The Other Team Event Hanging Over This Week's Ryder Cup
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The PGL’s Andy Gardiner
All signs suggest the disruptor golf leagues declared dead multiple times by Tour toadies are, miraculously, still hanging around. There may even be a conversation or twelve this week between Vice Captains and players about who is in and where.
The Saudi’s and their SGL, a rip off of all things Premier Golf League only with a Middle East-heavy schedule?
Or will the new Strategic Alliance keep everyone a happy PGA Tour/European Tour camper?
Judging by Phil Mickelson’s remarks to Gary Williams, the PGA Champion is still very much interested in the proposals. Armed with major championship exemptions for another few years, his fearless jabs at the PGA Tour model suggest he’s open to the ideas.
A few curious and noteworthy comments by Mickelson:
He said of the wraparound, the Tour is “going away from that next year”. Not sure if that was a slip up or slip of the tongue regarding the 2023 schedule and beyond.
Mickelson lamented that only 26% of the revenue goes to the players and agreements requiring the Commissioner’s approval. He said that while players use the engine of the PGA Tour to be successful, “we don’t make a majority of our revenue from the PGA Tour” we don’t own our media writes, and YouTube “make millions” off it, citing Bryson’s 6th hole tee shot at Bay Hill earlier this year. The clip does have 1.4. million views and in YouTube money, that’s not much barring a massive sweetheart deal with the Tour.
He says “top guys are being taken advantage of” and believes the PIP money offered by Ponte Vedra “sounds like a lot” but in the “big scheme” doesn’t “even come close to being equitable.”
Mickelson said the “competition is going to be good” for all.
He said for the first time “the top players are being valued by the PGA Tour” and the players are “so far down the line on, kind of, the bullying tactics that have been used to suppress the top players on the PGA Tour,” that this will all come down to what’s best for fans.
He said it’s “tough when only 4 people have a vote” and of the PGA Tour, says “I’m not sure we have, internally, the structure to fix it.”
On the PGL side, co-founder Andy Gardiner gave an interview to Golf Monthly and reminded how this week’s event is the inspiration for the concept:
If you can bring any of the brilliance of the Ryder Cup into a more regular format, then it’s got to be a good thing.
It’s easier for a fan to have allegiance to a team than it is to an individual.
Some individuals can have it – that’s where Tiger was utterly brilliant because he was so dominant that you could fall in love with him as the dominant player, or you could be fascinated by him.
But what everyone else was doing was backing the underdog because everyone else was an underdog.
What he did was to ignite both sides.
You had one group who wanted to see him win everything and you had those who wanted someone else to win.
