Rico Hoey: Parents, Net Worth, WITB & the Putter Switch That Saved His PGA Tour Card

Quick Answer: Rico Hoey is a 30-year-old Filipino-American professional golfer who represents the Philippines on the PGA Tour. He turned pro out of USC in 2017, switched his sporting nationality from the U.S. in 2024, and saved his 2026 Tour card last fall by switching to a broomstick putter mid-season.

Rico Hoey ranked dead last in strokes gained putting among 180 qualified PGA Tour players last season. Then he picked up a broomstick putter and climbed straight back onto the Tour.

I’ve followed Hoey’s results since his Knoxville win in 2023, and nothing about his rough 2025 putting stats prepared me for how fast the fix actually worked — three top-10s in four weeks, two broken course records, and a card he had no business saving by August.

This piece covers the full picture: his Filipino parents and sisters, his relationship with girlfriend Megan Mercado, his real career earnings versus the inflated “net worth” numbers floating around, his complete 2026 bag, and the putting overhaul nobody else has laid out in one place.

Hoey’s Quick Bio: Age, Height & Nationality

Richard “Rico” Hoey picked up his nickname long before he picked up a golf club — Rico is simply a common shortening of Richard. Manila, Philippines is where he came into the world on September 19, 1995, though his family relocated to Rancho Cucamonga, California before he reached grade school. Golf runs through the family: both of his older sisters played Division I college golf before he ever turned pro.

Hoey’s Parents and Nationality

Hoey’s parents are Dicky and Josie Hoey, and both are Filipino — which is exactly why “Filipino-American,” not just “American,” is the accurate way to describe his background. His father works as a lawyer and managing partner at a Southern California firm, and by every account of Hoey’s 2023 Knoxville win, Dicky was the guy out on his own golf course, throwing tee pegs in the air, when the results came in.

Hoey played international golf as an American through 2023. In 2024 he switched his sporting nationality to the Philippines, his birth country — a decision that also cost him a shot at the Paris Olympics, since the switch happened inside the two-year eligibility window the Games require. That’s the trade Hoey made: Olympic eligibility for the flag he actually wanted to represent.

Both of Hoey’s sisters reached Division I golf ahead of him. Kay played at Long Beach State from 2004 to 2009, made All-America Second Team twice, and still holds the program’s record for individual wins. Simone followed from 2009 to 2013, earned All-Big West First Team honors twice, and won a pair of tournaments herself. Neither sister competes now — Kay works in merchandising at the supplement company iHerb, and Simone buys for JELD-WEN Windows & Doors.

Is Hoey Married? Meet Girlfriend Megan Mercado

No, Hoey isn’t married — the “wife” searches are chasing a relationship that doesn’t exist. His girlfriend is Megan Mercado, and the two have been together since around 2019, well before he ever set foot on a PGA Tour course. Mercado is a licensed clinical social worker who studied at USC, and she was on the phone, in tears with him, the night Hoey won the Visit Knoxville Open in 2023.

Here’s an unpopular opinion for golf content sites: not every Tour pro’s love life needs an invented spouse to satisfy a search query. Hoey doesn’t have a wife, and that’s a perfectly fine answer.

Mercado talked Hoey out of quitting professional golf back in 2021, when a shoulder injury and six straight missed cuts had him half-convinced his career was over. He’s admitted as much himself, joking to Fore Magazine that he was ready to “fire up the LinkedIn” before she called his bluff.

Hoey’s Golf Career: From Goose Creek to the PGA Tour

Hoey learned the game at Goose Creek Golf Club in Mira Loma, California, on the same driving range where future PGA Tour winner Sahith Theegala grew up. The two were childhood rivals and friends — Theegala has called Hoey his “hero” from those junior years, which says plenty about how good a preteen Hoey already was.

Junior wins followed quickly: the 2012 Callaway Junior World Championship, then the 2013 CIF Southern Section individual title at Rancho Cucamonga High School. USC recruited him in 2014, and he delivered immediately, taking Pac-12 Freshman of the Year honors. At USC, Hoey earned a nickname that still follows him on Tour: “WGD,” short for World’s Greatest Driver, for how far and how straight he hit it off the tee.

His best college season came in 2016. A 70.85 stroke average, the SCGA Amateur title, and a runner-up finish at the NCAA Championship — USC’s best result there since Jamie Lovemark won the whole thing in 2007 — made Hoey one of the most decorated amateurs on the West Coast.

Turning pro in 2017 went well at first. Hoey won his rookie PGA Tour Canada season outright, taking the season-ending Freedom 55 Financial Championship by a single stroke at 19-under. That result bumped him onto the 2018 Web.com Tour, now the Korn Ferry Tour — and that’s where his career slowed down for the better part of six years.

The low point hit during the pandemic-lengthened 2021 “super season.” Hoey played 29 Korn Ferry events, hurt his shoulder, missed six cuts in a row, and benched himself. He wasn’t just struggling on the course — he was setting tee markers before sunrise at Goose Creek, seriously weighing a career outside golf.

Two years later, in his 83rd career Korn Ferry start, everything changed. Hoey won the Visit Knoxville Open by one stroke, finished fourth on the season points list, and clinched his first PGA Tour card for 2024. He made his Tour debut at the Sony Open in Hawaii that January, switched his competitive nationality to the Philippines a few months later, and picked up four top-10 finishes as a rookie — including a playoff loss at the ISCO Championship that came down to a third extra hole.

Hoey’s World Ranking and 2026 Stats

Hoey’s world ranking sits at No. 103 in the Official World Golf Ranking heading into this week’s Wyndham Championship. His career-best OWGR position came in December 2025 — No. 69, right as his putting hot streak peaked. His FedExCup standing tells a similar story: No. 112 entering the Tour’s regular-season finale, close enough to the playoff cut line that every round still counts.

Strokes gained data explains the gap between where Hoey ranks and how good he actually looks tee to green. He’s inside the top 51 in driving distance, but 133rd in strokes gained putting — a real weakness, even after the equipment change fixed the worst of it. I’ll say it plainly: Hoey’s ball-striking is good enough right now to compete inside the world’s top 50 if his putter ever fully catches up. It hasn’t yet, and pretending otherwise wouldn’t do him any favors.

He’s not the only name worth tracking on this week’s leaderboard, either — Beau Hossler’s chase for a first PGA Tour win has been one of the more compelling storylines at the same Wyndham Championship.

The Putter Switch That Saved Hoey’s Card

By last August, Hoey was losing 1.122 strokes per round on the greens — the worst putting average of any of the PGA Tour’s 180 qualified players. At the Wyndham Championship, the Tour’s regular-season finale, he bled 10.5 strokes to the field on putting alone across four rounds. His ball-striking numbers, meanwhile, ranked second in the field in strokes gained tee-to-green, behind only Scottie Scheffler. Something had to give.

Hoey’s putting coach, Marcus Potter, and his caddie, Bryan Martin, pushed him toward a broomstick putter during the month off before the FedExCup Fall. Hoey wasn’t sold at first. “I didn’t think it was that bad,” he admitted — but he tried the long putter anyway during his break, and broke two course records in the first two weeks with it.

Armed with the new putter, Hoey posted four top-10 finishes down the stretch that fall, including a runner-up finish at the Bank of Utah Championship. He climbed from the FedExCup bubble to No. 54 in the Fall standings, locking up his 2026 PGA Tour card and earning conditional entry into signature events like the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Genesis Invitational through the Aon Next 10 pathway.

The specific club is a custom Odyssey S2S Tri-Hot Jailbird — Odyssey built it to broomstick length, and GolfWRX photographers spotted it in his bag as recently as the 2026 Charles Schwab Challenge. It’s not a small change.

Moving from a standard-length putter to a chest- or belly-anchored broomstick alters your entire stroke path, grip, and posture over the ball. Most golfers who try it mid-career either love it within a week or abandon it within a month. Hoey landed firmly in the first group.

What’s in Hoey’s Bag? Full WITB

Hoey’s bag mixes brands in a way that tells you he’s chasing performance, not a single sponsor’s paycheck. His driver is a Titleist GT2, matching his overall equipment deal, but his irons are Srixon ZX5s — a completely different manufacturer. That’s not unusual on Tour, but it’s worth knowing if you’re trying to copy any part of his setup: the driver-and-iron pairing isn’t a package deal.

He’s not the only young Tour player running a mixed bag, either — Chris Gotterup games an even more scattered mix of Ping, TaylorMade, and Bridgestone equipment. If you want to understand how loft numbers like these actually change ball flight and distance, our golf club lofts guide breaks down every club in the bag, not just the driver.

Rico Hoey’s Net Worth and Career Earnings

Search “Rico Hoey net worth” and you’ll find estimates clustered around $1 million to $2 million, most of them dated to 2025 and none of them citing an actual source. Here’s what’s actually verifiable: Hoey’s official PGA Tour career earnings, straight from the Tour’s own stats page, sit at $5,253,259 through this week’s Wyndham Championship.

That’s the number that matters more, and it isn’t close. Net worth estimates for golfers rarely account for the real costs of a Tour career — a swing coach, a putting coach, a caddie who takes a percentage of every check, travel for two people to more than 20 events a year, and taxes on prize money earned across multiple states and countries. A player can bank $5 million in career earnings and still land nowhere near that figure in actual net worth.

Hoey’s equipment deal with Titleist adds income beyond tournament checks, though neither side has disclosed terms. Until Hoey or his camp releases an actual number, treat every “net worth” figure attached to his name — including any that show up in searches for this very article — as an outside guess.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Rico Hoey known for?

Two things define Hoey right now: he’s one of the only players representing the Philippines on the PGA Tour, and he just pulled off the broomstick putter turnaround that saved his 2026 Tour card after ranking last in putting the year before. Before that, he carried a reputation on the Korn Ferry Tour and at USC as one of the sport’s longest, straightest drivers — the “WGD” nickname followed him from college into his pro career.

Why did Rico Hoey withdraw?

Hoey withdrew from the 2026 American Express during the second round after shooting 37 on the front nine, citing illness. He’d finished T-50 the week before at the Sony Open in Hawaii, then returned the following week at the Farmers Insurance Open and made the cut despite still working through the after-effects, losing a combined 6.45 strokes on and around the greens across three rounds at Torrey Pines.

Does Hoey have a wife?

No — see the section above. His girlfriend is Megan Mercado, and the two aren’t married.

Where can I find his Wikipedia page?

Wikipedia keeps an updated results table for Hoey, including his major championship appearances and playoff record — useful if you want raw tournament-by-tournament data beyond what’s covered in this profile.

How can I check his score today?

This page is a profile, not a live leaderboard, so any score listed here will go stale fast during tournament weeks. For Hoey’s live scores, check his official PGA Tour player page, which updates hole by hole during every round he plays.

Is Hoey considered one of the nicer guys on Tour?

He’s never landed on one of the PGA Tour’s official “nicest guys” rankings, and that list usually goes to established veterans anyway. But by every account from people who’ve played alongside him — including Theegala’s “hero” comment from their junior golf days — Hoey has a reputation as an easygoing, well-liked presence in the locker room. His own three-word self-description says as much: “Vibes are high.”

The Bottom Line

Rico Hoey’s story is really two stories stitched together: the golfer who nearly quit in 2021, and the golfer who fixed the one flaw standing between him and a career that actually matches his ball-striking. The putter switch worked, his world ranking is climbing back toward its career-best mark, and the Philippines has a genuine PGA Tour representative to build around. Watch what he does with a full year on the broomstick — if strokes gained putting keeps climbing, Hoey’s next real story might be his first PGA Tour win.