When players stiff coaches

This is The Undercover Newsletter, where we grant anonymity to people who work in golf who’ve got something to say. Here a top coach is interviewed by Senior Writer Matthew Rudy. You can sign up via Golf Digest+ to make sure you receive this newsletter regularly.

When you’re in the “real world” and somebody doesn’t pay you for a service provided, your options are straightforward. Send a letter or two, knock on some doors and maybe even file a lawsuit.

It will probably come as no surprise that professional golf at the top level is not the real world.

My central income has always been teaching regular, recreational players, probably like yourself. Coaching tour players used to be a nice-to-have bonus, but now it can be life-changing if the player is at the very top. If I’m getting paid a percentage—I’ve seen coaches take anything from three percent to 10—and your player has a top-10 season on the PGA Tour or LIV, we’re talking seven figures.

That’s serious business.

The gusher of money that has come into the game over the last few years has made the deals between players and coaches much more formal. Players like Tiger Woods have long had contracts with coaches (complete with non-disclosure agreements), and that practice is now spreading. A big-time golfer nowadays already has an agent in college for NIL deals, and is teeing it up for the first time as a professional with an equally professional team of contracted subcontractors in place.

But what happens when it’s not quite that clean? When nothing is written down, and you’re counting on a handshake from somebody with a generally good reputation?

I found out the hard way.

I knew one player casually through mutual friends. When he was going through some particularly bad struggles, he texted to see if he could come see me during an off week at my home club. I was happy to look, and he paid me my normal full day rate at the end of the afternoon with a personal check.

The next few weeks he played better, and he texted to see if I would be willing to work with him regularly. The next time we met up, I told him my normal deal—a retainer up front against expenses and four percent of earnings, paid monthly. He said that sounded good and it would be taken care of shortly. We worked for two more full days, and he left to play in some events overseas where I wasn’t traveling.

Fast forward a month and some great finishes—and plenty of exchanged texts, swing videos and remote range sessions— and I thought I’d be getting a five-figure wire transfer.

Instead, I got a series of increasingly vague texts that ended with one where he said he had gotten some good stuff from another coach, and we’d maybe get together again down the line sometime.

As a golfer, if you become known as a guy who doesn’t pay off his bets, you quickly become a solo artist during practice rounds. The same solidarity doesn’t exist among coaches. Confronting a player directly about money at an event would be a quick way to cost yourself opportunities to work with other players. And there’s a zero percent chance other coaches would hear of somebody getting stiffed by a golfer and then refuse to work with that golfer out of a sense of principle.

Fact is, I don’t teach from high ground. I’ve worked with players who are known to be tight with money or have a (deserved) reputation for being jerks to tournament staff, abusive to caddies and hard on coaches. It’s one thing to talk tough about your morals when you’re watching something on TV, and another when you might have the chance to put your kids through college if a player you coach makes it to the Tour Championship.

Money talks. Just ask the guys who went to LIV. Or their coaches. Making $4 million for winning a three-round event is nice work, as is collecting six figures for doing the coaching.

The next time I saw the player who stiffed me, I was on the range at an event working with another client. I thought it might be awkward, but it certainly wasn’t for him. He shook my hand and asked me how everything was going. I’m not ashamed to say I acted like nothing was wrong and wished him luck that week.

And if he texted me tomorrow asking for a look, I’d say yes.

I’ll just make sure I get things in writing.