PONTE VEDRA BEACH — PGA Tour Champions players are furious after the PGA Tour eliminated their pension allocation entirely, cutting a fund that went from $10 million to $8 million last year and now to zero. "It went from $10 million to $8 million and now it's zero," said three-time Champions Tour winner Billy Andrade, 62. "You've got all these millions flowing everywhere for Championship Series, this series, that series, for all these leagues this guy [Tour CEO Brian Rolapp] is creating, and then they're taking this money that has been designated to these Champions players. These are the players who helped make the Tour what it is today and helped create the jobs that executives and current players enjoy ... It's actually criminal."
The anger was widespread. "They're playing for $20 million almost every week [on the PGA Tour] and they can't afford $10 million for our pension? It's a bad look, in my opinion, and I think most of the guys out here feel that way," said David Toms, the 2001 PGA Championship winner who is an ex-PGA Tour policy board member and currently serves on the PGA Tour Champions Player Advisory Council. Scott McCarron added, "It's absolutely terrible what they did to us Champions Tour players. To just take it away and not have a way to get it back, I think is terrible. I'm really upset with the leadership of the PGA Tour, [Commissioner] Jay Monahan and Brian Rolapp in particular."
The pension program dates to 1985, when it began with a $250,000 allocation and has always been approved on a year-to-year basis. It was suspended in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, although some of that money was redistributed through two Charles Schwab Series events at Big Cedar Lodge in Missouri, each with a $3 million purse. Champions Tour golfers previously earned retirement credits by finishing among the top 48 in an event and had to compete in at least 12 tournaments during a season to qualify. Some have noted that playing for $69 million in prize money this season is a strong retirement plan for a second competitive career beginning at age 50.
PGA Tour Champions President Miller Brady delivered the news at the circuit's first player meeting of the season, saying the long-term goal is for the Champions Tour to stand on its own financially rather than rely on funding from the PGA Tour. "We've gotten to the point where we are making money for the organization, and if we can do better, we can reinvest in ourselves," Brady said. "It may take a while, but the financial performance of this tour is as good as it has ever been." He added, "While you never want to take anything away from the players, they also understand. They get it. I told the guys, it's my job to raise prize money over time, and we've slowly started to do that. For a long time, we were just happy to renew sponsors."
Brady said the tour's brand has gained momentum and is focused on renewing and signing sponsorships at higher levels. New tournaments such as the Portugal Invitational and the Sony Championship Open in Hawaii, scheduled to debut in 2027, have committed to $3 million purses, a figure matched by only two other regular-season events along with the season-ending championships and the five senior majors. Most other tournaments carry purses between $1.8 million and $2.2 million. "To me, that raises the bar for everyone else," Brady said. Paul Goydos, a former PGA Tour Champions policy board member, said, "The PGA Tour is a business. The powers that be are trying to run it like a business. The books are what they are. You can't run deficit spending. Is it disappointing? Yes. It's not good, but it's understandable." Players widely cited the Tour's transition from a nonprofit to a for-profit enterprise backed by Strategic Sports Group's $1.5 billion investment in PGA Tour Enterprises. "That was the reason," McCarron said. "We've got to figure out a way to be profitable so we can fund ourselves."