Golf in the 2020's - Hunger Games Edition

 Wow, sure are a lot of folks with their hands out....

Just keep this thought on the top of your mind.  When they tell us it's about the money, it's about the money.  When they tell us it isn't about the money?  Hey, good on you mate, you nailed.  Lots of news, so I'll just try to sift through it in the sequence it occurred.

What's In a Name? - It's not like we haven't seen commercially-sponsored golf tours before, it's just that it's heretofore been the provenance of developmental tours, which we give a pass because they obviously have a need for the scratch.  But this seems....well, sad:

The European Tour has a new name.

Beginning with the start of the 2022 season, its 50th year of existence, which begins at the Joburg Open in South Africa, from November 22-25, it will be known as the DP World Tour.

As a result of the title sponsorship, total prize money will exceed the $200 million mark for the first time (including majors and WGC’s and $140 million without them), with a new minimum prize fund of $2 million for all tournaments solely sanctioned by the DP World Tour. That doubles the purse size of $104 million in 2021 and nearly triples the $70 million in 2020. In addition, the DP World Tour Championship, the season finale and final Rolex Series tournament of 2022, will become the first European Tour event in history outside the majors and WGCs to feature an eight-figure prize fund ($10 million).

Unlike the U.S.-based PGA Tour, the European Tour moniker was descriptive of the Tours place in the world, connoting all sorts of other impressions in that one little proper noun.  Obviously there's a check to be cashed, but it strikes as profoundly sad for them to be selling their birthright for a mess of pottage.  I think that idiom is perfect because its actual meaning conveys the sale of something intangible but of higher value than that which is received, which is my sense of things.

While he looks quite natty in that photo above, with the carefully curated glass frames, this statement will not survive the test of time:

“The DP World Tour is a natural evolution of our decade-long partnership, and the presence of ‘World’ in our new title better reflects our global reach,” said Keith Pelley, chief executive of the European Tour group, noting only 23 of the 47 events will be staged on European soil.

Yes, you pine for global reach, but the reality is that your place in the golfing world is entirely dependent upon your resprentation of the European land mass, yanno, the places where the game took hold and grew and where professional and major championship golf originated.  Once you disassociate from Europe, why do the five families need you?  How do you differ from the other tours out there?

Shack has lengthy Quadrilateral newsletter that's open the great unwashed masses, from which we'll excerpt liberally in this post.  Here are his cryptic comments on this news story:

Meanwhile, I’ll spare you links to the various stories quoting otherwise-nice-folks-swooning about the European Tour “rebrand” to the DP World Tour. Look, optimistic spin is their only hope short of an edible-laden bender to avoid contemplating how little Dubai paid to smother out the charming European Tour name. And I’m not sharing what social media comedians say DP stands for. Dammit, this is a family newsletter and I intend to keep it that way!

Derek Lawrenson of the Daily Mail doesn't directly address the issue of how much was paid, but obviously makes the case that it was worth it:

Traditionalists will no doubt cry 'shame!' but such is the vast scale of the 10-year deal, there would have been a riot among the tour's membership if it had not been accepted.

'What a time to be a golfer in his 20s,' reflected Tommy Fleetwood, as the game demonstrated once more that no sport has emerged from the pandemic in ruder health.

Hey, bud, it's not just traditionalists.  Probelem is, DP's come and go, sometimes before the end of their term, and before you know it you're the Nationwide/Nike/Buy.com/Corn Fairy Tour, and I eagerly await that optimistic press release.

This promo certainly isn't up to the usual standards of the Euro Tour's media department, though perhaps this is where Jay Monahan's influence as a board member can be seen:

Not up to the standards of their anger management and other priceless videos.... 

As long as we're discussing the woebegone Euro DP World Tour, let's see what you all think of this optimistic take from loyal subject of the Queen, John Huggan.  I don't expect you'll have any issue with his diagnosis, in which he reminds us of one of those quint terms lost in the commercial feeding frenzy:

There was a time, of course, when topping what was once grandly called the “Order of Merit” on

the European Tour qualified as a pretty big deal. First played for in 1937, winning the Harry Vardon Trophy represented at least a pretty strong consolation prize, one step down from golf’s biggest and most important titles. As such, it was a sure indication of prolonged excellence and season-long consistency of the highest order on a circuit well-supported by many of the game’s elite.

As you’d expect, the list of winners is impressive, one that includes a vast array of leading players born outside the United States (no American has yet annexed the trophy). Henry Cotton. Bobby Locke. Flory Van Donck. Dai Rees. Christy O’Connor. Neil Coles. Peter Alliss. Peter Oosterhuis. Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo. Sandy Lyle. Greg Norman. Bernhard Langer. Ian Woosnam. Lee Westwood. Retief Goosen. Ernie Els. Padraig Harrington. Justin Rose. Martin Kaymer. Luke Donald. Rory McIlroy. Henrik Stenson. Francesco Molinari. They’re all there.

Such a great name for the title, just another small piece of our golf patrimony lost to the ages.

More recently, however, things have been very different. And not in a good way. For a while, topping what has become the “Race to Dubai” has been at best an afterthought, a bauble provoking little more than a shrug of the shoulders from those with bigger priorities in their professional lives. Indeed, the gradual decline in its importance has mirrored that of the European Tour itself.

Where once the likes of Ballesteros, Lyle, Langer, Woosnam and Faldo—major champions all—plied the majority of their trades at “home,” over the last few years the Old World circuit has been a place the absolute best have visited only occasionally, invariably when they were highly compensated for doing so. Only when appearance money speaks loudly do they even begin to take heed.

A brief glance at the names atop this year’s Race to Dubai confirms all of the above. Somewhat ridiculously, Open champion Collin Morikawa will arrive in Dubai next week for the season-ending DP World Tour Championship looking down on all of his fellow European Tour members. He has achieved that admirable status having teed-up in nine counting events, only two of which—the Scottish Open and the Open—actually took place in Europe. Of the other six, just the Dubai Desert Classic qualifies as a “regular” tournament. The rest? Three American majors and three U.S.-based World Golf Championships.

But at least guys like Morikawa and Patrick Reed have made an effort to be Euro Tour members.  But Huggan offers little more than hope here, which I've been reliably informed is not a strategy:

That dire situation has now been alleviated, of course. The re-branding of the European Tour as the DP World Tour and the introduction of substantial sponsorship shines a bright economic light where before there was near darkness. Although the ongoing prospect of a rival circuit remains, a guarantee of events offering at least $2 million in prize money should remove some of the temptation European Tour members may have had to jump into the arms of Greg Norman and his Saudi cohorts.

It's worse than that John, because aside from Rory and Rahmbo, I'm not sure that the Saudis are all that interested in any of your guys.

Bigger purses can't hurt, but have you heard about Jay's new series of events, which will take place right about the time of that Race to Dubai?   

One last bit from the latest Alan Shipnuck mailbag feature:

Why are the women getting a free pass on playing in Saudi Arabia while the men are so criticized? @BobRoge321

It’s a valid question and, in our “Full Send” podcast, Christina Kim and I have certainly been critical of the increasing Saudi encroachment into the women’s game. The difference in the blowback comes down to need versus want. Across the golf world, women play for a fraction of the money that men do. The LPGA and LET tours are in a more tenuous financial position. The Saudi money helps shore up the schedule and make the future less certain. Meanwhile, the top men are making obscene amounts of money. To take the bloated appearance fees and play in Saudi Arabia at the expense of a great old tournament such as Pebble Beach is pure avarice. Now with the announcement the proud European Tour has been turned into something called the DP World Tour, Middle East money is becoming even more normalized. The Euro Tour was hit hard by COVID-19, and it’s obviously a good thing to have a healthy global tour. It just feels like golf is increasingly selling its soul. (For the record, the Fire Pit Collective was approached by Golf Saudi about making content to help promote the country as a golf destination. The money was good, but we said no.)

W had this exact sentiment in an Eamon Lynch column, and it's an obvious but fair point.  But it's not just the women getting a pass, as so did Keith Pelley and the Euro Tour.  How can you take DJ to task for cashing an appearance fee check, when the world's second biggest golf tour holds an event there?

But the other factor that Pelley might not have fully considered is the long-term implications of tying his fortunes even closer to the gulf states.  It's fair to say that they're not as noxious as the Saudis, perhaps, but these ties have a way of looking different down the road.

Playing For Peanuts - Doug Ferguson has an interesting column, the first that I've seen purses expressed as a percentage of the total pie:

The tour would suggest nothing magical about it. In a presentation to the Player Advisory Council, it showed players competing for 55% of consolidated revenue from roughly $1.5 billion, courtesy of a nine-year media rights deal worth about $7 billion. It also includes $32 million from the reserve fund to help pay for the earnings increase.

For now, the tour is moving forward by creating big purses for the biggest events, because that’s where the best players are.

I don't know if that's a good number or a bad number, but it's at least a potential way to track the Tour's consistency with new media contracts kicking.  But also interesting because it directly rebuts a point Phil has been retailing:

Phil Mickelson’s claim of only 26% of revenues going back to PGA Tour players appears to have earned him a rebuttal from the Global Home, albeit a slow one given that he mentioned it in a September 14th podcast with Gary Williams.

I know, regular readers will be shocked to know that Phil is playing fast and loosely with his data....so out of character.

Now, that last bit in the excrpt should have tickled your curiosity.  No question that purses have been increasing, but Jay has other ways of "moving forward", as we've discussed with increasing regularity.  For instance, even players are pushing back on this:

At least two players have coined a similar phrase of $50 million “magically appearing” to pay for the Player Impact Program

Loose change under the sofa cushions... I totally get it.  But did you know there's a second program?

...another program called “Play 15” that doles out $50,000 to anyone playing 15 tournaments.

$50K seems like chump change, though perhaps not so much to the guys that aren't household names, though one needs to have sufficient status to actually peg it fifteen times.

Doug throws this caution out there, not that anyone is listening:

But the notion of guaranteed money — the likely appeal for whatever Greg Norman and his Saudi-backed LIV Golf Investments have in mind — is a dangerous path.

Golf doesn’t pay players like team sports because it isn’t one.

I just wish he had spent some time explaining the danger of that path.  It's not dangerous necessarily for their to be guaranteed money.  In fact, he makes that very point via Nurse Ratched:

But he mentioned the retirement plan, a lucrative system based on cuts made, earnings from three segments of the season and total earnings for the year, that should not be dismissed. Finchem also mentioned the ability of top players to sign their own corporate deals (“We don’t have official uniforms,” he said).

The business site Sportico recently listed the 10 richest athletes adjusted for inflation. Michael Jordan led the way. He was followed by Woods, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. Not surprisingly, six of the top 10 came from individual sports.

Inside the ropes, golf should never lose sight of performance.

I'm glad he mentioned that Sportico analysis, because people say that golfers are underpaid as if it's an accepted fact, whereas it's just opinion.

Geoff tries to pass on some sensible advice to the lads in that Quad post linked above, but they're just not listening (except, surprisingly, by this guy):

Brooks Koepka was asked last week about the anarchist leagues dangling big paydays before

today’s Park’s and Strath’s.

“Seems like there's a bunch of stuff going on, but at the end of the day there's only one tour I'm playing right now, so I'm only interested in that one.”

Thattaboy. Just the way those lads in Leith might have answered back when they only played for passion, side bets and better-tasting wee nips.

The Leith reference is both forced and welcome (the photo is from the Grand Golf Tournament held on the Leith Links (the original home of The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, a/k/a Muirfield, in 1867).  More importantly, perhaps, Shack has worked both edibles and wee nips into his post, so should we be organizing an intervention?

Meanwhile, in the same tournament’s press room, Justin Thomas was asked whether top players have been under-compensated.

“I think all of this that's kind of happened outside of the PGA Tour has created a lot of questions from the players, to where the Tour's done a great job of answering it, but also answering that maybe we have the opportunity to better our product.”

Lest you think “product” meant speeding up play, going to classic venues or presenting fresh formats. The product in question is money. Thomas also went on to talk about growing brands, reaching “different listeners” and of course, growing the game.

Right it's not about the money.... Go with that. 

To be fair, Jay Monahan himself demonstrated precious little interest in the product to date, focusing like a laser instead on legalized gambling and goading millennials to scream into open mics (hey, from the promos, that's literally what it takes to Live Under Par™) and drink to excess.  That comes on top of his virtuoso performance at the aborted 2020 Players Championship, when he allowed his paying customers to be jammed into shuttle buses and grandstand (Chainsmokers, anyone?) while extolling the 200 acres his pampered members had to spread out over.

But here's Geoff's quite obvious though necessary point:

No matter which side you take, a potential drumbeat of money talk from players and executives will not help anyone’s cause. Because outside of Monday qualifiers cashing life-changing checks or underpaid female pros enjoying purse increases, fans have made clear they don’t care what the men are playing for. We know this from looking at FedExCup ratings. The more they play for the lower the ratings get.

While there may be a growing subset of hanger-on types who dream of getting in on “team” revenues and another subset worried about how a star will pay his private jet subscription, money stories do move the needle. Golf websites who will point to the clicks for posting the week’s purse breakdowns might argue that’s a sign of “engagement”. But the laughingstock reaction to the Player Impact Program taught us that money talk or anything not related to memories created on the course tends to be a giant turn-off.

Yeah, Geoff, being a laughingstock doesn't bother them after having their funny bones surgically removed.

But the problem is in the Tour doling out guaranteed payments and PIP-like programs without performance metrics, because it puts the Tour on the slippery slope of deciding who gets what.  It immediately alters the relationship of the Tour to the players, which some players will like, but others won't.

And because the Tour has hit such a home run in the fall, Doug tells us what's coming:

Along with more prize money and bonus pools, the tour is contemplating a fall “global series” with big purses, no cut and appearance money for the top finishers in the FedEx Cup. Another consideration is to make purses top heavy at the elite events that attract the best players.

Coming?  How about here:

Exclusive: PGA Tour to launch guaranteed money events for top stars, team format possible

The PGA Tour plans to create a series of lucrative, international tournaments that will offer guaranteed money to the world’s best players, Golfweek can reveal.

The Tour intends to stage between four and six events annually outside of the United States, in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The series will begin in the fall of 2023 at the earliest, though possibly not until 2024. Details of the plan were confirmed to Golfweek by an industry executive familiar with the ongoing discussions. The executive requested anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The move will be seen as an effort by the PGA Tour to thwart the threat posed by the Super Golf League, a proposed splinter circuit financed by the Saudi Arabian regime that has been trying to lure players to global events with promises of huge signing bonuses and guaranteed cash.

Ya think?  The Saudi's stole the concept from the Brits, so who could object to Jay stealing it from the Saudis?  Of course, Jay might want to familiarize himself with the Sharia approach to intellectual property, but that's not our issue.

Asked to specify just how lucrative the new series will be for elite players, the executive said no cash figure has been finalized and that the focus is on providing guaranteed money rather than a traditional prize fund that players would compete for a piece of. The source likened the new events to an amped-up World Golf Championships swing that will ensure riches for elite players regardless of how they perform.

Because the WGCs have been so successful?  But this might be the biggest surprise:

The new international tournaments will not replace the existing fall schedule on the PGA Tour — currently, nine events that begin in September after the conclusion of the FedEx Cup playoffs and run through mid-November. Those fall stops typically draw less than stellar fields as star players often take a break from competition after the playoffs before ramping up their schedules in the New Year.

You thought the ratings from Mayakoba couldn't go lower?

As an aside, let's talk about those nice folks at World Wide Technologies, who have just experienced the joys of being the PGA Tour's partner.  They have signed on to sponsor this event through 2027, and how pleased must they be today?  Their first event was a yawn, but no sooner is the ink dry on the contract than Jay Monahan announces his intention to compete with his own sponsor beginning as early as 2023, obviously intending that no golfer with an household name ever sets foot in Riviera Maya again.  I think this experience was best summed up by Otter from Animal House:

You ****ed up - you trusted us!

Recently I discussed my longstanding prediction that the Tour sponsorship bubble would pop, which obviously has not yet happened.  But the Tour's treatment of its sponsors has always been a major factor in that prediction, as you don't expect them to act the part of a battered spouse.

Geoff got wind of that Eamon Lynch report and had some snark a la carte for us at his blog:

Report: PGA Tour Floating Detail-Light And Eerily Familiar Sounding Plans To Stop Players From Fleeing

Yeah, lots of commenters have noted the lack of details, especially on that team competition tease, though folks are being quite unfair.  How could Jay possibly have the team comp nailed down when the Saudi's haven't released anything on that subject yet? 

Geoff takes some valid shots at the trial balloon, though it's hard to post much of a score with such a low degree of difficulty (Geoff's snark is in italics):

The Tour intends to stage between four and six events annually outside of the United States, in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The series will begin in the fall of 2023 at the earliest, though possibly not until 2024.

Three years? That’s a lifetime in this world. Are we going to blame the global supply chain for the lag time? Then again, when you haven’t planned accordingly, that time is needed.

Hey, it takes time to copy-and-paste these things together... But, 2024?  How timely!

But the best part is the peak behind the curtain at how weak a hand Jay has in some regards:

While internal discussions are continuing on specifics, tentative plans call for between four and six events, with fields limited to 50 or 60 competitors and no halfway cut. It has not been decided if the fields will be determined by the Official World Golf Ranking or FedEx Cup standings. A range of format options are being considered, including the possibility of a team component.

“Nothing firm on formats yet,” the well-placed executive said, “but a team format is certainly one of the ideas on the table.”

Watch this space, on what appears to be a relatively minor issue.  But not so minor in Jay-world.

If he basis qualification on FedEx Cup points, each year there will inevitably be those Tour members who by reason of injury or poor play fail to qualify.  If you think this insignificant, look at how many years Tiger failed to amass enough points to qualify.  There's also the issue of non-PGA Tour members that Jay obviously can't control.  

The far more logical step would be to base it on the OWGR, but that will royally piss off a certain Memphis-based logistics company, treating FedEx like World Wide Technologies.  My guess would be that he'll have to placate FedEx, but will add a significant number of sponsor exemptions or other mechanisms to ensure that those bribed stay bribed.

But this is the crap they worry about:

A PGA Tour source told Golfweek that a mechanism will be devised to ensure players who compete in the overseas series will not be disadvantaged in the FedEx Cup points race as a result of having skipped the U.S. schedule.

“Top guys want to have a break from the FedEx Cup,” the source explained. “The setup would be so they don’t have to worry. If they play in these big events, the idea is they don’t fall behind in the FedEx Cup.”

Lost in translation is the top guys getting a break from golf.  Put six big-money, no cut events on the Fall calendar, and the guys will be playing forty weeks of the year.  

I have two pints that I want to make about all this.  The first, and less important, is to suggest that we not treat this as anything more than vaporware.  The last few years have taught us that sponsors rebelled at the higher price tag of the WGCs, so where is this massive pool of cash coming from?  Perhaps Jay will take a position that these events are not included in his existing Tv contracts, but look at who that will piss off.  Plus, if the last few weeks have taught us anything, it's that not many of us have time to watch golf in the fall (that doesn't even deal with the fact that some of these events will be overseas with horrible broadcast windows in the States).  

But the more substantive question is, does any of this appeal to you?  Because it sounds God-awful to your humble blogger.  We have a rather long history with the WGCs, and there's little that I take away that leads me to slap my forehead and proclaim, "You know what we need in golf?  More WGCs!"

Admittedly, I've said the exact same thing about the Premiere League and Super League proposals, unsurprisingly, since they are the very same concept.  My key insight from those WGCs is that it doesn't matter how many of the top players you have, a made-for-TV event can't deliver the juice, because ultimately it doesn't matter who wins.  Quick, name me one dramatic finish that you can remember from a WGC.  See?

One last bit that's related to the above.

Say It Ain't So, Slugger - The worst kept secret in golf is that the Greg Norman-Saudi partnership isn't about the support of the Asian Tour.  Towards that end, LIV Golf Investments announced the hiring of two experienced executives last week.  Not household names, for sure, but the kind of skill sets you'd need on the off chance that you wanted to start a new golf tour:

Ron Cross, a former executive at the PGA Tour and Augusta National, will be the organization's chief events officer. And Sean Bratches, a former executive at ESPN and most recently with Formula 1, will be LIV Golf's chief commercial officer.

Cross most recently worked at the PGA Tour as senior vice president of corporate affairs. Before that, he was special assistant to commissioner Jay Monahan and at one time prior to working at Augusta National he was executive director of the Players Championship. Cross also worked as a senior director at Augusta National for eight years and helped with various grow-the-game initiatives including the Drive, Chip & Putt, the Asia-Pacific Amateur and the Latin-America Amateur.

Bratches was executive vice president of sales and marketing and served on the board of directors at ESPN before becoming managing director of commercial operations for Formula 1.

But this is the one that has to hurt Jay:

In a press release distributed Wednesday morning, LIV Investments announced that former PGA

Tour rules official Slugger White has joined the company. White, who recently retired from a 40-year career working for the Tour, had led the Tour’s competitions department as vice president of rules and competitions since 1999. He was one of the most high-profile employees of the Tour, with fans getting to know his mustachioed face from numerous rules situations he adjudicated over the years, often with TV cameras following along.

White will take on the new role of vice president of rules and competition management, reporting to Chief Events Officer Ron Cross.

That bushy mustache and Panama hat became one of the stronger brand son Tour, and is quite the coup from Norman and the Saudis.  But the big takeaway is that the Saudis are staffing up as if they're in it for the long-haul.  I still don't like their chances, as Jay has many options to bribe his guys to stay loyal and there's that stigma in jumping into bed with the Saudis....  This is actually a spot where we could use one of those PointsBet odds graphics, whereby I would think that the Brits (the guys that want to do the very same thing but in cooperation with Ponte Vedra Beach) would be an interesting longshot bet as a white knight against the evil Saudis.  

One last bit, courtesy of Geoff, from an Australian source.   Asked to comment upon the various slush funds Jay has come up with, Norman made a pretty darn strong point:

“Isn’t that their fiduciary responsibility, to be doing that every year?” Norman asks. “Shouldn’t that be the precedent they set, rather than being reactionary to somebody else’s proposal? I shake my head because I’m just so perplexed about it all. I’ve been involved in golf for 40-plus years, and I think I’ve come up with some pretty good ideas based off a few observations. They’re not ‘Greg Norman’s observations’, they’re simply observations the sport should be seeing for itself.”

As those guys above noted, $50 million large just magically appears when Jay needs to buy his members' loyalty.

I'm now sufficiently depressed to start my weekend, and that's before checking the weather forecast.  Have a good one, dear readers, and I'll see you on Monday.