PGA Tour pay structure ‘out of balance’ amid Signature Events, per Stewart Cink

After Friday’s round at the Sony Open in Hawaii, Stewart Cink opened up about the current structure of the PGA Tour.

Stewart Cink has been around the block.

Consequently, Cink knows the intricacies of the PGA Tour’s structure better than most. He has been a part of the decision-making process at points during his career, but now, at 50 years old, Cink is removed from those discussions.

Yet, amid LIV Golf’s rise to prominence, which forced changes to the PGA Tour’s structure, Cink discussed the current state of affairs after his round at the Sony Open in Hawaii Friday.

“To me, it’s a little bit out of balance. [But] I understand where it all came from,” Cink said.

“We had to do something because we had a competing venture out there trying to swallow our players up.”

The Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF)—LIV Golf’s beneficiary—paid numerous top players millions—sometimes hundreds of millions—to join their breakaway circuit. With their seemingly endless sums of money, the PIF could afford to pay the likes of Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, and Dustin Johnson north of $100 million each. The sovereign wealth fund most recently acquired Jon Rahm for roughly $400 million.

The PGA Tour can not compete with these figures.

But to retain its talent, the tour established ‘Signature Events,’ which are limited field tournaments with elevated purses. Therefore, the tour has had to ask its sponsors for more capital; as a result, some of them—like Honda and Wells Fargo—have ended their relationships with the tour.

The top 50 players from last year’s FedEx Cup rankings are eligible for all eight ‘Signature Events’ in 2024. The remaining spots within these 70-player fields are for golfers trending upward at that point in time, which explains why the tour established the ‘Next 10’ and ‘Swing 5.’ On top of that, a handful of spots are left for sponsor exemptions.

And yet, these Signature Events do not feature a 36-hole cut, thus guaranteeing that all the stars in the field play all four rounds, satisfying the television partners and sponsors of these tournaments.

“We had to give our players a reason to stay, so I get it. Been doing this a long time,” Cink added.

“I’m just not convinced why an 80-man field is more elite than a 156-man field. I don’t get it. I played in all those when they were full fields.”

This week’s Sony Open in Hawaii marks the first full-field event of the 2024 season, and Cink has played well in it thus far.

After shooting a 3-under 67 on Thursday, he signed for a 5-under 65 on Friday to put himself in a solid position going into the weekend. At 8-under, Cink is one shot back of leaders Carl Yuan, Austin Eckroat, and Byeong Hun An.

However, many top players on tour skipped this week’s Sony Open. Only two players within the top 10 of the Official World Golf Rankings are in the field this week, Matt Fitzpatrick and Brian Harman.

That becomes an issue for full-field event sponsors because top talent attracts a wider interest, thus generating a greater television audience. Bigger audiences lead to more revenue, which both the sponsor and the PGA Tour need.

Cink understands this, which is why he ultimately feels conflicted about the current structure of the PGA Tour’s schedule.

“If I was in the top 50 [of the FedEx Cup], I would really like it, but I’m not, so I don’t like it,” the 2009 Champion Golfer of the Year revealed.

“Unfortunately, I do think it’s probably the right thing to do for golf fans. If all the players play in [the Signature Events] and we get great fields playing for a lot of money, it’s great. I don’t think it serves everybody, and the PGA Tour has been about doing the best for everybody, for all the pros and members. So I’m a little mixed on that.”

Cink hit the nail on the head by calling this current structure ‘out of balance,’ as his feelings about the matter are not aligned.

And if Cink—a 27-year veteran on the PGA Tour—feels this way, surely plenty of others do as well. That spells trouble for the future of the PGA Tour unless they can finally come to an agreement with the PIF to reshape the structure of golf for the better.

Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Be sure to check out @_PlayingThrough for more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jack_milko as well.