Top golfers to get lion's share of equity in new PGA Tour venture

The PGA Tour's new for-profit entity will dish out over 80% of the initial $930 million of player equity grants to its top 36 golfers, according to a leaked memo reported by US media on Wednesday.

ESPN and Golf Digest both reported the contents of the memo from PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, which had been distributed to players.

Last month, the tour announced a deal that could eventually be worth up to $3 billion with a group of billionaire sports team owners to create a new entity called PGA Tour Enterprises.

The move comes after the PGA Tour lost several top stars to the breakaway LIV Golf League, backed heavily by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF).

Under the new program, players would collectively access more than $1.5 billion in grants that vest over time with SSG investing an initial $1.5 billion and the possibility of investing another $1.5 billion later.

In the memo, Monahan said that $930 million of initial player equity grants would be handed to 193 PGA Tour members.

A total of $750 million of that amount would go to the top 36 players based on career performance, including results over the past five years and their position in the Player Impact Program (PIP) which ranks how much a player is deemed to have impacted tickets, sponsorships, media consumption and fan engagement.

There are four groupings of players outlined in the memo with group two made up of 64 players who will share out $75 million based on performance over the last three years.

Group 3 includes 57 players dividing $30 million in equity, having earned certain fully exempt PGA Tour status categories.

The final grant would go to 36 players who "were instrumental to building the modern PGA Tour, based on career performance."

"All initial grants will vest over time and will require minimum participation (eg playing 15 or more events on the PGA Tour) and/or service requirements commensurate with the value of the grant" the memo stated.