Pro Golfers

Chisos is an investment platform that supplies early-career capital to individuals — founders, entrepreneurs, athletes and creators — through contracts structured around a share of future earnings rather than conventional debt. Chisos Golf is the platform's first thematic fund: a $25 million structured fund announced in January 2026 that stakes aspiring professional golfers and golf content creators, financing them earlier in their careers to extend their competitive runway and creating investor exposure to the earnings potential of emerging golf talent.

The fund's stated thesis is that a meaningful number of elite players are constrained by capital rather than talent. Beyond capital, Chisos Golf offers an advisory board that includes sports psychologists, coaches and brand builders, with the aim of providing a comprehensive development plan alongside the investment. Capital is released against a budget and competition schedule built with the player, and underwriting is described as a data-driven and qualitative process that also takes non-golf earnings into account.

Company publications position the product against credit cards with roughly 18-24% APR, bank loans requiring collateral, family money, and private investor deals demanding 20-80% earnings shares, arguing that aspiring PGA Tour professionals face a $50,000-$150,000 funding gap covering coaching, tournament and qualifier entry fees, travel, equipment and living expenses before earning meaningfully on tour.

Founding story

Will Stringer, a Texas native and University of Texas at Austin graduate, spent nearly five years investing with the Cockrell Family Office in Houston before seeking a career focused on early-stage investments and startups. Drawing on his structuring background from the family office, he designed a contract for investing in people at the early stages of their careers as founders, and launched Chisos Capital in 2019. The name refers to a mountain range in Texas.

Business model

Chisos provides upfront capital to individual athletes and creators under earnings-share contracts rather than fixed-payment debt. Contracts are typically negotiated over 4-10 year terms with a 10-15% payment arrangement based on contract length and the player's situation, and capital is disbursed on a schedule tied to an agreed budget rather than as a lump sum. Repayment is tied to earnings above a minimum threshold; if a player leaves professional golf during the contract term, they remain responsible for repaying the initial investment once non-golf income crosses defined salary thresholds within the contract timeframe. Company materials describe funding of roughly $50,000 to $150,000 per athlete with no fixed monthly payments.

Returns come from contractual earnings shares — typically 10-15% of a funded individual's earnings over the contract term, including non-golf income above defined thresholds — with capital deployed from a structured fund into which outside investors commit capital.

Traction

Chisos Capital has invested in over 100 founders, entrepreneurs, athletes and creators since its 2019 launch. The Chisos Golf fund was capitalized at $25 million and made its first golfer investment within its first month of operation. Testimonials in company materials come from a professional baseball pitcher and an international professional golfer.

Latest developments

In January 2026, a press release announced Chisos Golf, a $25 million structured fund for staking aspiring professional golfers and golf content creators; the fund had already begun investing in its first golfer during its first month. The company also published content on professional golf funding and on the PGA Tour's Earnings Assurance Program.