We must consider the future when our working days are over – even multi-millionaire PGA Tour golfers.
Back in 2024, Scottie Scheffler won $25 million at the season-ending Tour Championship, a fraction of which will drop into his retirement fund.
His fellow PGA Tour star and Tour Championship competitor Sahith Theegala has a partner named Julianna ‘JuJu’ Chan, and she explained this much in a video posted to her TikTok channel. Theegala banked $7.5 million for coming third at East Lake, a position that might’ve been improved had he not fallen foul of a bunker-based rules incident.
After explaining the benefits each of the 30 players receives for qualifying for the season finale of the FedEx Cup, such as a two-year exemption on tour and access to all four majors the following year, JuJu explained that Theegala will be eligible for a pension he’ll have when he calls time on his career.
“It was Sahith’s third year on tour, so now that he gets two more years exempt, he will now qualify for his retirement plan. You have to reach five years on tour, they don’t have to be consecutive, but you have to reach five years on tour to get retirement,” she explained on the popular video-sharing platform.
“So since Sahith has now locked up his final two years of that five-year (period), he will be guaranteed retirement from the PGA Tour – Sahith got third-placed money so he will get $7.5 million for his third-place at the Tour Championship, so part of the money that he receives from that $7.5 million will go into his retirement fund automatically.”
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Sahith Theegala’s girlfriend sheds light on PGA Tour retirement plan
Interesting stuff. So how else do PGA Tour players pay into their pension, or what is called the non-qualified deferred compensation retirement plan? In April 2023, golf business expert Jared Doerfler broke down how the circuit pays out its players in his newsletter Perfect Putt.
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Previously described as the best retirement plan in sport, players pay into their pension through the Cuts Plan and the FedEx Cup Bonus Plan. Doerfler wrote that if a player plays in 15 events in a season, they bank $4,800 for every cut made. When a player makes the cut in 15 events, this is doubled to $9,600 for every weekend they reach after that.
You can take money from the Cuts Plan fund after turning 50. Doerfler used the example of Sungjae Im who, in 2022, made 22 cuts and built a very healthy pot for his retirement fund.
In the first year of the FedEx Cup Bonus Plan, Doerfler wrote that all of the winnings were paid out in the non-qualified deferred compensation retirement plans. Tiger Woods took home the $10 million winner’s share which all dropped into his pension in 2007.
Unlike the Cuts Plan, players can take money from the FedEx Cup Bonus plan when they turn 45. In 2008, this plan was slightly altered. A player could earn $9 million in cash and $1 million for retirement. Doerfler wrote that this system is still used today.
Doerfler used the example of Rory McIlroy, who won $18 million in 2022 after winning his third FedEx Cup. $17 million went in his wallet, and $1 million went in his pension. He also used an example of South African Erik van Rooyen, who played in 17 events in 2022.
Van Rooyen made nine cuts and earned $43,200 in the Cuts Plan. After ending the season 132nd in the FedEx Cup, he earned another $85,000 for retirement. All players who finish outside of the top 30 in the FedEx Cup standings have all of their bonuses sent into their retirement plan, while players ranked 126th to 150th earn $85,000.
There are allegedly over 900 members with balances in their PGA Tour retirement accounts. This includes PGA Tour players, PGA Tour Champions players, and those already retired.
In June 2025, the PGA Tour unveiled Brian Rolapp as the new CEO, taking control of the tour from previous commissioner Jay Monahan. In October, Golfweek reported quotes from a handful of disgruntled players from the PGA Tour Champions, who had seen their pension pool cut by 20% from $10 million to $8 million.
“Everyone’s taking a pay cut except the PGA Tour players,” said veteran player Billy Andrade.
“It’s disheartening,” said Peter Jacobsen. “The PGA Tour clearly has a lot of money right now and they’re spending a lot of money keeping players from going to LIV, and we’ve kind of slowly become LIV. I think we are giving way too much money to way too few players on the PGA Tour, and the players on the Champions Tour live by the decisions made by the PGA Tour.”
Earlier in August, Rolapp began to roll out a voluntary buyout program for PGA Tour employees whose age and tenure at the tour totalled 70 years or more.
The new CEO’s early intentions have been to reallocate resources to meet future goals. Given that the player’s pension scheme is one feature that seems to suck up much of that resource, we’ll watch this space for further updates.
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