By Lorin Anderson, President
As reported in our 2025 Proponent Group Operations and Compensation Survey results, cash compensation over the past decade has increased for Proponent coaches at a slower pace than inflation. Since 2014, our members have seen a 19.7 percent increase in revenues, which notably trails the 32.2 percent increase in inflation. Better news, for many of our coaches who are employees, has been the abrupt upward shift in non-cash benefits here in the mid-2020s.
Until quite recently these non-cash benefits had been consistently trending downward, but in last year’s set of numbers we saw double-digit increases in six of the 10 non-cash benefit categories—and all 10 out of 10 were in positive territory. In many cases the increases were unprecedented in their size. What does this signify? Our take is that attracting quality coaches, during this period of strong golf-industry growth, has come to require a strong bump in non-cash benefits, in order for employer clubs to make competitive offers.
In our new 2025 survey, last year’s significant gains generally remain intact, but with a slight pullback for most of the 10 categories. Full or partially paid health insurance coverage decreased from 84 to 75 percent of members reporting that they receive coverage. Paid disability insurance coverage rose slightly from 60 to 62 percent. 401K’s with facility matching funds decreased from 69 to 68 percent while 401K’s in general decreased from 82 to 80 percent. Currently, 65 percent of clubs help pay for training aids, down slightly from 67 percent. Clubs paying for PGA and/or LPGA dues slid from 86 to 82 percent while education allowances were down a bit from 64 to 62 percent. Tournament entry fees paid by the facility were down from 28 to 25 percent.
Finally, coach playing privileges at 97 percent and family playing privileges at 76 percent both remained level with a year ago.
Proponent Group strongly suggests that when negotiating an employee position you specifically ask about all of the non-cash benefits listed above, especially when the cash comp isn’t as high as you expected. Additional non-cash benefits may also include free or reduced costs of meals during work hours, an apparel allowance from the golf shop and/or equipment staff deals provided through the club’s manufacturer relationships. Many times non-cash benefits have very little hard cost to the facility compared to simply paying out a higher percentage of lesson income or a higher salary to the coach directly. This often allows for more negotiation than many coaches pursue before accepting a position.
For example, if you play in a lot of section events and the club wants you representing it in competition, but they don’t want to bump up your salary offer, ask if they will pay your section tournament entry fees instead. These could easily total $2,000 or more per year. For a variety of reasons beyond your control, the club may be much more willing to pay the entry fees instead of just adding the same amount to your salary. Asking for an increase in non-cash benefits can also be a way to lessen the blow if an expected raise becomes stalled.
For some of our members with beefy non-cash benefits, the value can run well over $25,000 annually so it’s worth paying attention to any opportunity to boost your non-cash compensation.
Below is a look at the top non-cash benefits across both employee and independent contractor coaches.
