Soon after The Players Championship, members of the PGA Tour policy board met Yasir al-Rumayyan for the first time. He is the head of the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF).
The PIF, which funds LIV Golf, made a deal with the PGA Tour last year to try to bring professional golf back together. But talks and agreements about a bigger deal are still in their early stages. This first meeting was kind of like a “ice-breaker.”
No matter what, Chris DiMarco has an idea. He has won three times on the PGA Tour and came in second place to Tiger Woods at Augusta National in 2005.
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He would like LIV Golf to buy the PGA Tour Champions, which is for golfers aged 50 and up.
He told Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz on the Subpar show, “We kind of hope that LIV buys the Champions Tour.”
“Let’s play for real money out here.” When we get $2 million, this is kind of funny. Last week, there were about seven guys from TPC Sawgrass who made more money than we did.
Padraig Harrington won the Hoag Classic last week on the last hole, earning $300,000 for coming in one stroke ahead of Thongchai Jaidee.
On the PGA Tour, Peter Malnati won the Valspar Championship, which was a full-field, non-signature event and won him $1,512,000.
The Players had a $25 million prize pool the week before, and Scottie Scheffler won $4.5 million for coming in first place.
All three of them shared for 16th place and won $406,250, which is more than $100,000 more than Harrington got for winning his seventh PGA Tour Champions event.
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DiMarco is annoyed by the relatively small prize pools on the Champions Tour because he knows this. The PGA Tour Champions, on the other hand, doesn’t get as many viewers or investors as the PGA Tour. So, the prize sizes can’t be as big as those on the PGA Tour, where they’ve been greatly increased in recent years to fight the rise of LIV Golf.
The PIF is said to have $770 billion in assets and has already promised to give LIV Golf close to $2 billion. Players have gotten millions of dollars for joining the Saudi-backed tour. Jon Rahm got more than $400 million.
Still, DiMarco can see why some players jumped ship to LIV Golf in order to get sure money.
There was a lot of money at stake for them, and they earn it. They have done some great work. “Why not get some cash?” DiMarco put it in.
“Before the Old Memorial Pro Member, I saw Graeme McDowell. He said, “Listen, I told [PGA Tour Commissioner] Jay Monahan that I love the tour but am having a hard time keeping my card, and these guys are giving me all this money and less golf.” I’m sorry, but I have to leave.
I don’t blame him at all, and I told him I wouldn’t either.
