Trevor Cone can be excused if he had other things on his mind – he was preparing to tee it up in his first-ever PGA Tour event at the Fortinet Championship in Napa, California, last month – but when you know that $500,000 is about to land in your checking account via direct deposit, most people not named Elon Musk would spend their day hitting the refresh button on their banking app.
Cone, a 29-year-old tour rookie who finally cracked the code on the Korn Ferry Tour last season, needed to be reminded.
“I forgot to look,” Cone said.
“On Tuesday after our practice round, my caddie (Dan Woodbury) said, ‘Did you check your bank account today?’ I opened the app and I was kind of taken aback. Then, you think about when guys win, like, $1.4 million in a tournament, what that must look like in the bank account.”
Cone may one day find out what it’s like to see a winner’s check land in his account, but for the moment, he’s happy to start his first PGA Tour season on the positive side of the balance sheet thanks to a new program that gives every player with full PGA Tour privileges $500,000 to start the season.
Half a million dollars comes with one rope-thick string attached: It’s an advance against earnings for the 2022-23 season. When Cone cashed his first tour paycheck – $21,795 for a T45 finish at the Sanderson Farms Championship – that already was covered by his advance.
Whatever Cone or any other player makes above $500,000 this season, it gets added on to what they have already received. If they don’t make $500,000, they don’t have to repay the difference. They will be too busy trying to requalify for the tour at that point.
It is estimated that the initiative, known as the Earnings Assurance Program, will cost the PGA Tour between $2 million and $3 million this year. Though it’s an eye-catching way to start, the program’s economic impact is far greater on young players getting started than on the tour itself.
Taylor Montgomery, a 27-year-old tour rookie, was waiting for his deposit to drop. He’s been wanting to buy a house in the Las Vegas area with enough room to build a garage for his RVs and other motorized toys.
“It was really nice to get that off the bat. I had a goal to cover that ($500,000) in the fall season, and it happened in the first event for me.”
TAYLOR MONTGOMERY (earned $759,375 in a pair of top-10 finishes in his first two starts)
House shopping became much easier with the cash in hand.
“I looked and I was like, ‘What the hell happened? That’s a lot of zeroes,’ ” Montgomery said. “It was shocking at first.”
It was Woody Allen who said that 90 percent of success in life is just showing up.
That equation may not fit professional golf perfectly, but there is something to be said for showing up at the right time. It may not matter to Jon Rahm that his first $500,000 in earnings already has been deposited in his account.
But for players trying to get a foothold on their new life, it’s every bit as valuable as half a million dollars should be. It covers travel expenses, caddie fees, taxes and other bills that otherwise would loom larger if the money weren’t there.
“It was really nice to get that off the bat. I had a goal to cover that ($500,000) in the fall season, and it happened in the first event for me,” said Montgomery, who has earned $759,375 in a pair of top-10 finishes in his first two starts.
“I just got a new house last week, and it was something I had wanted for a really long time, but I couldn’t afford it. I had a really good year on the Korn Ferry Tour, but that (advance) helped. Some guys last year would have really liked that.
“You know you did something right getting out here, and it’s nice to be rewarded.”
This is a bountiful year to be on the PGA Tour, whether it’s as a 12-year veteran or someone like Cone, who made 122 starts on the Korn Ferry, PGA Tour Latinoamérica and PGA Tour Canada before getting into an event on the big tour.
The pressure to succeed immediately is eased by the big advance, but the PGA Tour doesn’t offer endless opportunities. For Cone and others who are just making their way, playing spots are still precious and doled out based on where they finished on the Korn Ferry Tour and what they’ve done in the starts they have made.
Cone, for example, didn’t have enough status to play in the Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas last week. He’s hoping to play in five of the nine fall events and make an impact there to improve his standing in 2023.
“All of us are used to trying to make something happen early in the year because it makes everything easier,” Cone said. “One comforting thing is the guys in the (eligibility) categories behind us can’t pass us in the reshuffles unless they win.
“To make that first cut was huge for my peace of mind. (The advance) makes everything on the course easier. I’m not stressing about what I’m going to do. It’s nice to have it in your back pocket if you have a poor year.”
Montgomery knows the feeling. Born and raised in Las Vegas, he had a home game last week even though he’s still waiting to take possession of his actual new home.
Growing up with his parents and sister in a 1,600-square-foot house, Montgomery loved his life but dreamed of something bigger. When his parents moved to a bigger house when he was in college, Montgomery enjoyed the space. Now he will have his own, paid for in part by the tour’s down payment on his season.
“We like to ride four-wheelers, and I always wanted a house like my parents got,” he said. “Living there was a super-comfortable feeling. That’s what I wanted for myself: a half-acre lot with a lot of garage space.”
And room to grow.
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