The PGA Tour is changing its financial structure to help developing players get paid.
In a memo sent to players on Tuesday morning — and first reported upon by Golf Channel’s Brentley Romine — the PGA Tour announced two new financial initiatives for its fully exempt Korn Ferry Tour Members and former fully exempt PGA Tour members aimed at helping to ease the financial burden of life as an aspiring PGA Tour pro.
The two initiatives — named the “Member Support Program” and “Pathways Player Achievement Grant” — provide a financial safety net for pros competing full-time within the PGA Tour system.
The so-called “Member Support Program” is the most significant of the two programs, providing a $150,000 “earnings assurance” to players ranked below No. 126 on the prior season’s FedEx Cup points list. To be eligible to receive the salary, players must compete in 12 events between the PGA and Korn Ferry Tours throughout the season.
It’s helpful to think of “earnings assurance” as simply a guaranteed base salary of $150,000, paid out to all players either through tournament checks or upon the completion of the PGA and Korn Ferry Tour seasons. For those who earn more than $150,000 in a season, the “earnings assurance” is a moot point: they receive the cash in the form of tournament checks as their season progresses. But, for the relatively rare player who doesn’t earn more than $150,000, the balance of the $150,000 “earnings assurance” is paid out at the end of the season, effectively providing a compensation “floor” for players battling for their competitive future.
The second program, the “Pathways Player Achievement Grant,” is effectively a $15,000 stipend for Korn Ferry Tour players. The grant, which will be available to players on the Korn Ferry Tour and top performers on the PGA Tour Americas and PGA Tour University programs, does not come with an events stipulation and can be used toward any expense, either as compensation or to cover player costs such as travel and hotels.
The two programs represent an expansion of PGA Tour developmental efforts in an increasingly fragmented pro golf landscape, helping to shore up the Tour’s developmental pathway against outside competition from LIV, the Asian Tour, and the DP World Tour. They are similar to compensation efforts launched by the Tour in 2022, which provided a similar “salary floor” for competitors on the big tour and expanded stipend efforts to help with travel costs. According to Romine, the PGA Tour policy board cited the importance of strong PGA Tour developmental pathways as a key reason for the new programs.
The changes enacted by the PGA Tour policy board on Thursday come in the same offseason as changes to make the PGA Tour dream even more elusive. In 2026, the Tour will have just 100 “cards” available for the first time, down from the traditional 125, a competitive shift that has far-reaching impacts on those chasing a coveted spot on the big tour.
Those changes have arrived with ample criticism from several corners of the pro game, particularly those on the fringes of the PGA Tour who might be susceptible to the purse sizes or broader competitive opportunities offered on other major tours.
Last month, the Korn Ferry Tour celebrated its latest class of PGA Tour graduates, welcoming 20 future PGA Tour pros to the big show.
