Ben Griffin is now a three-time PGA Tour winner with more than $22 million in career earnings. Not long ago, however, things looked very different. At one point he was couch surfing and using credit cards to keep his golf career going. In a recent interview with Golf Monthly, the 30-year-old opened up about how expensive it can be to chase a career in professional golf. On the mini tours, travel, entry fees, hotels, and other costs can quickly add up. Players often have to spend thousands of dollars just for the chance to earn a paycheck.

For Griffin, that pressure became too much. By the time he made his way back to the Korn Ferry Tour, he had built up serious debt.

“I was honestly $20,000 in debt by the time I returned to the Korn Ferry Tour,” Griffin told Golf Monthly.

That debt did not build up overnight. Griffin was spending money month after month on entry fees, flights, rental cars, practice rounds, cart fees, hotels, and food. He had to pay for all of it himself, without knowing if he would make enough money back, and according to Griffin, this is pretty normal on the mini tours. Players can spend thousands just trying to stay in the game, which shows how expensive the road to the PGA Tour can be.

“You can get to $17,000 of debt in a month easily,” he said. “It’s very common on the mini tours.”

Ben Griffin turned professional in 2018 and spent the next few years playing on PGA Tour Canada, PGA Tour Latinoamérica, and the Korn Ferry Tour. He was trying to find his way up, but the results were not enough to cover what he was spending.

The bills kept coming, no matter how he played. By 2021, he could no longer afford to keep chasing professional golf. He stepped away from the game and took a job as a loan officer at a mortgage company to pay his rent and start clearing his debt. For someone who had spent years trying to reach the PGA Tour, it was a big change. His world ranking dropped to 1,744th at the start of 2022. He had gone from chasing his dream on the course to building a career away from golf.

Professional golf is one of the few sports where the vast majority of participants pay more to compete than they earn during their early careers. Before a player cashes a single PGA Tour check, he or she has already spent thousands simply staying active in the game. Entry fees for a single week’s opportunity can run $5,000 or more, even on the Korn Ferry Tour. Add travel, accommodation, practice rounds, coaching, and living expenses across a full season, and the numbers move fast.

The debt was the result of years spent trying to make his golf career work. He kept betting on himself, but the costs eventually became too much.

In 2021, help came from an unexpected place. Doug Sieg, CEO and managing partner of investment firm Lord Abbett, had seen Griffin’s potential. When Griffin decided to return to golf, Sieg offered to cover his expenses so he could focus on playing instead of worrying about money.

“Doug is the reason I was able to get rid of those financial pressures and focus on playing,” Griffin told Golf Monthly.

That support gave Griffin a fresh start. With the financial pressure off his shoulders, he returned to the Korn Ferry Tour and began moving up the rankings. He eventually earned his PGA Tour card and got another chance to chase the career he had once been forced to leave behind.

In 2025, everything clicked at once. Griffin won three times: the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, the Charles Schwab Challenge, and the World Wide Technology Championship. He was also named to the U.S. Ryder Cup team.

The player who once had to leave golf to pay his rent was now playing at the highest level. But Griffin’s story also shows that the money pressure does not go away when a golfer reaches the PGA Tour. It just changes.

In a separate discussion about his 2026 season, Griffin said he was spending around $50,000 a week on average. That money covered travel, hotels, his caddie, coach, trainer, and physio.

His spending is on the higher side because some members of his team also receive performance-based payments. Still, the figure shows just how expensive professional golf can become, even for players who make it to the PGA Tour.

Of the $2.5 million he had earned in 2026 at the time of that discussion, Griffin estimated roughly $750,000 had already gone out the door in expenses. His caddie, Alex Ritthamel, earns a base salary plus around eight percent of winnings, rising to ten percent on a win. Coaches on the PGA Tour can cost $150,000 to $200,000 annually. A traveling physio typically costs $3,000 to $5,000 per tournament week.

Players near the bottom of the PGA Tour money list can face a similar problem. The 200th-ranked player on the 2024 money list earned around $228,000 for the year (including official and majors earnings), but after taxes, travel, coaching, caddie fees, and other costs, the amount left can be much smaller.

That makes Griffin’s story even more striking. The biggest part of it may be that he nearly did not make it back. His journey shows how much money and sacrifice can go into a professional golf career, long before the big wins and paychecks arrive.