McKINNEY, Texas – A week after the PGA Tour sent members details on the Player Equity Program, reaction from players has understandably been mixed.
“I’ve not heard people upset with the process as much as maybe just, in general, the idea of if they missed out on [receiving any grants] and there were obviously guys excited about it, too,” Jordan Spieth said.
Spieth is a player director on the board of directors of PGA Tour Enterprises, the circuit’s newly created for-profit arm that allowed for player equity as well as outside investment, and he was part of the process that created the equity program.
The initial grants of equity issued last week totaled approximately $930 million that went to 193 unique players via four groups, with the largest slice ($750 million) going to 36 players in Group 1 using a “Career Points” formula. That formula was based on how many years a player has been a Tour member, how many Tour victories (with added points for victories in marquee events like majors, The Players Championship and FedExCup titles) they have and how many times they qualified for the Tour Championship.
The next two groups included 121 players splitting a combined $105 million in grants. The final group, dubbed the “past legends,” went to 36 players splitting $75 million to those who were “instrumental to building the modern PGA Tour.”
The Tour has stressed confidentiality for the program and players are only allowed to acknowledge that they received a grant from one of the four groups but not the specific amount or even which group they are in. Predictably, the letters have created plenty of questions among those who did and, most notably, did not receive initial grants.
“I had a couple players call me and say, wow, I didn’t know, they were excited about what their grants [are]. They were excited it was more than they thought it was,” Spieth said. “I had conversations all the way back to even maybe just into the new year with some guys who missed out on it that would’ve made it other years. I heard both sides.”
Spieth added that much of the confusion is understandable given the complexities of the initial grants and he explained that the Tour has a team in place to help answer their questions.
“It’s very confusing. It still is confusing for us players on when it’s vested, what’s the best idea for taxes, you know, we all have people for that. That’s not what any of us do and it’s fairly complicated,” he said.
When the Tour announced the initial equity grants in February the circuit also laid out a plan for recurring grants that will total $600 million over six years starting in 2025 that “will reward future top performers and will be based on the last 3-year performance, last year performance and Player Impact Program results.”