World No. 4 Ludvig Aberg is among four players who have notified the PGA Tour of their plans to leave Wasserman as their agency of record and join former Wasserman agent Butler Melnyk at an apparent start-up agency.
Sports Business Journal’s Josh Carpenter, who covers the golf beat, first reported the news on Friday. He wrote that Melnyk, a longtime agent and the son of former U.S. and British Amateur champion and longtime broadcaster Steve Melnyk, had departed Wasserman last week.
Melnyk had been with Wasserman since 2010. Carpenter wrote, “Though specifics around Melnyk’s departure were not clear, sources believe there was a general disagreement about the path forward with client management that he was involved with.”
Carpenter later obtained an official Tour player/manager list on Thursday, which cited Aberg, Austin Eckroat, Kevin Kisner and Sepp Straka as represented by the Butler Melnyk Agency. Previously, all four were listed under Wasserman. Eckroat previously was managed by Sam McNaughton, whose clients include Rickie Fowler and Viktor Hovland. Aberg, Kisner and Straka were listed with Melnyk.
For the listings to be updated, a player must inform the Tour’s competitions department in writing.
Several of Melnyk’s clients during his days at Wasserman appear to be staying behind. Charley Hoffman, Jack Maguire, Joey Garber, Michael Kim and Michael Thompson were represented by Melnyk at the start of the year but now are paired with Wasserman vice president Marta Licausi.
Aberg and Straka both have won this year while Eckroat won in the fall. Aberg, 24, already has emerged as one of the top stars in the game and appears ready to blossom into one of the game’s most marketable figures.
Wasserman’s stable of golf big names still includes Nelly Korda and Lilia Vu on the LPGA, Fowler, Hovland, Tony Finau, Jason Day on the PGA Tour and Cameron Smith on LIV Golf.
Wasserman declined to comment to SBJ, citing an ongoing legal dispute. Melnyk didn’t respond to an inquiry by SBJ.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Ludvig Aberg among PGA Tour stars leaving Wasserman agency
