Can something work in golf that has failed in football, at least for the time being?
Two projects, the British Premier Golf League (PGL) and the Super Golf League (SGL) financed by Saudi Arabia, want to redesign professional golf with tournament series for the male elite.
The head of the World Golf Group, former investment banker Andy Gardiner, announced the exact plans for the Premier Golf League in an interview with the BBC earlier this week.
The top 48 in the world rankings will compete in a total of 18 tournaments from the beginning of January 2023, twelve of them in the United States, the others in the rest of the world.
Forty million dollars in prize money are to be distributed at each tournament, with the winner receiving four million.
For comparison: The highest prize money on the PGA Tour in the Players Championship is 15 million (2.7 million for the winner).
Gardiner is convinced that, in talks with the “golf community”, he will realize his project, which aims to maintain the status of the four majors and the Ryder Cup as the highlights of the season.
However, the Brit had to admit that there have been no negotiations with the PGA Tour yet.
$ 30 and 50 million a year
Twenty years ago, former world number one Greg Norman tried in vain to set up a Premier Golf League or a World Tour.
Even today, the Australian is said to be one of the advisors to the Super Golf League.
But this time the 66-year-old "Great White Shark" believes in the success of the new series.
Mainly because it is backed by Saudi Arabia, or more precisely the Saudi State Fund.
In order to make this new series attractive to world stars, professionals such as the Americans Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas are to be rewarded for their participation with sums of between 30 and 50 million dollars per year.
Phil Mickelson is said to have been offered an annual salary of a hundred million dollars.
Commissioner Jay Monahan, the head of the PGA Tour, threatened anyone who registers for a new series of tournaments with a lifetime ban on all PGA Tour tournaments. Seth Waugh, head of the PGA of America, which not only organizes the PGA Championship but also owns the Ryder Cup rights together with the European Tour, also supports Monahan: “If you want to play for Team USA in the Ryder Cup, you have to be a member be the PGA of America - and that's what you are as a member of the PGA Tour. I think Europeans think the same way. "
That means whoever plays in the SGL or PGA is no longer allowed to compete in the Ryder Cup.
The European Tour, which was supported by the PGA Tour with 90 million dollars and concluded a “strategic alliance” with it, wants to act in the same way.
The PGA Tour is also trying to keep the big names even closer with the Player Impact Program, which will end the year distributing $ 40 million to the ten players who attract the most fans.
"Moneymaking"
Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy, chairman of the Player Advisory Council of the PGA Tour, rejects the new series: “Everyone can see that this is pure moneymaking.
That's okay if you're only playing golf to make money.
I play golf to cement my place in golf history, to win majors and the big tournaments.
That is why I am very firmly against SGL.
And I can't see that anyone is for it. "
The American Brooks Koepka was also negative, other stars are more relaxed about the matter.
"I think that the fans would love the SGL, then they would see the top players a lot more, maybe twenty instead of just four times with the majors," said Mickelson.
Before the start of the PGA Championship, managers of several top stars met with lawyers from the Super League in a villa on Kiawah Island, and a manager of the Saudi state fund was also connected via video. Despite the headwind from the PGA Tour and some stars, those responsible at SGL and Gardiner's PGA want to continue trying to attract players to the Super Golf League. Both believe that a ban on the PGA or European Tour will be overturned in court as it unlawfully restricts freedom of practice.
Because a tournament series under Saudi Arabian control fits perfectly into the tactics with which the strictly Muslim kingdom is trying to improve its image. A European Tour tournament has been taking place at the Royal Greens Golf and Country Club in the King Abdullah Economic City in Saudi Arabia since 2019, one that officially distributes $ 3.5 million in prize money and attracts stars from America with high entry fees.
World number one Dustin Johnson won the tournament in 2019 and 2021, and other fan favorites such as DeChambeau and Mickelson accepted the invitation. The Ladies European Tour (LET), which has long been fighting for survival, is also happy that the country, where women hardly enjoy any rights, is attracting the best female LET professionals to the country. This year, two million dollar tournaments will take place at the Royal Greens Golf & Country Club at the beginning of November.
By broadcasting the professional tournaments on TV, Saudi Arabia also wants to establish itself as a golf destination. Here, too, the country has big plans with 5,000 registered golfers, including only 200 Saudi citizens. By 2030, the offer for tourists is to be expanded from five to 13 places - and here, too, only playgrounds designed by world-famous names. One of them, the South African golf legend Gary Player, has served Saudi Golf as an “ambassador” since the beginning of April - well endowed, of course.