PGA Tour Drops ONEflight as Myrtle Beach Sponsor Amid $150 Million Fraud Lawsuits

The PGA Tour has cut its Myrtle Beach title sponsor loose a month after the company’s jets stopped flying. A Tour official confirmed on Thursday that ONEflight International is no longer a sponsor of the Myrtle Beach Classic, Front Office Sports’ David Rumsey first reported, as the private jet firm faces three federal lawsuits alleging it withheld at least $150 million from the customers who had prepaid for flights.

What has the PGA Tour actually done?

Ended the deal, and said as little as possible beyond it. ONEflight joined as co-title sponsor in February 2025 on a three-year agreement covering the 2025, 2026 and planned 2027 editions, EssentiallySports reports. As of October 15 it is out a year early, the tournament reverts to its original name, and the Tour has offered no detailed statement on the decision, the same reports say. The shift from last month is the tell: when the lawsuits were filed, the Tour declined to comment, Golfweek reports. Silence was the September position. Separation is the October one.

What do the lawsuits allege?

A deposit business that stopped returning deposits. Three federal lawsuits in the US District Court for the District of Colorado name the company and its founder and chief executive, Ferren Rajput, and allege breach of contract and fraudulent inducement, Golfweek reports. The plaintiffs’ individual numbers are modest next to the headline figure: Five-Star Audiovisual says about $223,000 of its money is held, Jeremy Ricks says he deposited $780,000 and is owed roughly $580,000, and a third filing puts more than $800,000 in payments and credits in limbo. Ricks’ suit makes the structural allegation, that new customer deposits were used to service obligations to earlier customers and to fund sponsorship campaigns, including the PGA Tour’s and McLaren’s, which the filing describes as the hallmark of a Ponzi scheme. These are allegations in civil complaints. No court has ruled on them, and ONEflight has not publicly answered them in the reporting.

Why did the Tour wait a month after the flights stopped?

Because a paused sponsor is a question, and an unresponsive one is an answer. ONEflight suspended all flights on September 16, saying it would pause for at least 30 days while it evaluated its operations, On The Green Magazine reports, and it issued no refunds and no update as the 30 days expired. Reports say the Tour repeatedly sought answers about the suspension and about whether the company could meet its obligations, and ended the partnership when none came. Golf has lived the sponsor-risk version of this story all autumn, from the DP World Tour telling LIV 2.0 players to choose their 2027 allegiance to Jon Rahm signing his separation deal and buying back his own name rights. A title sponsor is usually the safest money in the building. In Myrtle Beach it became the liability.

What happens to the tournament itself?

It goes ahead, leaner and locally run. The fourth Myrtle Beach Classic is scheduled for May 13 to 16, 2027 at The Dunes Golf and Beach Club, at roughly a $4 million purse, with Visit Myrtle Beach as sole title sponsor and the chamber’s other local partners still in place, On The Green Magazine reports. Steve Mays, a near three-decade Grand Strand golf executive, has been hired by operator SPORTFIVE as tournament director, replacing Darren Nelson. Executive chairman Tracy Conner says organisers are actively talking to companies about a replacement co-title sponsor for 2027 and beyond. The event has survived on local backing before; it debuted in 2024 without ONEflight, a year when the wider game was already asking whether the tours could ever be put back together.

What does the split leave unresolved?

Two ledgers, one legal and one local. The legal one belongs to the Colorado cases: customers who prepaid for flight hours that were never flown are creditors in a queue whose size the complaints put at $150 million, and whether any of that money is recoverable is now a court’s question, not a sponsor’s. The local one is the tournament’s own future. The chamber’s four-year contract with the Tour expires after 2027, no extension is signed, and a decision could come as early as January, On The Green Magazine reports, with the event expected to land in the Tour’s Challenger Series in the 2028 reorganisation. Losing the sponsor that funded the celebrity pro-am, at the exact moment the tournament has to argue for its own renewal, is the real cost of Thursday’s announcement. The golf in May was never in doubt. The business case around it just got harder, the way Will Zalatoris’ lost 2027 season got harder the moment a calendar became a medical document.