Money Talks

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Today the bombshell news is that the PGA Tour has a new partner being the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. This will see all the bad blood that we have seen over the last 12 months slowly disappear as this deal secures the future of professional golf and guarantees the PGA having a healthy bank balance.

In 2021 the LIV golf tour was born backed by the Saudi Public Investment Fund ready to rival the PGA Tour by poaching top players away by offering big money deals. The PGA went as far calling those players immoral considering it was Saudi Arabian money. Sportswashing is what many people call it where money is used to by favor from past events. Newcastle United foot ball club was seen in the same light a few years ago when the Saudis purchased the club.

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Many players refused to leave having vowed to stay loyal even though they were turning down absolute fortunes. Tiger Woods was offered $800 million which he turned down even though his top earning days are long gone. Phil Mickelson took the money as he was paid $200 million which considering his career earnings so far has been $138 million this is big money. It turns out he got paid this money for 1 year as now he can rejoin the PGA Tour due to the deal that has been made.

Many will say what the PGA Tour is hypocritical as they have sold themselves for top dollar forgetting what they have said in the past. The PGA Tour raised the 9/11 disaster stating that the golfers were taking money from the country that the terrorists came from and going as far as saying they were turning their backs on America. This became very personal and bitter between the two rival golfing competitions and this will take time to heal between the players as the administrators seem to have accepted the deal they have made. This is always the case and why sometimes it is safer to not take sides as things can change so quickly and you cannot take back what ahs been said.

Loyalty can be bought for the right price as this proves yet again how the world thinks today. The old school way of thinking has long since died with enemies becoming friends over how much you are prepared to pay. Money definitely changes peoples perspectives as morals are quickly forgotten.

The turncoat players who took their chance playing for LIV Golf were only doing so for the money and who can blame them. Phil Mickelson earned more money this season than over his entire career which has spanned 660 tournaments with only 8 of those for LIV. LIV stands for 54 being the Roman numerals as the LIV tournaments are only 3 rounds or 54 holes compared to 4 rounds being 72 holes. Mickelson earned just short of $500K per hole played when you break down his signing on fee excluding the winnings of $1.3 million from those events.

When Phil left the PGA Tour he lost some of his biggest sponsors namely KPMG, Heinecken, Amstel Light, Callaway and Workday and now what? These companies were fighting, supporting the PGA by applying pressure and they have fought for nothing being stuck in the middle.

No one knows what the financial deal is with the Public Investment Fund and the PGA, but whatever it is it has to be big money. The fund has a value of around $620 billion (assets) and is keen to be involved in sports where it can buy favor and the country can be seen in a different light.

I am a little shocked at the announcement even though I haven't followed the entire breakaway from the beginning as I thought it was just a rival golf tour for professionals to pick and choose. The LIV Tour had 48 professional golfers who will no doubt be eyeing up a return to the PGA next season which will change things slightly as now there are more players vying for playing spots in the events.