The PGA Tour likes to tell us that what differentiates its tour from other major sports is the guaranteed contract. While players in professional baseball, football, basketball and hockey have contracts that pay them regardless of performance, golfers tee it up on January 1 of each year with no guaranteed income.
Maybe 10 years ago, but not now.
The tour’s signature events, with $20 million purses, small fields, no cuts and elevated points, have created a guaranteed-money arrangement for its FedEx Cup top 50. Patrick Cantlay, Justin Thomas and Russell Henley are in the top 50 even though they haven’t won since 2022. Adam Scott is in the top 50, and he hasn’t won since 2020.
Twelve players in the top 50 did not win in 2024. Denny McCarthy, Cameron Young and Max Greyserman are in the top 50. They have never won.
To me, that’s guaranteed money.
But true to its word, the rest of the PGA Tour players start the year with $0. That group includes the 11 players who won in 2024 but are on the outside looking in.
Charlie Jurgonis
Fairfax, Virginia
Mike Nixon has it perfectly correct, both with LIV’s unsustainable model and the signature events on the PGA Tour (“It’s Your Honor,” October 28 GGP).
The approach should be to let LIV die, and more equitable distribution of large purses on the PGA Tour to attract fans and build the brand of younger players and of the tour itself.
LIV was an unsustainable model from the start, unless it could have really breached the PGA Tour’s hold on professional golf. With the European Tour, the Asian Tour and the PGA Tour, golf has a feeder system to develop high-quality talent and personalities. LIV’s attempt to siphon off the top with large cash payments just wasn’t going to work unless the PGA Tour caved. It hasn’t, and it shouldn’t.
Let Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund waste millions or billions more. In the end, it will die of its own arrogance.
And the TGL team names are much better thought-out than the junk names on LIV!
Jackson Barrett
Skillman, New Jersey
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