I stand by the vast majority of what I've stated. But you are right about commenting on Feherty's past issues with alcohol, I should not have said that. That's crossing the line and I apologize.

I stand by my opinion of the aforementioned wives, I'd feel that way regardless of what their husband's did.

I definitely do not think the LIV is golf at the highest level. It's only 48 players, over half of whom are way down the OWGR, and it's only 54 holes with a contrived team aspect. I'd be curious to see the total field ranking of the Portland event compared to the Barbasol. One could hand calculate that, someone probably has, but I'm not going to.

have you looked at data from, say, 2017 to current day?
2020 was great for golf after lockdowns eased, rounds were up ~5% from 2019 even though many courses were closed for extended periods of time.
that's roughly 20 million rounds or so.
2021 was even better with the number of rounds ~18% better than the three year average from 2017-2019.
2022 rounds so far are down ~9% from last year, but being down 9% from a year that was 18% better than a several year average is still coming out ahead.

2020 was great for golf. i know several people who were finally able to get their kids to play because their other sports, like baseball/softball, were shut down. many of those kids are still playing and it's easy to see how that could be the same across the country

honestly, the pga guys should be very happy about LIV

the pga is supposed to be a non profit organization meant strictly to administer and run the organization on behalf of the players

but they consume 45% of the revenue

PGA golfers get 55% of revenue

compare that to 62% for MLB

straight 50/50 split in the nba & nfl

mind you though that those leagues are for profit and each team has thousands of employees, medical coverage, stadiums, travel, etc

in the pga, all golfers have to cover everything themselves from paying their caddy to getting coaching to their flights and hotel fees

so the pga doesn't really provide them with much at all, nor do they invest in developing the next generation like other sports do - in pga it's everyone for themselves sink or swim and a lot of the people on the fringes really stuggle

when i read about garrigus' battles with addiction, the most eye opening thing wasn't him sneaking off to portapotties to get high on the course but rather that he, a pga tour professional, had multiple roommates - not friends, but roommates, people he found on craigslist to lower his costs of living

PGA does not take care of their golfers, has almost no overhead, and their revenue is all highly efficient as it's all from tv and sponsorships

just insane they only distribute 55% of the total revenue to players, i'm not accusing them of thieving as there's no evidence of that to my knowledge, but it's clearly a horribly mismanaged organization and the players have every right to leave and get what they are actually worth

Yes, more people were playing because it was the safest and one of the only sports to play during a global pandemic. Not because the PGA was attracting young people to the game. A bunch of athletes aren't picking up golf because they want to be the next Tiger Woods. The average age for a PGA tour fan is 64.

It's insane that someone could achieve their life long goal of making the PGA tour, have a bad 4-6 month stretch of golf and end the year losing money.

A few tidbits about what PGA Tour members receive.

-Ability to call the tour office who then makes flight arrangements. Last I heard the price per segment was $250.

-I think the tour office can also deal with hotel arrangements, no clue as to the cost if any.

-Courtesy car, supplied at no charge at each event.

-Fitness trailer, access to everything each week at no charge. This used to be a nothing, now it's perhaps the most important on site perk.

-Tour vans, access to all necessary club building/repair needs at no charge. If you ever have the chance to go inside one I highly recommend it.

-Food and drink at the club all week at no charge.

Of course many of the players have agents/managers that take care of all arrangements. It should also be noted that caddies have access to some of these perks as well.

Overall perks.

Insurance. I'm not 100% positive but pretty sure health insurance is included with a tour membership. I know you have to pay a small fee for insurance to enter a qualifier.

Unlimited access to all TPC courses throughout the country.

The biggie however is the PGA Tour Pension Fund. It is massive and veterans don't have to worry about anything after their playing days are over. It's basically calculated on number of events played. This is the one most are unaware of and by far the most important perk.

Obviously I have no idea about whether or not the pension fund is included in the 55% figure mentioned above.

Just some fodder to add to the discussion.

Not possible these days with various sponsors that any player with a PGA Tour card can get. Was certainly possible pre-Tiger.

Lol is that suppose to be good? It's embarrassing.

Other sports have team planes, the Ritz Carlton and 5-7 figure cheques despositing into their bank accounts every 2 weeks whether they are playing well or not.

Sure it is, they talked about it on a subpar podcast I recently listened to. The guy went 2/17 or something cuts made and finished the year in red.

The one thing I was curious about was the fact that the PGA is creating new events and bigger paydays. When asked were this money is coming from the reply was "The Reserve"

Id be curious what the amount in the reserve is?

Also lets not forget all the charities that benefit big time from local events


One other note. I get why players going for the cash but if Henrick Stenson goes that I have little respect for he committed to being a Ryder Cup Captain follow through on that

I tend to agree that the PGA Tour was subsidizing a lot of administration, minor league tours, etc. I actually thought the PGL proposal as a bolt-on to the Tour could have been interesting and may have worked.

LIV seems like it was thrown together last minute almost like they weren't sure it was actually going to happen. There is literally not one thing that interests me in watching a LIV event. Not least of which is the laughable quality of the fields. The addition of Orange Man as a cheerleader for this nonsense is so on brand. What a collection of carnival barkers and misfit toys this "tour" is. Just laughable.

All that said the Tour really dropped the ball on this thing. They seemed to put their collective heads in the sand and figured it would all blow over...or something.

T

Why? Ryder Cup Captain is an honor/lifetime achievement reward. He decided that a better opportunity came along. I get the disrespect to the event, but he didn't decide to ban LIV participants.

I'm sure someone else can fill in, make a few picks, give a speech or two and draw names out of a hat...sure Captain does a bit more, but it's not like a manager spending months implementing a strategy just to piss off after asking for signings, etc.

Its official:

I think the biggest thing wrong with the response to Liv is that it is a Saudi venture. Any "respectable" entity would not be getting this pushback. I personally don't love Emirates logos on soccer jerseys, but how is that worse than Coco-Cola? In fact, if it were anyone but Saudi, it may even get some support. It is all hypocritical.

The Saudis bone-sawed a guy, that's a tragedy—anything the Emiratis may have done sounds more like just a statistic.

I'm amazed at how everyone is suddenly crying over how bad PGA Tour players have it. In 2021, the #124 guy on the PGA money list was a guy named Tyler McCumber. He made 10 cuts total out of 25 events, with no wins. He made a little over $1 million.

Poor Tyler McCumber, he deserves $10 million guaranteed Saudi money just because!

https://golf.com/lifestyle/how-much-...players-spend/

fairly extravagant at 1.88-2.08 million for the year in operating costs, given that most pga pros don't earn that much we know this is more for the morikawas and not the mccumbers of the tour

so let's make it a bit more bare boned

https://eatsleepgolfrepeat.com/golf-...f-so-how-much/

this has the bare minimum costs of 110k

so mccumber has taxes
gives 140k of that to his caddie (15 missed cuts = $37,500 and then 10% of prize money)
and then goes extremely cheap, skimps on everything and scrapes by with 110k in expenses

there goes 1/4th of his income on the year as a floor and this is not even accounting for taxes

came across this which is old but interesting

Bryson Dechambeau spoke sbout this last year.

https://www.golfwrx.com/662136/bryso...-loss-on-tour/

I mean even if he "only" nets 500k, that is a very good income for a guy who makes 10 cuts and was #124 on the money list.

Is the PGA supposed to charter private jets for them and their caddies and pay all expenses? You can't compare them to the Saudis who have unlimited money. And you can't compare them to the NBA, NFL, or MLB because their revenue is not as large as those leagues and they are not as popular.

The Saudi money is messing with everyone's expectations of what PGA players "should" make. But it isn't real. It's funny money. You can't compare it to anything. PGA players do very very well. I'm not even including equipment deals, endorsements, etc.

Someone mentioned the reserve fund which is paying for increased purses next year. This fund helped keep the Tour going during Covid, even with no fans. That's why you need a reserve. Saudis don't need a reserve of course, since their money is almost unlimited.

I mean he himself says the top 125 have a great life on tour. Not great enough, once Saudi money is thrown at you I guess.

Here's a question... for a sport with far lower ratings and far fewer fans than the NFL, MLB, and NBA... how much should, say, the 200th best player be making? For that matter how much should the 200th best pro tennis player be making, or the 200th best WNBA player?

By comparison, the 200th best player on the Liv Tour would make exactly $0.

golf fans are valuable advertising targets though

it's why despite that there's very few yacht owners as a general subset of the population, there are literally dozens of magazines specifically for them

I'm not familiar enough with those leagues contracts to compare. But the NHL I am guessing is close or smaller than the PGA tour, on a entry level contract the minimum salary is 750k/year. That's with travel, hotels, trainers, meals provided. There's zero reason an athlete should make it to the top of their sport as a professional and be in a position to lose money.

True but I assume advertising revenues are already incorporated into the PGA television deal, and are already included in their overall revenues. Bottom line is that pro golf does not make the same money as the NFL or NBA, not even close. So to look at NBA salaries and assume golfers should be making similar money, is way off. The money is just not there.

On the flip side, unlike the NFL or NBA, these guys can play into their 50s and later (Bernhard Langer is still making millions a year). They also have a fantastic pension as stated earlier.

Why are we trying to compare golf, an individual sport, to team sports? That makes no sense to me as the models are completely different. Why not compare it to other individual sports such as tennis or bowling?