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When Rory McIlroy said last week he has no interest in joining the provocative Premier Golf League if it ever gets up and running, it was a body blow to a concept structured on star power.
McIlroy, as he does, offered telling insight into why he doesn’t want to leave the PGA Tour for a circuit that will be underpinned by money from Saudi Arabia among other sources, while requiring mandatory participation from the 48 players who might say yes.
Two words from McIlroy mattered the most.
“I’m out.”
McIlroy admitted that if everyone else he plays against were to make a different decision he would have to reconsider but that’s not likely to happen.
Not long after McIlroy’s comments, Andrew Gardiner, the British attorney behind the Premier Golf League, spoke publicly for the first time about his idea that is rippling the waters of professional golf.
Among the points Gardiner made are: He believes the professional golf model isn’t working; fans, in his opinion, would be drawn to team competition (the PGL would have 12 four-player teams) as well as individual competition; the league’s 18 events would be 54 holes with shotgun starts; 10 of the proposed 18 events would be played in the United States; and, he sees possible collaboration with the PGA Tour moving forward.
And, Gardiner indicated, this could begin in 2022.
Is professional golf broken?
No, but the tournaments last week and this week – the WGC-Mexico Championship and the Honda Classic – were left with fields lacking the star power they wanted. Only seven of the top 10 players in the world showed up in Mexico for the year’s first World Golf Championship event while the Honda has only one of the top 10 players committed despite the fact several of them live nearby.
Charley Hoffman is in his 15th season on the PGA Tour and while he’s not one of the players the Premier Golf League has in its sights, he has a keen sense of the moment.
Hoffman recently was voted by his peers to be chairman of the Player Advisory Council which meets with and advises PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, and is highly respected by other players. One said Hoffman would be a perfect successor to Monahan when he retires.
With a seat on the PGA Tour Policy Board beginning in 2021, Hoffman has influence and insight. He listens, he watches, he participates.
“ ... it’s great to hear guys like Rory, No. 1 in the world, say they’re probably going to pass on it. It makes the decision for everyone else a little bit easier to pass when you hear the best player in the world pass on it.”
charley hoffman
After a relatively quiet period, the PGA Tour is putting the finishing touches on what will be an extraordinarily lucrative new television package, is considering how to respond to the USGA/R&A distance report and is evaluating how serious a threat the proposed Premier Golf League may be. It’s a busy time outside the ropes.
While he hasn’t had a detailed conversation with Monahan about the proposed new league, Hoffman has been paying close attention, telling radio host Matt Adams last week he does not know if he would want to be “owned by some Saudi money.”
“No one is taking it lightly by any means, from the commissioner to the board to the players” Hoffman said from his San Diego home last week while taking a two-week break from competition. “It would be naïve as a player, as an independent contractor, not to look at it.
“I don’t think there’s a ton of traction. This is a personal opinion. You’d be dumb not to take it seriously.
“There’s an opportunity there. I think all the best players in the world are going to look at it, entertain it but as a PGA Tour member and on the board of the PGA Tour, it’s great to hear guys like Rory, No. 1 in the world, say they’re probably going to pass on it. It makes the decision for everyone else a little bit easier to pass when you hear the best player in the world pass on it.”
While McIlroy is the most prominent player to definitively declare his position, others have played coy. It seems highly unlikely that Tiger Woods would commit to an organization that requires 18 starts – with a substantial portion of them outside the United States – when he will be on the far side of 45 years old when it would begin.
Without Woods and McIlroy, a tough sell becomes tougher.
“It would be hard if both of them said yes,” Hoffman said. “You’d need the other (46) guys to say yes.
“You have to guarantee so many years of income because you’re not guaranteed to have a place back on the PGA Tour if it falls through after a year or two. I just don’t know where this money is going to come from. I don’t know why anybody would want to disturb the game of golf. But you would be naïve not to entertain it.”
Some players are keeping their intentions close to the vest. A handful of them reportedly attended a meeting with organizers during the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club. There’s no harm in listening.
Asked last week where he stood on the issue, Patrick Reed deflected the question, saying his team still was gathering information and he didn’t know enough to comment. Meanwhile, Dustin Johnson said plenty without saying much.
“I don’t really stand anywhere,” he said. “Right now I'm playing on the PGA Tour but a lot would have to happen for that to change.”
Unlike Major League Baseball, the National Football League and the National Basketball Association, the PGA Tour does not have a players’ union. It’s every player for himself, though the PGA Tour offers the richest purses, the most events, the most exposure, the best courses and a pension plan that’s said to be the envy of others.
The influx of money coming from the new television deal – it’s more than just which network will be showing the weekend rounds – is going to be enormous. Already, the Players Championship has bumped its purse to $15 million and it’s not likely to stop there.
That $15 million McIlroy won for capturing the FedEx Cup last year? It could double in the relatively near future.
Sitting in a tour meeting recently, Hoffman and Kevin Streelman were struck by the numbers being tossed around.
“Commissioner Monahan asked us what we thought,” Hoffman said. “Kevin and myself, we’re a little bit older fellas, and we said we need to go and practice because we’re going to be playing for a lot of money.”
At its heart, professional golf is about competition and that is what the proposed new league presents. The idea of getting the best players together more often is a good one and it rang loudly last week when that handful of top-10 players skipped the World Golf Championship event.
From the players’ perspective, this is an opportunity to use the leverage of the potential new league to their benefit. Whether it’s supplementing the winnings of the most marketable players, creating an expanded group of WGC-level events perhaps in conjunction with the European Tour or something else, things likely will change because of this initiative.
As for the PGA Tour, it’s starting from a position of power and it can enhance its position but it needs to be responsive to the players who drive the business. There are ways to make a good thing better.
“Golf’s not broken. It’s in an amazing spot,” Hoffman said. “If it opens up the PGA Tour’s eyes to doing something slightly different to improve our product so if this Premier Golf League doesn’t take off, it’s a great thing.”
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