Woods earns $100m for PGA Tour loyalty
Equity payments of $1.5bn designed to keep LIV at bay $50m for Mcilroy but players cannot cash in for four years
Tiger Woods received an email from Sawgrass HQ yesterday telling him that he will be handed up to $100 million (£80.5 million) in equity for staying loyal to the PGA Tour, with Rory Mcilroy possibly benefiting to the tune of $50million for not joining LIV.
Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, is pressing the button on the vast sums that have been eagerly awaited since Strategic Sports Group – a consortium of US investors led by Liverpool FC owner Fenway Sports Group – pumped $1.5billion into PGA Tour Enterprises, the new for-profit company, three months ago.
Approximately two-thirds of that figure is being divvied up as equity to 193 golfers, although with $750 million to be split among the 36 judged by the circuit to be most deserving, the sums will be wildly different. Little wonder, therefore, that the Tour has been at pains to keep the breakdown confidential.
The Tour has already explained to its members that a primary factor in determining who obtains what is a metric called Career Points, which awards marks for achievements on Tour for however long the players have been competing.
Other factors will be how they have fared in the Player Impact Programme, introduced three years ago largely to stave off the threat of the breakaway league, that rewards players who have had the largest impact on the Tour’s business – tickets, sponsorships, media consumption and fan engagement. Woods has already received $35million in PIP payments, while Mcilroy has pulled in $30.5million.
Inevitably, Woods, with 82 Tour titles, will be miles clear in the overall standings and insiders forecast he could secure up to twice as much as any other player. With three victories in the Fedex Cup, effectively the PGA Tour money list, to his name, Mcilroy will be Woods’s nearest pursuer, and there will follow the likes of Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, who will be due equity worth about $30million.
Phil Mickelson would have been second had he not jumped to LIV, although this scheme would almost certainly not have come to fruition but for the formation of the Saudifunded league and, in part, to Mickelson’s role in the sport’s civil war.
But this record payday does not mean money in the bank. The recipients are being told how many equity units they have been granted and what the fair market value is at this juncture. They will not be able to cash in immediately and then make it a “double-bubble” by suddenly signing for LIV.
After four years, 50 per cent of their equity will be vested, with another 25 per cent two years later and the remaining amount two years after that. They will also have to fall in line with the rules, which as well as not decamping, involve meeting the minimum requirements for Tour membership and, if not, providing services such as sponsors meets and media appearances.