The impact of gate metals on the threshold voltage (VTH) and the gate current of p-GaN gate high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) is investigated by fabricating p-GaN gate HEMTs with different work function gate metals-Ni and W. p-GaN gate HEMTs incorporate a p-GaN layer under the gate electrode as the gate stack on top of the AlGaN/GaN layer. In comparison to the Ni-gate p-GaN HEMTs, the W-gate p-GaN HEMTs showed a higher VTH of 3.0 V and a lower gate current of 0.02 mA/mm at a gate bias of 10 V. Based on TCAD device simulations, we revealed that these high VTH and low gate current are attributed to the low gate metal work function and the high Schottky barrier between the p-GaN and the W gate metal.