in US$100 million (RM470m) totals each year, beginning in 2025 and through at least the 2030 season.