The $8.7 billion flat-fee RIA taps a golfer who quit to sell mortgages before Lord Abbett bankrolled his comeback

Facet, a Florida-based RIA that runs a subscription fee model, has signed a brand ambassador deal with PGA Tour golfer Ben Griffin, who walked away from the game in 2021 with significant credit card debt to work as a mortgage loan officer.

Griffin turned pro in 2018 out of the University of North Carolina but bounced between developmental tours, and PGA Tour records show he earned just $365,240 in official money through the 2021-22 season. He pivoted to a job as a mortgage loan officer at CIMG Residential Mortgage in Chapel Hill, and he told Golf Monthly in September that the costs of chasing a golf career had left him $20,000 in debt by the time he returned to the Korn Ferry Tour.

“[Griffin] has lived through the reality that a lot of our members live through, which is making trade-offs and money trade-offs to support a dream in sort of real time,” Facet CEO and co-founder Anders Jones told InvestmentNews. “He talks about his experience as a mortgage broker helping people achieve their dreams of home ownership, which is also something that we help our members with. So there’s a lot of great overlap.”

From debt to the Ryder Cup

Since returning, Griffin has become a three-time PGA Tour winner and represented the U.S. at the Ryder Cup in 2025. He has now earned more than $23 million in official PGA Tour money, and Facet is paying him in cash and equity as its first athlete ambassador.

“I was honestly $20,000 in debt by the time I returned to the Korn Ferry Tour,” Griffin told Golf Monthly. “Just trying to qualify for the Korn Ferry Tour, you have to pay $5,000 or more in entry fees, travel costs are high, a lot of guys couch surf when they can, and on top of that you have to pay for practice rounds and cart fees, rental cars and meals.”

Griffin, 30, saw his fortunes change after returning to the Korn Ferry Tour in 2022 with the financial backing of Doug Sieg, managing partner and CEO of private investment management firm Lord Abbett. Sieg, former quarterback at Penn State, officiated Griffin’s wedding last year, reported Front Office Sports.

“Ben eventually put his PGA Tour dreams on hold and took a job in the mortgage industry. When he was ready to give it another shot, we helped give him the flexibility to focus on one thing: his performance,” Sieg wrote in a LinkedIn post last week.

“I wasn’t making any money. I had to step away and try something new just to pay rent,” added Griffin. “You can get to $17,000 of debt in a month easily. It’s very common on the mini tours.”

Serving the mass affluent

Griffin’s mother, Erika Griffin, is a senior loan officer at CIMG and has worked as a mortgage loan officer for more than 25 years. Facet’s logo appears on Griffin’s right collar during competition, and he will appear in content for the company, which reported $8.69 billion in discretionary assets under management as of its Form ADV filed Oct. 2.

“We have always existed to serve the 40 million or so mass affluent households in the U.S. So folks with between $100,000 and $3 million of overall net worth,” said Jones. “It’s a largely underserved population. About 80% of them have never worked with a financial advisor. They typically don’t have the investable asset level to be interesting to a traditional advisor that charges on the AUM fee model.”

Facet serves 25,000 households and more than 31,000 members, according to the company, with subscription fees running between $2,600 and $10,000 a year as advisors across the industry are raising planning fees fast. In recent years, Facet has expanded beyond financial advice and money management to include estate planning and tax prep.

Jones said Facet’s advisor headcount is around the mid-70s, all of them W-2 employees.

“We’ve averaged like $400 million of net flows every month so far this year,” said Jones. “We’ve grown the business about 75% this year.”

Since its founding in 2016, Facet has raised about $210 million, including its most recent $35 million round in 2024. Its investors include private equity firm Warburg Pincus, which also holds a minority stake in Edelman Financial Engines and a majority stake in independent broker-dealer Kestra Financial.