Tiger Woods set to receive £80.4m from PGA Tour for turning down LIV Golf
Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy are among the biggest winners in PGA Tour loyalty bonuses following the £2.4 billion investment into a new non-profit company PGA Tour Enterprises
Golf legend Tiger Woods will receive £80.4 million from the PGA Tour for staying loyal and not being lured in by the vast riches of rivals LIV Golf.
The 48-year-old, 15-time major winner will receive an email from Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, on Thursday, informing him of the loyalty bonus as the £2.4 billion investment into a new non-profit company PGA Tour Enterprises kicks in. Among the US investors includes Liverpool FC owner Fenway Sports.
According to The Telegraph, two-thirds of the investment will be divided up between 193 golfers. However, £603 million will go to 36 superstars, with the likes of Woods and Rory McIlroy among the top beneficiaries. Woods will receive £80.4m and McIlroy will pocket £40.2m for not jumping ship for the rival tour, LIV Golf.
The primary tool for measuring who how the money will be divided is career points – what an individual has achieved while competing in the PGA Tour, which explains Woods and McIlroy’s huge bonuses. Woods has a whopping 82 Tour titles to McIlroy’s 24. Fellow PGA loyalists Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas stand to earn £24.1m.
Equity in the PGA Tour will continue to grow, meaning players will continue to earn handsome sums going forward. However, it’ll be hard to reach LIV Golf’s lure in the short-term, considering they handed Jon Rahm £361.9m to defect.
Talks between the PGA, LIV Golf [PIF] and the DP World Tour continue, while McIlroy has seemingly softened his stance on rivals who accepted the large sums of Saudi-funded money.
Rumours circulated that McIlroy had been offered an astonishing £672m to move to LIV Golf after he stepped down from his role on the PGA Tour’s policy board last November.
The Northern Irishman has since re-joined the PGA Tour’s policy board. McIlroy admitted that his resignation last year, before reinstatement this year, had been on the cards for a while. McIlroy told BBC Sport: “It has. Something had to give. There’s only so many hours in the day and so many days in the week and I’ve got a lot going on in my life right now.
“Between trying to be a world-class golfer and trying to be a good husband and a good father, I’ve got a growing investment portfolio that’s taking up more of my time… I’ve got a lot going on.”
As for Woods, he has participated in just two PGA tournaments so far this season. The Golf icon competed in the Genesis Invitational and the Masters – but retired from the former at Riviera Country Club due to back spasms and flu-like symptoms. At the Masters, Woods recorded scores of 73, 72, 82, and 77, accumulating 304 strokes [+16] for the tournament and a 60th-place finish.
