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When new information about the Premier Golf League surfaced last week, my mind went back a few centuries to lessons in English history at school. Thanks to Shakespeare, I remembered what in the late 12th century Henry II is supposed to have said in a moment of frustration during his long quarrel with Thomas A Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Clue: It wasn’t to do with golf. The king wanted certain royal interests, probably concerning money and land but also the punishment of sinning clerics, to remain within his jurisdiction whereas Becket did not. It takes no great imagination to summon a mental image of Henry II in a right royal huff crying out: “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”
Reading that the Premier Golf League had come back at some of the game’s elite professionals with significantly increased money offers to join their breakaway organisation, I sighed and thought: “Will no one rid me of this turbulent lot?”
The PGL, or Super Golf League, seeks to set up a breakaway group of elite golfers – 48 is the suggested number – who would play between 12 and 18 team and individual competitions over three days around the world. The aim is to start late next year. To lure the players into giving up much of the independence they now have, as much as $100 million for each player is said to be on offer in a deal financed by money from Saudi Arabia. This is more money than many a sheikh could shake a stick at.
Players have a financial duty to themselves and their families to earn as much as they can. The SGL is offering huge amounts of it, which is part of the appeal of the SGL, and a point conceded by Rory McIlroy, the recently elected chairman of the PGA Tour’s player advisory council, an important position in the professional game, who is emerging as one of the soundest voices among the current players.
“This is a money grab,” McIlroy said. “That’s fine if what you are playing golf for is to make as much money as possible. Go and do that if it makes you happy. I am playing the game to cement my place in history ... and to win major championships.”
Justin Thomas has similar sentiments. “I am about being No 1 in the world and winning as many majors as I can ... and doing historical things on the PGA Tour. If I was to do that (join the SGL) then all those things would go down the drain.”
“The top 12 (football) clubs got together and said: ‘Let’s keep more of the money for ourselves’ and people didn’t like it. It affects the integrity of the competition.”
RORY McILROY
Another way of looking at it and the inevitable repercussions it would bring is that the SGL wants to dismantle the current structure of the professional game. But there are many ways in which the old game is doing just fine, thank you very much, without the injection of money from a country that has a cavalier approach to the rather important matter of a person’s life and death.
“Golf has been very good to me over the years ... ” McIlroy continued. “I honestly don’t think there is a better structure in place in golf and I don’t think there will be. I am very much against the plan. I don’t see why anyone would be for it.”
Like McIlroy, I like golf as it is. I like the game’s rhythm. I like the concept of four major championships being the yardstick by which golfers are judged. It is the way it is in tennis. What counts in that game is that Roger Federer has won 20 grand slam tournaments. Andy Murray is Britain’s greatest-ever tennis player, outstanding as a player, admirable as a person. His three grand slam titles make him to Federer as Pádraig Harrington, Open champion in 2007 and 2008 and winner of the 2007 PGA championship, is to Jack Nicklaus.
I like the raucous atmosphere of the Ryder Cup and the genteel enthusiasm for the Walker Cup. I like the distinctive British feel of the Open, the soft southern hospitality of the Masters, the rigorous test that is the US Open and the high quality fields attracted to the PGA Championship.
All these might be changed if the SGL comes into existence. The PGA Tour has threatened players who leave it with expulsion, a move endorsed by the European Tour and hinted at by the R&A, Augusta National and the PGA of America though some legal experts might describe this as a restraint of trade. Not competing on the PGA Tour nor the European Tour? How will you play in those stellar tour events at Bay Hill or Pebble Beach, Wentworth or St Andrews? Perhaps you will be ineligible for the Ryder Cup? Would you like that? You might be seen to be a pariah.
The PGA Tour recently introduced a further bulwark against advances by the SGL. The Player Impact Programme offers $40 million annually to the 10 most influential players. For certain players this is more money for being themselves, attractive to fans, players who move the needle. Lucky them.
At present golfers are free agents subject to the rules of the various tours and their freedom is often referred to and much coveted. In return for the huge amount of money the players are being offered to join the SGL, they will be expected to play every event.
“To give up control of your schedule is a big deal,” Phil Mickelson said. “I don’t know if the players would be selfless enough to do that.”
But then Mickelson added an important point: “Every other sport, the entity or teams or leagues control the schedule whereas here we’re able to control it.”
In all this there is an echo of the recent attempt to elevate some of the leading football clubs in Europe into what was known as a European Super League. At heart, that was a flagrant bid to generate huge sums of money for the club’s owners, some of which presumably would drip down to the players. Within hours of this announcement being made public fans were registering their protest at the deal and within days one of the most ill thought out sporting ventures was dead in the water.
“We kind of missed the point,” admitted Jamie Dimon, the boss of JP Morgan, the huge American investment bank that backed the ESL.
“The top 12 (football) clubs got together and said: ‘Let’s keep more of the money for ourselves’ and people didn’t like it,” McIlroy said. “It affects the integrity of the competition.”
With those seven words, McIlroy nailed the recent football fiasco as he sometimes does one of his drives. Apply the meaning of those words here. Does what the SGL is offering affect the integrity of golf or not? That is the question that has to be answered and there will be many who think in its current iteration it does.
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