The Zurich Classic of New Orleans, this sun-splashed, laid-back, buddy-buddy drive-through daiquiri shop of a sporting event, seems like a strange setting for a fight for survival. Unless, of course, you were part of the foursome that got stuck on the 17th hole Thursday because an alligator was crossing the tee box in front of them.
Pro tip: Always let alligators play through.
But beneath the smell of cold beer and chargrilled oysters wafting across the TPC Louisiana landscape, there is the whiff of urgency. One might even say desperation, as the venerable PGA Tour fights to hold its ground against the insurgency that is LIV Golf.
Come to think of it, the PGA Tour’s lone stop in a state fighting an eternal battle against coastal erosion could not be a more fitting week for the organization to unveil its latest and perhaps most impactful weapon in golf’s epic tug-of-war. That would be the PGA Tour’s long-awaited, much-discussed Players Equity Program.
Let me see if I can explain all this without making this column read like an income tax return:
LIV Golf started siphoning off star players from the PGA Tour two years ago — seven major champions among them, with huge signing bonuses and a tour that promised them no cuts and cut-off pants (Read: they can wear shorts, which as Jay Pritchett on “Modern Family” rightly said is the worst thing that ever happened to golf).
The PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabian’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), which is bankrolling the “we don’t make any money or have any TV ratings” LIV Golf tour, agreed to an investment deal of sorts in June. Soon after, however, the PGA Tour got $1.5 billion worth of capital from a domestic investment entity known as Strategic Sports Group. It is money from their investment that is funding a reported $930 million in initial payments to players who have stayed loyal to the PGA Tour.
According to The Associated Press, the alligator-sized share of that money, about $750 million, is going to just 36 of the PGA Tour’s biggest names, based on their career performance and star power. The Telegraph newspaper of London reported that Tiger Woods is to get $100 million, and Rory McIlroy, who shared the first-round lead here Thursday with Shane Lowry, is getting $50 million.
The guys getting the biggest bucks are the guys who stayed loyal to the PGA Tour and washed their hands of LIV Golf’s sportswashing money. The idea, and it’s a creative one, is to give them something of an ownership stake in the PGA Tour. The theory is they would be less likely to be enticed should LIV Golf throw more millions at them in the future, since the PGA Tour threw the first bag of gold bullion.
Will it be enough to make the PGA Tour loyalists feel validated? McIlroy was asked that very question here, and he had an interesting response.
“I think the one thing we’ve learned in golf over the last two years is, there’s never enough,” McIlroy said.
In 35 years of sportswriting, that may be the most honest quote I’ve ever come across.
Why does all this matter to the average beer-drinking, chargrilled-oyster-eating golf fan at the course this week or watching at home? Well, the future of tournaments like the Zurich is potentially at stake.
The more status quo for the PGA Tour, the more stability, the better chance for non-majors and non-elevated tournaments (elevated events offer $20 million purses, the Zurich $8.9 million) like this one to survive. The same for events like the John Deere Classic and the Houston Open and the Valspar Championship. And their survival is key to providing funding to countless local charities across the nation — charities like the ones funded by the Fore! Kids Foundation that runs the Zurich.
Even small ancillary events like the Children’s Hospital Celebrity Shootout on Tuesday, which included LSU coach Brian Kelly, promised thousands of dollars in donations to the charity of each group’s choice. Charities that would go scrambling for that money if the tournament wasn’t here.
A first glance at the Players Equity Program looks like yet another example of rich professional athletes getting richer. And it is. But there’s a greater ecosystem at play here that impacts localities from New Orleans to the Quad Cities to Tampa Bay.
Who knows what the future holds in terms of the PGA Tour finding unification or co-existence with LIV Golf. I suppose either reality will be a necessary evil.
If it’s all a bargain that keeps the tour swinging through places like New Orleans, grudgingly, one will have to say it’s worth the price.