'Legends' grumble about equity snub
Handful of World Golf Hall of Famers miss out on share; Glover just fine with LIV deal
Englishmen Nick Faldo and Tony Jacklin grouse about lack of respect (Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)
This was always destined to get messy. PGA Tour players sharing in ownership of the new PGA Tour Enterprises and how it was all going to get divvied up was already somewhat mysterious to the public and mostly misreported as to how it would play out.
Now it has been disclosed that a couple of legends of the game were not included in the original equity grants that were announced in early 2024 after Strategic Sports Group invested $1.5 billion in the new company.
And they are understandably not happy.
Six-time major champion Nick Faldo and two-time major winner Tony Jacklin told Golfweek that they were not included among the “legends” who are to be receiving equity shares. Other World Golf Hall of Famers whose names have surfaced as being excluded include Bernhard Langer — the winningest player in senior tour history — Padraig Harrington and David Graham.
The list of 36 past players is not public but the two English golfers, who split their time on the PGA Tour as well as the European Tour, were reportedly left out due to a points system that tallied the amount someone competed over the years and gave credit to winning the Players Championship as equivalent to winning a major championship.
“Well, hang on a minute, I was world No. 1 for a couple of years, I was PGA Player of the Year in 1990,” Faldo told Golfweek. “I was kind of one of the big guys in the late 1980s, early 1990s. I’d like to think my contributions to the tour were significant enough. Plus, I did 18 years of TV and I don’t think I ever said a bad word about the tour and I supported Jay (Monahan) through LIV. If the tour thinks I brought no value there’s not a lot I can do, simple as that.”
The program is intended to reward past contributions and was viewed as a way to combat the LIV Golf threat. The PGA Tour announced that it distributed approximately $930 million among 193 players, with $75 million allocated to 36 “past legends” who were “instrumental to building the modern PGA Tour based on career.””
The grants are not cash, however. They are equity shares in the company that must fully vest over eight years. In theory, it’s like having a stock in the company that can be sold. How the process works or if it will even be worth the numbers the players have been told remains an unanswered question.
Reports surfaced that Tiger Woods was getting $100 million and Rory McIlroy $50 million. Whether they will actually realize those amounts is unclear. The players will also have a tax liability after four, six or eight years.
The idea is for players to be more invested in the company, to help it grow so that those equity shares will be worth more.
In the initial reports, there was confusion over how these shares were being funded, with the erroneous belief that the SSG investment was going directly to the players. Not true. That money is to be invested in the business with a return coming to the SSG entity and, in theory, a profit for PGA Tour Enterprises.
So far, the tour has not announced how it plans to invest the SSG funds some 18 months after receiving the infusion of cash.
Jacklin, 80, who played the PGA Tour in the late 1960s and early 1970s when few European players did so, was also dismayed by the way the situation was handled. He’s a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame and four times captained the European Ryder Cup in addition to winning the 1969 Open and the 1970 U.S. Open.
He sent a letter to the PGA Tour and commissioner Jay Monahan and did not get an answer.
“I didn’t get the courtesy of a reply,” he told Golfweek. “I just thought it was a despicable way of dealing with things.”
Jacklin noted that he was on board with the PGA Tour when it first became its own entity after breaking with the PGA of America in 1968.
“Anybody that knows about business knows that the first five years or so are the most vital,” he said. “They were the best years of my life in terms of my play. And to think, I was flying the flag for the PGA Tour before the guys who made these decisions were even born. I feel let down. It’s deflating just to talk about it. I sit here watching the world go by and it’s almost like they consider you a waste of time.”
Harrington, a three-time major winner. disclosed to Golfweek that he was also not on the list and said he figured he would not be as he attempted to guess the points formula used for the system. Apparently, a win at the Players Championship was getting as much consideration as a major championship — even though the tour’s flagship event is not considered on the same level as a major.
“The majors are not the tour's products. I’m not saying it is a good argument but we’re dealing with the tour here,” Adam Scott, a player representative on the PGA Tour Policy Board, told Golfweek. “The equity thing is also about the future as well. Although I wouldn’t call it a retention tool, it is something for the future. The idea was for someone like Ludvig Åberg to come in and be able to earn that going forward.
“Although it was meant to be a sign of respect for what that 36 (player) group has done for the tour, there’s always going to be a 37th, no matter how you make it. I’ve heard from a lot of people that don’t like it. There are some current players who haven’t won on tour, let alone majors, but they got equity and it’s right place at the right time. I don’t think that makes David (Graham, who also is not on the list) or anyone else feel any better.”
An added wrinkle: the legends on the secret list are still expected to perform various duties, in terms of appearances, in order to be fully vested.
What a mess.
2009 U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover regarding PIF deal: “I don’t think we even care anymore.” (Logan Whitton/USGA)
Glover to LIV: you’re not welcome
Lucas Glover, who won the 2009 U.S. Open and continues to play well into his mid-40s, is not a fan of LIV Golf players being able to return to the PGA Tour. Even though he knows having the marquee names back will be good for business.
“We as a group, as golf fans, yes, the top five or six players over there if they were playing on the PGA Tour would benefit all of us,” Glover admitted on his Sirius XM PGA Tour Radio golf show.
But he’s not enamored of the idea of playing with any of the LIV players.
“They made their decision, I don’t blame any of them, they made a decision — I don’t care — but they also went away from this tour, and chose to,” Glover said. “As a PGA Tour player and somebody who dreamed of playing on the PGA Tour and poured my heart and soul into this tour and game for 21 seasons now, I don’t want somebody that chose another path, and a path of least resistance.”
Glover noted that the talks between the PGA Tour and Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia have stalled, and the idea of a deal seems as far away as ever.
“As far as the stalemate — ‘we’ being the PGA Tour — I don’t think we even care anymore," Glover said. “I think we’re focused on going forward. They’re not coming off the team thing, and that’s fine. Our focus now is forward, forward, forward. We’re going to grow our sport, grow our tour and grow golf through the PGA Tour, which is how it’s always been and always should’ve been.
“I don’t think we care anymore about this unification, and I don’t think they do either, and that’s fine with me. But it’s also kind of short-sighted of me because if five, six, seven, eight of them still move the needle for the public that’d help us grow even bigger.”