Players who stayed loyal to the PGA Tour amid lucrative recruitment by Saudi-funded LIV Golf are starting to find out how much that loyalty could be worth.
The PGA Tour on Wednesday began contacting the 193 players eligible for the US$930-million from a “Player Equity Program” under the new PGA Tour Enterprises.
The bulk of that money – US$750 million – went to 36 players based on their career performance, the last five years and how they fared in a recent program that measured their star power.
How much they received was not immediately known. E-mails were going out Wednesday afternoon and Thursday informing players of what they would get. One person who saw a list of how the equity shares were doled out said the names had been redacted. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because many details of the program were not made public.
The Telegraph reported Tiger Woods was to receive US$100-million in equity and Rory McIlroy could get US$50-million, without saying how it came up with those numbers.
Commissioner Jay Monahan outlined the first-of-its-kind equity ownership program in a Feb. 7 memo to players, a week after Strategic Sports Group became a minority investor in the new commercial PGA Tour Enterprises.
The private equity group, a consortium of professional sports owners led by the Fenway Sports Group, made an initial investment of US$1.5-billion that could be worth US$3-billion. The tour is still negotiating with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia – the financial muscle behind the rival LIV Golf league – as an investor.
Emails also were sent to 64 players who would share US$75-million in aggregate equity based on the past three years, and US$30-million to 57 players who are PGA Tour members.