Guardian: Premier Golf League "Pressing Ahead" With Events For Golf's Independent Contractors

Despite the news-dumped landmark strategic alliance announcement between the European Tour and PGA Tour, The Guardian’s Ewan Murray says the Raine Group’s Premier Golf League is forging ahead with event plans.

The Raine Group, venture capitalists who came close to an agreement with the European Tour, believe the finest golfers in the world – as independent contractors – can still be coaxed to play in competitions not sanctioned by the sport’s traditional tournament organisers.

There remains concern among some at the upper levels of professional golf that, by coming closer, the PGA and European tours are not boosting the market by allowing competition. Meanwhile, Raine are not going away.

It would take major contraction or a financial collapse of the European Tour for a full PGA Tour monopoly to take hold. And great news! The European Tour is “categorically” flush after laying off 68 people and the world is grand shape. Never better.

Anyway, Murray suggests the PGA Tour presented an offer the European Tour could not refuse.

Documentation seen by the Guardian understood to have been shown to the European Tour board cited, as examples, potential scheduling conflicts and increasing the number of minimum events that players must enter to retain PGA Tour status. The notion of PGA Tour qualifying events in Europe, the lobbying of major championships regarding eligibility criteria, pressure on broadcasters over coverage and impact on the Ryder Cup were all even mooted as possible outcomes. As things stand, the PGA Tour has no formal involvement in the Ryder Cup whatsoever.

A Ryder Cup bluff. Bold.

Of course, none of the threatened actions Murray reports would do anything to improve the product of either tour in any scenario. The ploys merely hold off an existential threat. That’s no small thing, but also demonstrates how far some folks are going to hold together the current model even as the times will inevitably demand some type of pivot by all tours.