A $250,000 paycheck can make even the smallest task look a lot different. At the Presidents Cup, that figure has now become part of a conversation about just how much help a team really needs behind the scenes. A lighthearted exchange on The Shotgun Start and Fried Egg Golf brought that question into focus. According to them, the sheer number of coaches and support personnel around the players is drawing attention.

“Yes, of course. They’re all getting 250k. This is insane. Well, they don’t want enough coaches. I mean, you have like all the captains, the assistant captains. Then there’s like the stats team. Then there’s like the there’s just and caddies for the caddies. There’s just people walking around with coolers. There’s just so many things,” Brendan Porath and Andy Johnson discussed on the podcast.

Both the USA and the International teams have four assistant captains at the 2026 Presidents Cup. Gary Woodland, Webb Simpson, Keegan Bradley, and Jim Furyk are assisting the American captain, Brandt Snedeker. The International team’s captain, Geoff Ogilvy, has help from Camilo Villegas, Trevor Immelman, Tim Clark, and Taylor Pendrith.

All of them have the experience to act as vice captains, but the question is whether they need that many assistant captains, especially considering their pay.

At the 2026 Presidents Cup at Medinah, each team has 12 players, one captain, and four captain’s assistants. A PGA Tour spokesperson confirmed to Front Office Sports that all 34 receive $250,000 apiece. It is the same amount everyone received in 2022 and 2024. This accounts for $1 million for each team’s four assistant captains.

Joseph LaMagna even revealed an incident that puts more spotlight on the question. He said Gary Woodland helped Patrick Cantlay find a bathroom on Day 1 of the biennial event.

“Well, I’m glad Gary was here. I’m glad he’s getting 250k for that. That’s insane,” Brendan Porath said in response to the story, while Andy Johnson said, “I’d love to get an assistant captain job for that. It’d be kind of nice.”

The need for this many captains is, however, debatable. Some may feel it’s needed, while others may not. One of the biggest defenses for having four assistant captains is that they can follow every pair. Five pairs play simultaneously during the foursomes and four-balls at the Presidents Cup. A captain alone cannot follow all the pairs all the time. Assistants can do that and relay the information from all pairs back to the captain.

Assistant captains also help captains make important decisions about pairings and strategies. They also support players as needed and bring their own Presidents Cup experience to the table.

But it wasn’t always this way; earlier editions had far fewer assistants.

The need for assistant captains throughout the history of the Presidents Cup

At the inaugural edition in 1994, the International team reportedly had no assistant captain. David Graham acted as captain alone. His counterpart, the playing American captain, Hale Irwin, had Paul Azinger as his non-playing assistant. This was understandable since Irwin was also a playing member of the team, which would have made his job as captain much more challenging.

The numbers got reversed in 1996, when the International team was the only one to have an assistant captain in the form of Ian Baker-Finch. Then, from 1998 through 2009, each team played with only one captain’s assistant. But the number grew in 2011, when both teams arrived at the Royal Melbourne with two assistants. For the International team, they were Frank Nobilo and Tim Clark, and for the Americans, they were Jay Haas and John Cook.

In 2013, the International team played with three captains, while the Americans stuck with two, as in 2011. But they quickly made up for it in the 2015 Presidents Cup. This time, the International team had three assistant captains. Among them, Korean professional K.J. Choi was referred to as the vice-captain. The American team, however, entered the event with four assistant captains for the first time in the biennial event’s history.

During the 2017 and 2022 editions, both teams entered with four captains’ assistants like this year. In 2019, the American team had three, while in 2024, the International team had five.

The growing number of assistant captains over the years helps explain why the $250,000 stipends are now drawing attention, as the role has expanded considerably since the early editions of the Presidents Cup. As the support structure has grown, so too has the question raised by The Shotgun Start and Fried Egg Golf about whether four assistants per team remain necessary.