Money Talks: Budding Saudi Golf League and PGA Tour

Image Courtesy of Golf Digest Middle East

By Chris Carey

Tensions between the PGA Tour, its players, and a budding Saudi golf league, the Super Golf League, came to a head last week with the Saudi International Tournament pulling many prominent PGA Tour players away from the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, a regular, high profile, and well-known staple of the PGA Tour’s schedule. 

Originally a stop on the DP World Tour (formerly the European Tour), the Saudi International Tournament saw its fourth playing from February 3 to 6, 2022 as a part of the Asian Tour. Begrudgingly granted conditional releases from the PGA Tour, the field at the Saudi International boasted Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, and many other prominent members of the PGA Tour, including Harold Varner III, the tournament’s champion. 

In return, the Tour demanded that those who skipped the Pebble Beach Pro-Am this year play it at least once in the next few years, depending on past playing history at the tournament, which can trace its history to the 1930s when superstar Bing Crosby conceived the “Crosby Clambake.”

The Saudi International Tournament increased its purse to $5 million, which is up $1.5 million from last year; the combination of the money and the media attention that the tournament received has influenced the idea of a Saudi-backed “Super Golf League” that may challenge the PGA Tour by taking away some of its premier players as it did this past week. 

Commenting on the League, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan has threatened to levy lifetime suspensions against those players who decide to forgo the Tour for the much-rumored Saudi league. Differing from the PGA Tour in its approach to garnering stars, the Super Golf League has reached out to many players in the worldwide Top 100, offering appearance and playing bonuses up to $100 million by some accounts.

Phil Mickelson recently discussed some issues he has with the PGA Tour’s media policy and the approach of the Super Golf League. The reigning PGA Champion said, “pretty much every player in the top 100 has been contacted at some point,” in an interview given from last week’s Asian Tour tournament. 

“If the tour wanted to end any threat [from Saudi or anywhere else], they could just hand back the media rights to the players,” he continued, elaborating on his claim that the PGA Tour’s monopoly on player media may be a driving factor for any player’s eventual transition to the new Super Golf League.

On the other hand, Brandel Chamblee, a Golf Channel commentator responded with his own perspective, citing numerous human rights violations perpetrated by Saudi Arabia as well as by some of the organizations helping to fund the proposed League. His pushback to Mickelson’s point of view noted that his and other players’ extremely lucrative careers have been made on the PGA Tour, and that the Tour’s exclusive rights to media have been critical to expanding player shares at tournaments, the reach of the Tour nationwide, and the development of younger players. 

In all, the progress of the Saudi-backed League will hinge largely on its success or failure to recruit some of the game’s greatest players. The jury is still out regarding how well PGA Tour stars view the new League, but each tournament backed by the Saudis yields new developments and brings the Super Golf League closer to reality.