Reduce the fields in golf tournaments?

[Blonde Line Lizard]

13 minutes ago, smashdn said:

 

Worth and incentive are two different discussions.  I read Horschel's comments to mean the money is not incentivizing guys to work harder to win, not that they were not worth what they were taking home.  Two different things.

I agree.  Why should someone bust their Word not allowed to try and win a tournament when finishing 5-10 each tournament pays decently enough to live comfortably?

[tacklingdummy]

1 hour ago, kasting333 said:

And he made 17 cuts. This is professional sports. $1M is peanuts for an entire season

 

Yeah, 1M is not much after taxes and expenses of caddies, travel, etc. Interesting info that Mickelson brought up in a podcast was that PGA tour players make only 26% of the revenue of the PGA tour while the NFL and NBA players make 55% of the the revenue of those leagues.

[Titleist99]

Billy Hos comment makes zero sense to me when you're advocating taking jobs away. Some golfers think small, a million bucks is peanut as far as big time sports is concerned. IMO

Revenue has to be generated: Baseball 162 games, Basketball 82 games, golf 47 tournaments, etc...Try taking away some of those revenue generating games and you' have a problem on your hands.

Billy want the lower ranked player to go back to having two jobs or selling insurance. Hey Billy, there's plenty of TV money to go around......Don't squander the leverage that the players have now (Thanks Tiger Woods). If golf wasn't lucrative the Saudis wouldn't want a piece of it......JMO

 

**All Pro golfers deserve more $$$....Add to the total Purses, don't subtract players.....they all grind hard even #125.

Edited November 17, 2021 by Titleist99

[kasting333]

23 minutes ago, smashdn said:

 

Worth and incentive are two different discussions.  I read Horschel's comments to mean the money is not incentivizing guys to work harder to win, not that they were not worth what they were taking home.  Two different things.

My post was in response to the Roger Sloan discussion in this thread. 
 

Why isn’t it a good thing that money is not the main incentive for top pros? They are trying to win majors and achieve greater goals than just paying bills. If there’s any issue it’s that these players are paid too little. Easy solution, juice up the purses and the top guys will win more. 
 

The PGA Tour won’t be able to manufacture an event or points race that’s going to matter close to as much these player’s life long goal to win a major. 

[bobfoster]

1 hour ago, kasting333 said:

Roger Sloan finished 96th on the FedEx and made $1,107,623

 

MLB 96th paid: Wade Miley- Cubs $10,000,000 

 

NFL 96th paid: Darius Slay- Eagles $14,050,000

 

Granted both are bigger sports, but neither are household names that get people to watch and make 10x (without the expenses of a tour pro).
 

Let’s stop pretending $1M is a ridiculous amount of money and these guys aren’t worth it. 

 

But you can't really compare "independent contractor" sports like golf and tennis with team sports like MLB or the NFL. The funding models are completely different. 

 

And the numbers are completely different. MLB has around 1,000 players. The NFL has around 1,700 players. 175 players have PGA Tour cards (125 + exemptions). So 96th from the top in MLB/NFL is definitely the cream of the crop at their positions - the very top 5% - 10% of those entire leagues. 96th from the top in golf, however, is below the mean of the PGA Tour (think of it this way - being 96th means Sloan is better than 79 tour players, and worse than 95).

 

To adequately compare, you'd need to compare what Sloan makes to something like the 860th player (from the top) in the NFL. The NFL guy would still probably make more - but not by nearly as much as in your example. (Entry level pay in the NFL - according to the collective bargaining agreement - is something like $600K.) And the differential would come because the NFL is more popular than golf by an order of magnitude. (The 2021 super bowl had around 96 million viewers - the final round of the 2021 Masters had around 10 million.) So the difference in income makes a lot of sense. All sports are merely entertainment, and like all entertainment (music and film included) income is directly related to audience size. 

 

But its all just comparing apples and oranges. Team sports have collective bargaining - an NFL player that just sits on the bench or has a bad game still gets their monthly paycheck. Golfers have absolutely no guarantee they'll make a cent. In fact, in the average PGA tourney, about half the players (those that don't make the cut) won't even get a paycheck. And golfers cover 100% of their costs - NFL players don't pay for travel, food and lodging, or for sports medicine/physical therapy, or coaches, etc., etc. out of their paychecks. Golfers do (regardless of whether they even make the cut on a given weekend).

 

Golf is a hard sport, and for anything other than the very top tier (who make far more from endorsements than from tournament winnings), it really isn't that lucrative. The PGA Tour is the very best 175 out of the 25 million players in the US. Yet the average PGA player, when you factor in all the costs, probably has an income equal to a boring mid-level executive at a Fortune 500 company. 

 

Goodness, do I ramble.

Edited November 17, 2021 by bobfoster

[Titleist99]

1 hour ago, kasting333 said:

Roger Sloan finished 96th on the FedEx and made $1,107,623

 

MLB 96th paid: Wade Miley- Cubs $10,000,000 

 

NFL 96th paid: Darius Slay- Eagles $14,050,000

 

Granted both are bigger sports, but neither are household names that get people to watch and make 10x (without the expenses of a tour pro).
 

Let’s stop pretending $1M is a ridiculous amount of money and these guys aren’t worth it. 

Anyone that thinks a $1M in pro golf is a lot of money is either blind or naïve ....and that's putting it mildly. JMO

Edited November 17, 2021 by Titleist99

[Soloman1]

31 minutes ago, tacklingdummy said:

 

Yeah, 1M is not much after taxes and expenses of caddies, travel, etc. Interesting info that Mickelson brought up in a podcast was that PGA tour players make only 26% of the revenue of the PGA tour while the NFL and NBA players make 55% of the the revenue of those leagues.

Phil crying poor mouth. Haha.

 

NFL and NBA combined are $22 billion entities. PGA Tour is what, $500 million?

 

Are endorsements being ignored for some reason? DeChambeau had $7 million before he even teed it up as professional. Hell, I'll bet Phil makes more than $3 million per year for wearing a hat. Phil makes well over $30 million per year in endorsements.

 

Edited November 17, 2021 by Soloman1

[kasting333]

19 minutes ago, Titleist99 said:

Billy Hos comment makes zero sense to me when you're advocating taking jobs away. Some golfers think small, a million bucks is peanut as far as big time sports is concerned. IMO

Revenue has to be generated: Baseball 162 games, Basketball 82 games, golf 47 tournaments, etc...Try taking away some of those revenue generating games and you' have a problem on your hands.

Billy want the lower ranked player to go back to having two jobs or selling insurance. Hey Billy, there's plenty of TV money to go around......Don't squander the leverage that the players have now (Thanks Tiger Woods). If golf wasn't lucrative the Saudis wouldn't want a piece of it......JMO

 

**All Pro golfers deserve more $$$....Add to the total Purses, don't subtract players.....they all grind hard even #125.

The PGA Tour has too much power and keeps too much of the money. It’s now a self serving institution that has grown too large and self interested rather than working for the players. There’s similar issues with the usga. 
 

 Look at the revenue and the amount that goes to players. It’s half of most sports and the players take on most of the expenses. 
 

I’m surprised over the years players haven’t found a better way to create a tour that’s more equitable. 

[kasting333]

11 minutes ago, bobfoster said:

 

But you can't really compare "independent contractor" sports like golf and tennis with team sports like MLB or the NFL. The funding models are completely different. 

 

And the numbers are completely different. MLB has around 1,000 players. The NFL has around 1,700 players. 175 players have PGA Tour cards. So 96th from the top in MLB/NFL is definitely the cream of the crop at their positions - the very top 5% - 10% of those entire leagues. 96th from the top in golf, however, is below the mean of the PGA Tour (think of it this way - being 96th means Sloan is better than 79 tour players, and worse than 95).

 

To adequately compare, you'd need to compare what Sloan makes to something like the 860th player (from the top) in the NFL. The NFL guy would still probably make more - but not by nearly as much as in your example. (Entry level pay in the NFL - according to the collective bargaining agreement - is something like $600K.) And the differential would come because the NFL is more popular than golf by an order of magnitude. (The 2021 super bowl had around 96 million viewers - the final round of the 2021 Masters had around 10 million.) So the difference in income makes a lot of sense. All sports are merely entertainment, and like all entertainment (music and film included) income is directly related to audience size. 

 

But its all just comparing apples and oranges. Team sports have collective bargaining - an NFL player that just sits on the bench or has a bad game still gets their monthly paycheck. Golfers have absolutely no guarantee they'll make a cent. In fact, in the average PGA tourney, about half the players (those that don't make the cut) won't even get a paycheck. And golfers cover 100% of their costs - NFL players don't pay for travel, food and lodging, or for sports medicine/physical therapy, or coaches, etc., etc. out of their paychecks. Golfers do (regardless of whether they even make the cut on a given weekend).

 

Golf is a hard sport, and for anything other than the very top tier (who make far more from endorsements than from tournament winnings), it really isn't that lucrative. The PGA Tour is the very best 175 out of the 25 million players in the US. Yet the average PGA player, when you factor in all the costs, probably has an income equal to a boring mid-level executive at a Fortune 500 company. 

 

Goodness, do I ramble.

Of course the leagues and their popularity are vastly different. I was comparing salaries to demonstrate how little $1M is in the realm of pro sports. 
 

It’s absurd and ignorant to pick on the mid level pga tour player and say him earning $1M for the season is somehow out of line. 

[bscinstnct]

2 hours ago, bobfoster said:

 Spot on. Add up all the costs ... the (not insignificant) taxes, the flights and hotel rooms, the coach, the caddy, and all the other ancillary costs that go along with being on the pro tour. Net profit? My accountant or attorney probably took home more than this guy.

Exactamundo!

 

If you factor all his practice, travel, play, and all his expenses, 

 

He be like

 

Edited November 17, 2021 by bscinstnct

[smashdn]

1 hour ago, kasting333 said:

My post was in response to the Roger Sloan discussion in this thread. 
 

Why isn’t it a good thing that money is not the main incentive for top pros? They are trying to win majors and achieve greater goals than just paying bills. If there’s any issue it’s that these players are paid too little. Easy solution, juice up the purses and the top guys will win more. 
 

The PGA Tour won’t be able to manufacture an event or points race that’s going to matter close to as much these player’s life long goal to win a major. 

 

Are you asking me the bolded part?  If yes, I think you sort of answered it with what I underlined.  If I can play good enough to get some top tens, make around 10 mil a year, grab some sponsorship money and endorsement deals, I am pretty well set PROVIDED I keep expenses down (can't have three mansions or three baby-mommas or three garages full of fancy cars).  If you live a life like a sane adult 10 mil for a few years is enough to sit on and live out your days.

 

To be motivated to win, when you have all the money you need in life, you better find motivation other than money.  Tiger is not playing for the next check at this point (provided his personal finances are sound).  Rory is 32 years old and has an estimated net worth of 121 mil.  The Scottish Open pays out 1.12 mil to the winner.  That doesn't move the needle appreciably for him.  You better go try to win because you want to beat the field or have such a distaste for losing that you can't stand not to win.  Something.  But I doubt it is money at this point for a good number of the "top" guys.

[smashdn]

1 hour ago, kasting333 said:

The PGA Tour has too much power and keeps too much of the money.

 

Show me those numbers where you came to this conclusion.  The players created The Tour.

[miamistomp]

 Also, Billy and the boys have longevity in their favor

 There is no league for the busted up football  and baseball players 

 

Ho wins every other year and he thinks he moves the needle ??

 

 

 

[bscinstnct]

1 hour ago, kasting333 said:

The PGA Tour has too much power and keeps too much of the money. It’s now a self serving institution that has grown too large and self interested rather than working for the players. There’s similar issues with the usga. 
 

 Look at the revenue and the amount that goes to players. It’s half of most sports and the players take on most of the expenses. 
 

I’m surprised over the years players haven’t found a better way to create a tour that’s more equitable. 

 

PGA Tour be like 

 

 

 

 

[Titleist99]

What Billy Ho should have said while he had that platform is:

 

    Women's golf is raising the the purse size all over the place......C'mon PGATOUR....RAISE THE PURSES!

 

You don't have to extinguish someone else flame to make yours shine brighter. IMO

[cdnglf]

The tour should just give the entire $500M annual purse to the guy who wins the Tour Championship. Everyone else is looking for handouts, instead of go work for it, go really bust your butt and do something.

[oikos1]

Workers often want a bigger piece of the pie.  Seems the players don't have as much control over the PGA Tour as the public is led to believe.

[Naptime]

Just make the cut line lower.  Same result.

[bscinstnct]

2 minutes ago, Naptime said:

Just make the cut line lower.  Same result.

🤣

 

Nice ; ) 

 

This reminds me of the story I heard about how in the 1960s NASA spent like $50 million developing a pen that writes in zero gravity. 
 

The Russians just used a pencil. 

[nitram]

President Whitmore: I don't understand, where does all this come from? How do you get funding for something like this?
Julius Levinson: You don't actually think they spend $20,000 on a hammer, $30,000 on a toilet seat, do you?

[miamistomp]

 

[tacklingdummy]

8 hours ago, Soloman1 said:

Phil crying poor mouth. Haha.

 

NFL and NBA combined are $22 billion entities. PGA Tour is what, $500 million?

 

Are endorsements being ignored for some reason? DeChambeau had $7 million before he even teed it up as professional. Hell, I'll bet Phil makes more than $3 million per year for wearing a hat. Phil makes well over $30 million per year in endorsements.

 

 

Phil was referring to all the PGA tour players. 200+ PGA players not just himself. You can listen to the podcast. It is an interview with Gary Williams. Not saying they are poor, but compared to other sports PGA tour players don't make as much. Pro tennis players on the ATP have voiced the same issues as Phil because on the ATP the prize money is 20 to 30% of revenue. PGA tour's 26% of the revenue is not much when comparing to other sports leagues like NBA, NFL, Pro Soccer, are at 50-55% of revenue. PGA tour is 2 billion dollar company. 

 

Endorsement money is a complete separate thing. Not all players are bringing in big endorsement money. They don't just wear the hat. 😄 Many different levels of sponsorship and payouts that go deeper than just the hat. They have obligations they have to fulfill with their contracts. 

 

I have a nephew that plays D1 at a major university. He has several friends on PGA tour and Korn Ferry. The pros have a lot of expenses and it is not easy to make money on the playing pro golf, getting on the KF and PGA tours, and staying on the tours.  

 

[Soloman1]

OK, well, Phil should go play football. Not too many 50 year- old football players.

[Shilgy]

15 hours ago, golfandfishing said:

Making the fields and tour membership smaller reduces competition. This just makes it easier for the already exempt players to coast, they are in the field and have to beat fewer players to make cuts and/or win. 
 

I would love the idea of reducing the exempt cards if it meant more spots to Monday qualifiers and rewarding guys who are not exempt for their made cuts or higher finishes. But this isn’t what Horschell has in mind, he wants the current crop of top players protected and basically given a longer life span with less risk for turnover. Fewer players means less competitive tournaments. 

This this this…..in the long run the fields could get weaker from players seeing what a closed shop the tour would be and go play elsewhere.

[kasting333]

1 hour ago, Soloman1 said:

OK, well, Phil should go play football. Not too many 50 year- old football players.

Or he can leverage the tour into paying him more 🤷🏻‍♂️

[MattyO1984]

18 hours ago, bscinstnct said:

 

But how will paying guys who finish 20th-40th make the game more competitive or appealing to the fans?

 

Youd just have guys like BHo who basically never win making even more money for “losing”

 

And imagine if Rickie had made 100MM by now by always coming in 4th?

 

Golfwrx be like, “what up with that!”

 

If anything I see BHos comments as, perhaps subconsciously, self serving.

 

Plus, look at this comment he makes,

 

“Are you doing everything you can to be the best player you can?’ If you aren't, we shouldn't just be giving you handouts”

 

The elite guys could say the same thing about him. 

 

I looking at it more from the point of view that fewer players, equals less dead wood as opposed to the midfield guys earning more money. I mean no disrespect but I had pasted below Martin Trainer’s 2021 OWGR…sure he had a good finish last week but prior to that…should be be taking up a spot in the field…I don’t know if there is a right or wrong answer to that question but going on the multitude of MC’s, there was little to no point in him being there taking up a spot.

 

[OrangeGravy]

18 hours ago, kasting333 said:

Roger Sloan finished 96th on the FedEx and made $1,107,623

 

MLB 96th paid: Wade Miley- Cubs $10,000,000 

 

NFL 96th paid: Darius Slay- Eagles $14,050,000

 

Granted both are bigger sports, but neither are household names that get people to watch and make 10x (without the expenses of a tour pro).
 

Let’s stop pretending $1M is a ridiculous amount of money and these guys aren’t worth it. 

Thats not how sports or entertainment work though or the women would be making the same as men on tour. 

 

The money is tied to demand. Low demand, low money. Regular people don't watch golf, no money.  Tons of casual fans for team sports, more money. Doesnt matter how good the golfers are these days. 

 

These guys are getting paid exactly how much they command 8n the TV market. Comparing golf to other sports is meaningless.  

[Creedo77]

2 hours ago, MattyO1984 said:

 

I looking at it more from the point of view that fewer players, equals less dead wood as opposed to the midfield guys earning more money. I mean no disrespect but I had pasted below Martin Trainer’s 2021 OWGR…sure he had a good finish last week but prior to that…should be be taking up a spot in the field…I don’t know if there is a right or wrong answer to that question but going on the multitude of MC’s, there was little to no point in him being there taking up a spot.

 

Tell that same story about Brendan Todd. Guy was playing awful golf and then wins twice in the span of 2 months. 
 

Like Trainer both deserve to play in any tour event they get into bc of their past champ status (from ‘19 in Trainer’s case)

[bscinstnct]

3 hours ago, MattyO1984 said:

 

I looking at it more from the point of view that fewer players, equals less dead wood as opposed to the midfield guys earning more money. I mean no disrespect but I had pasted below Martin Trainer’s 2021 OWGR…sure he had a good finish last week but prior to that…should be be taking up a spot in the field…I don’t know if there is a right or wrong answer to that question but going on the multitude of MC’s, there was little to no point in him being there taking up a spot.

 

 

I see your point.

 

I think one way to look at it is how fluid that rankings can. 
 

Take a guy like Carlos Ortiz

 

He won 3 Web.Com events in a year and earned his PGA Tour card for the 2014-2015 season!

 

Now, since then, he has bounced around the owgr rankings from # 100s-700s

 

He lost his card…

 

Then he got it back! 
 

Had his best year in 2018, 113th in fedex points.

Then in 2020, he wins baby! Houston Open. 
 

And then with his recent 2nd, he cracked the top-50 OWGR. 
 

So, we have to realize that this is going on every week of every year. Guys battling it out, putting their living on the line for basically no money possibly, and it’s all, for many, to just get that card, get that win, get set on tour for a bit and couple exemptions.

 

Thats why I don’t get BHo questioning these guys heart and effort. He knows all this and he sounds like a complete idiot. 

 

 

 

Edited November 18, 2021 by bscinstnct

[MattyO1984]

7 minutes ago, bscinstnct said:

 

I see your point.

 

I think one way to look at it is how fluid that rankings can. 
 

Take a guy like Carlos Ortiz

 

He won 3 Web.Com events in a year and earned his PGA Tour card for the 2014-2015 season!

 

Now, since then, he has bounced around the owgr rankings from # 100s-700s

 

He lost his card…

 

Then he got it back! 
 

Had his best year in 2018, 113th in fedex points.

Then in 2020, he wins baby! Houston Open. 
 

And then with his recent 2nd, he cracked the top-50 OWGR. 
 

So, we have to realize that this is going on every week of every year. Guys battling it out, putting their living on the line for basically no money possibly, and it’s all, for many, to just get that card, get that win, get set on tour for a bit and couple exemptions.

 

Thats why I don’t get BHo questioning these guys heart and effort. He knows all this and he sounds like a complete idiot. 

 

 

 

 

To be fair, if there is someone adept at making themselves sound like that, then Billy would of course be near to the top of that list. I am not against these guys getting the chances to play as I am sure that Horschel isn’t either, it’s just that a good chunk of them are getting handsomely rewarded for relatively mediocrity…in typing that I am certainly going to admit that I am jealous 😂