What is PGA Tour doing with the money?

There's been nothing tangible coming from all the influx of investment cash

PGA Tour’s Global Home and new Studios in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (Daily Drive)

What precisely is the PGA Tour doing with all this money?

It’s November, and the PGA Tour season is almost done for 2024.  

It’s not been as tumultuous a year as 2021 or 2022, but it has been an interesting one.

There has been a deal with the Strategic Sports Group that brought $1.5 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises' coffers, with potential for $1.5 billion more on the sidelines if needed (which is not a joke).

And now, if we believe tabloid reports out of the U.K., the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia will dump a similar amount into the same treasury.

So, approximately $3 billion would be sitting in one or more bank accounts in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. What will they do with it?

The new PGA Tour Enterprises entity has yet to announce any acquisitions since the SSG deal.

The purses were not released when the PGA Tour 2025 schedule was announced. Still, even if every event received an additional $1 million, that would only be 35 million committed — a 1.2 percent drop in the bucket from a largess of $3 billion.

Both active and retired players have been granted equity shares in the company. But they won’t vest for years, which means the money still sits in the PGA Tour Enterprises vault, hopefully collecting interest.

So, returning to the fundamental question, what are they doing with all that money?

It’s doubtful that the Boston Red Sox’s owner, or the founder of Home Depot and owner of the Atlanta Falcons, would want to see the money they invested to pay for operating costs.

The old “growing the game” chestnut makes some sense, but how will they do that?

Nothing concrete has emerged from the PGA Tour Enterprises headquarters, providing nary a clue on what’s going on with the money.

Most discussions seem to revolve around completing a deal with PIF. Depending on who you talk to, it’s close.

Oddly, this is the deal that, on June 6, 2023, both PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan said would be done by the end of 2023.

Instead, the “framework agreement” announced that June has been totally scrapped, and the discussions are still ongoing and complicated.

To be clear, the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement took 765 rounds of talks before an deal was finalized, and while the discussions between the PGA Tour and PIF seem to have taken that long, they still have a long way to go to meet the number of talks in Panmunjom.

Levity aside, the murkiness regarding the future of professional golf and the PGA Tour makes you wonder who is running the ship and what, in God’s name, they are trying to accomplish.

If you were SSG, you would have to say the clock is ticking. Having money sitting on the sidelines and doing nothing makes zero financial or business sense.

Many believe that with Donald Trump back in office come January, the PGA Tour/PIF deal will receive favorable consideration from the Department of Justice, and golf’s civil war will be over, maybe even soon.

But again, what will they do with the money?

Next year is a very big year. Most of the LIV Golf contracts are expiring, and presumably, a deal will be consummated between the PGA Tour and PIF, which will by default include LIV.

If all that is accomplished, we may finally get to the money and what to do with it.

In the meantime, we all watch from the sidelines, wondering and waiting.