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Saudi World Golf Tour 2022/2023 Thread

guitardeac said:
The PGA Tour is NOT keeping the players (independent contractors) from playing where they want. The players are free to go play LIV. Go play whatever tournaments you want on whatever tour you want. But you may lose your MEMBERSHIP to the PGA Tour. The PGA Tour has all sorts of requirements to play in their tournaments. You have to qualify to play the Tour through any number of avenues (Korn Ferry money list, etc), you have to maintain status through money list on Tour, and on and on. Yes the players are independent contractors and many of them want to be MEMBERS of the PGA Tour. They can make their choice to play wherever they want and the PGA Tour cant and isn't preventing it. The PGA Tour can prevent ANY player from playing THEIR tour if they don't meet certain requirements and obligations. The PGA Tour can damn sure do that - it is a membership organization.

Completely wrong of Greg Norman and anyone who says the PGA Tour is preventing these independent contractors from playing other tours. Go! Go play! Have fun! But you just can't play OUR PGA Tour and they have every right to suspend or renounce a player's membership. I can't believe that someone would even make the argument that the Tour is preventing players from playing the LIV.
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DJ and Gooch really the only players that matter on the field list. Hudson Swafford, meh. Maybe Oosty but other than that it's guys mainstream fans have never heard of or guys on the decline of their careers (westwood, poulter)

Oh yeah and if this means no more kevin na on the pga tour, then awesome
 
will be interesting to see who comes on board for the other LIV events. When someone like Richard Bland wins $4 million it might give the many players better than him pause on where they are playing.
 
Lol at Chase Koepka, but when some fringe PGA guys see this dude getting a bag to play in the LIV events they might want to jump if a spot is offered.

The most interesting participants, imo, are the Ogletree, Pettit, Piot contingent. If LIV wants to actually build something their efforts are probably best spent targeting these kind of players out of college. So many Am and NCAA winners flame out and never make it on the tour, so throw guaranteed money at them from the jump knowing that while some might still fizzle out you can probably lock in some star potential. When faced with guaranteed money vs. grinding it out on KF or going through Q school, a lot of kids fresh out of school would probably jump at the money.
 
Talor Gooch is the biggest surprise to me.

Everyone else, including DJ, are on the downside of their career, but has made a ton of money and can handle a suspension or even a lifetime ban from the tour. Gooch is 30; he has many years as a PGA player ahead of him. Maybe the LIV takes off, but maybe it craters after the year, and what is Gooch left with?

PGA is not going to just let his go. They will ban Gooch, Na, DJ, Oostie... everyone else and a lawsuit will follow. An early tell about the direction of this is whether the players will be able to play in PGA events while the suit proceeds (via injunctive relief) as the suit will take a while to resolve.
 
I know we focus on the US players (for obvious reasons) and the effect of LIV on the PGA Tour, but LIV is very likely to completely decimate the Euro (DP World) tour. Euros are more likely to want a more world based tour. Euros have to leave home to set up shop in the US to play the PGA tour. Could be the beginning of the end for them.
 
The worst case scenario for the PGA tour is, after Kevin Na wins more money in one tournament than almost anyone on the Tour has made this year, this causes more PGA player jump to the LIV for the remaining tournaments. Losing DJ, and handful of aging players, isn't that big of a deal, but if enough good players jump, the PGA loses its leverage.
 
Pilchard said:
The worst case scenario for the PGA tour is, after Kevin Na wins more money in one tournament than almost anyone on the Tour has made this year, this causes more PGA player jump to the LIV for the remaining tournaments. Losing DJ, and handful of aging players, isn't that big of a deal, but if enough good players jump, the PGA loses its leverage.
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This was exactly Norman’s prediction. He said it didn’t matter who first joined. The tour has more money than the PGA tour ever will, and soon as good tour players start seeing crappy players make millions week in and week out (with no cut), it would only be a matter of time before they all start jumping ship.
 
guitardeac said:
The PGA Tour is NOT keeping the players (independent contractors) from playing where they want. The players are free to go play LIV. Go play whatever tournaments you want on whatever tour you want. But you may lose your MEMBERSHIP to the PGA Tour. The PGA Tour has all sorts of requirements to play in their tournaments. You have to qualify to play the Tour through any number of avenues (Korn Ferry money list, etc), you have to maintain status through money list on Tour, and on and on. Yes the players are independent contractors and many of them want to be MEMBERS of the PGA Tour. They can make their choice to play wherever they want and the PGA Tour cant and isn't preventing it. The PGA Tour can prevent ANY player from playing THEIR tour if they don't meet certain requirements and obligations. The PGA Tour can damn sure do that - it is a membership organization.

Completely wrong of Greg Norman and anyone who says the PGA Tour is preventing these independent contractors from playing other tours. Go! Go play! Have fun! But you just can't play OUR PGA Tour and they have every right to suspend or renounce a player's membership. I can't believe that someone would even make the argument that the Tour is preventing players from playing the LIV.
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Restricting membership based upon what other tours pay you is going to be a very difficult hurdle to overcome, in my opinion. I guess we’ll all find out in due time.
 
Pilchard said:
Talor Gooch is the biggest surprise to me.

Everyone else, including DJ, are on the downside of their career, but has made a ton of money and can handle a suspension or even a lifetime ban from the tour. Gooch is 30; he has many years as a PGA player ahead of him. Maybe the LIV takes off, but maybe it craters after the year, and what is Gooch left with?

PGA is not going to just let his go. They will ban Gooch, Na, DJ, Oostie... everyone else and a lawsuit will follow. An early tell about the direction of this is whether the players will be able to play in PGA events while the suit proceeds (via injunctive relief) as the suit will take a while to resolve.
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I agree about Gooch but disagree about DJ. Dude is still in his prime and won the Masters 18 months ago. Now he's forfeiting his ability to play in majors, RCs and PCs over the next few years. He's by far the biggest sellout in this group. Kinda disappointed about Na, just because he's a career journeyman who has been playing the best golf of his career over the last 2 years, but still, that's no big loss. Makes sense for has beens like Sergio and Westwood. Also makes sense for Oosthuizen because his back problems have gotten worse the last year or so - now he can make more $$ on a reduced schedule.

And I agree with Damo that the LIV will hurt the DP way more than the PGA. Schwartzel, Grace, Horsefield, Larrazabal, Otaegui, Bland, Bekker and Wiesberger are all regulars on the scoreboards of the DP. The LIV wouldn't have had any interest in Bland before the last year, so I feel good for a guy like that who will now cash in. As opposed to a guy like Horsefield, who has been a rising young star on the DP. I doubt the PGA purses will go down, and I really hope the DP purses don't go down. The Rolex series tourneys have payouts similar to the PGA, but a lot of purses for the other events are closer to LPGA purses, even though many of them are played on great tracks.

I think the big question now is how willing are the Saudis going to be to continue funding tourneys that will have huge losses because the gate and TV money won't be anywhere close to paying for the cost of running these tourneys. I'm thinking most corporate sponsors will be very leery of paying for TV ads on an unpopular tour. Judging from the comment sections on some of the youtube videos I've seen, I'm guessing the folks who will be watching the LIV more than the other tours will be MAGA types, so I guess the corporate sponsors will end up being businesses like Chickfila, Dominoes and My Pillow.
 
Don't think anyone playing in LIV events are forfeiting their chance to play in majors:

- The Masters works with the PGA Tour on scheduling, but it is not a PGA Tour event
- US Open is run by the USGA
- The Open Championship is run the R&A
- Not positive, but even the PGA Championship is a separate event run by the PGA of America

The PGA Tour collaborates with those organizations, but is a separate entity; that's why those events negotiate separate TV contracts, as opposed to typical PGA Tour events which are negotiated together. They run the rank and file PGA events during the season the biggest being the The Players Championship at Sawgrass and the Tour Championship.

Don't think anyone expects the USGA, R&A, Masters or even the PGA of America to exclude players from their events who otherwise qualify. That said, over time not playing on the PGA Tour may limit a players ability to qualify for majors unless those organizations recognize the results of LIV events as qualifying them for majors.
 
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Les Grossman said:
Restricting membership based upon what other tours pay you is going to be a very difficult hurdle to overcome, in my opinion. I guess we’ll all find out in due time.
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Players bailing on PGA Tour events to play another tour affects the event PGA Tour event they're skipping. It hurts the event's ability to earn and the local economy's ability to earn and it hurts the charities involved. That's what the Tour players signed up for when they became members - to be a part of an organization via membership to further those goals and in return, the player is paid well based on his performance. The player also receives the benefits of the best and most lucrative pension program in all of sports. The PGA Tour has every right to prevent a member from straddling that and another tour.

I think it was Mark Twain that said "The man who has one foot in boiling water and the other in freezing water is, on the average, comfortable".
 
Pilchard said:
Don't think anyone playing in LIV events are forfeiting their chance to play in majors:

- The Masters works with the PGA Tour on scheduling, but it is not a PGA Tour event
- US Open is run by the USGA
- The Open Championship is run the R&A
- Not positive, but even the PGA Championship is a separate event run by the PGA of America

The PGA Tour collaborates with those organizations, but is a separate entity; that's why those events negotiate separate TV contracts, as opposed to typical PGA Tour events which are negotiated together. They run the rank and file PGA events during the season the biggest being the The Players Championship at Sawgrass and the Tour Championship.

Don't think anyone expects the USGA, R&A, Masters or even the PGA of America to exclude players from their events who otherwise qualify. That said, over time not playing on the PGA Tour may limit a players ability to qualify for majors unless those organizations recognize the results of LIV events as qualifying them for majors.
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True, but most of the qualifiers of those events qualify based on their relative success in PGA Tour events and events that qualify for world ranking points. LIV players will lose the former and likely the latter.

Edited to add: I see you said similar in your last sentence.
 
guitardeac said:
Players bailing on PGA Tour events to play another tour affects the event PGA Tour event they're skipping. It hurts the event's ability to earn and the local economy's ability to earn and it hurts the charities involved. That's what the Tour players signed up for when they became members - to be a part of an organization via membership to further those goals and in return, the player is paid well based on his performance. The player also receives the benefits of the best and most lucrative pension program in all of sports. The PGA Tour has every right to prevent a member from straddling that and another tour.

I think it was Mark Twain that said "The man who has one foot in boiling water and the other in freezing water is, on the average, comfortable".
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Yes, but players are allowed to play in other events and for other tours. They do not have a blanket ban of membership if you play in X tour. If a player was not playing in enough PGA tour events because they were too busy playing on the LIV tour, then I get your point. But, they’re excluding people from becoming members based solely on that factor. That’s the legal issue. I happen to think they’re on the wrong side of it. Having said that, I think they’re smart to issue the ban now and hope it’s enough to snuff the LIV tour out of existence. The problem is the Saudi Fund has around 600B under management. So, I think the LIV tour can continue for as long as the Saudis want it to.
 
Wouldn't be surprised to see DJ and Gooch to pull out before the first tournament once the PGA Tour makes the consequences known. I really have no idea what lawsuit would have any legs here - it's awful media coverage to keep repeating the idea that the PGA Tour is preventing these guys from playing. LIV has expressly said they want to compete with the PGA Tour. Nobody is stopping anyone from playing on either tour. But if they want to ban them, drop their status, eliminate exemptions and make them Monday qualify - there's no way a court is going to step in and dictate how they run their business at that level. Players already had to request permission for non-tour events and were only allowed a few each year - nobody's winning a lawsuit over this.

And the money is good, probably double or triple depending on how you look at it - but this is an absolute cash grab to start with the shakiest of backers behind it. $4M to first, $120k to last plus some team nonsense - Na has made around $1.7M in straight winnings plus plenty more in benefits and sponsors. Yeah, if he wins it's huge, but middle of the pack isn't changing his life much money-wise. I get it for the old Euro guys - they've been playing the Race for Dubai and all over the Middle East for years. The Euro/DP tour pays out like a third of the PGA Tour. They already have to let their stars play on the PGA Tour because they're 2nd fiddle. It's not much of a stretch. And I get it for young guys without status comparing it to a potential grind through the Korn Ferry.

But if just a couple big names like DJ and Gooch reconsider, the first tourney gets nearly zero public interest and the whole shotgun start short course nonsense falls flat... The Saudis are really going to keep paying a bunch of nobody's and old farts transitioning to the senior tour $50M+ for a trash product? And when cracks start to show and questions about actual payouts start popping up, the PGA will probably push out a one-time forgiveness offer or something... Plus they'll keep raising their prize money, social media race cash, sponsor races, FedEx Cup payouts, the incredible quasi-pension for the players - I just don't believe they will keep throwing money at this long enough to make it anything more than a short-term cash grab.

Stranger things have happened, but I think they needed more than just DJ and a couple "oh yeah that guy" defectors to have any chance, and they didn't get there.
 
yes on all that DCDeac. Good post.

And I dont understand what the hell DJ is doing. To be honest, it smells of financial problems for him. He has nothing to gain from a golf and career standpoint by doing this, and he damn sure shouldn't care about the money but for some reason he sure seems to. It looks like a desperate cash grab to me, not just a cash grab.
 
guitardeac said:
yes on all that DCDeac. Good post.

And I dont understand what the hell DJ is doing. To be honest, it smells of financial problems for him. He has nothing to gain from a golf and career standpoint by doing this, and he damn sure shouldn't care about the money but for some reason he sure seems to. It looks like a desperate cash grab to me, not just a cash grab.
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$150 million is what DJ is doing (allegedly)

edit: looks like $125 M being reported
 
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if the Saudis have all of this money to throw at this, they should buy a tv station and show a ton of golf shots and put on a great tv product without the PGA commercial load and then we're talking. But instead their stuck to youtube like all of the other golf content creators
 
Knowing DJ it's just as likely that he simply has no idea what any of this means so his agent - with eyes on the easiest $4M payday he'll ever get a piece of - figured let's just see what happens...
(edit: ah, yeah, didn't see the $125M payment just to join the LIV tour. Ok then...)

Looking at the standings, Gooch is easily the most insane of the entrants. He is 10th in the FedEx cup. He could win a major and one of the finals events and win $17M outright plus another $1M in pension funds. You have to assume that short of any ban or whatever that things like the social media cash, fedex points, and all that will be forfeited at a minimum. That'd be really crazy.
 
DeacHawk said:
$150 million is what DJ is doing (allegedly)

edit: looks like $125 M being reported
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Well don't I look stupid.

I'd guess DJ is being advised to take the $125MM and roll the dice the lawsuit wins or the PGA Tour backs down and he gets both the $125MM and the ability to play both tours. Hell, that might be the way I would play it myself.
 
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