golfrewind.com

The USPGA events are now paying over $1 mill to each winner. Is that too much ? European Tour events pay $250,000 upwards ,is that a more sensible payment structure?

European Tour last year had 4 players over $2mil, 18 over $1 mil. The cutoff point at 115 was $175,000. Even allowing for ther distortion caused by WGC and Major American events counting in the totals, the prize money seems fair.

The crazy money in USA is distorting the impact of TV and that will ruin the sport. If Tiger is not in contention, rating fall, so TV sponsors want Tiger in contention...................

I wouldn't know what is correct, other than let the market determine how much. If advertisers decide it's too much, then that funding will dry up. And of course with tournaments letting ppl such as Wie in to compete, it creates more demand and more interest.

I have no problem with the money they make, afterall, there are only a very few ppl in the whole world that can do what they do.

One nice thing about golfers though, if they don't produce, they suffer. No long term contracts as far as playing the tour.

fwiw

I don't think it's just the PGA Tour, it's mostly all sports players make too much money, but hey, if advertisers and sponsors are willing to spend this money, then why not take it and run, I would.

Everyone on the PGA Tour can thank Tiger Woods for allowing them to earn a bigger pay check. Tiger Woods was on the PGA Tour full-time in 1997, played in 11 events in '96 and earned $790,594, nice average as a rookie.

Checking quickly on PGA Tour.com
In 1997 the Top 5 on the Money List earned $7,546,842 and averaged playing in 23 events...(Tom Lehman, Phil Mickelson, Mark Brooks, Steve Stricker, Mark O'Meara), for an average of $65,624 won per event played.

In 2001 the Top 5 on the Money List earned $20,493,547 and averaged playing in 23 events as well...(Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, David Toms, Vijay Singh, Davis Love III ), for an average of $176,668 won per event played.

An increase of 269 % for the Top 5 players....Show me the money?

Check out last years numbers!
In 2005 the Top 5 on the Money List earned $32,562,347 and averaged playing in 24.6 events...(Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson, Jim Furyk,
David Toms), for an average of $258,431 won per event played.

So in almost 10 years the Top 5 Money Winners on the PGA Tour have practically quadrupled their potential earnings....thanks mostly to the Tiger Woods effect....

Sensible payment structure? Even you can't be serious with that one. The PGA Tour is a business and it's called supply and demand. When the "demand" goes down the purses will drop. Until then, that's where the top players will go to make the top money. You can call it PGA Tour greed all you want. That doesn't change the fact that it's the players themselves drive the PGA Tour. Not the other way around.

The Euro Tour's measly purses are a result of the supply and demand which is a direct reflection on the product. Obviously many talented players don't share your "seems fair" assessment of the Euro Tour's prize money. If they did, they'd play more events there and less on the PGA Tour.

You can continue to blame the PGA Tour for what you feel is wrong with golf but until the demand runs low, things aren't going to change. I personally am beginning to see some cracks in the PGA armor. Professional golf is evolving and the days of throwing money at the players to get them to play are almost over. Big money purses no longer insure the top players will attend and the PGA must figure out a way to get the top players to play in the same events more often if they (the PGA) want to remain in a position of power.

My question is, now that the PGA Tour has made some major changes, what is the Euro Tour doing to keep up, or doing to take advantage of any perceived weakness by the PGA Tour? Obviously, we don't get the same Euro Tour news slants over here that you do so what's the word over there?

What's too much money?

How much money do the best lawyers in the world make?

How much money do the best doctors in the world make?

How much money do the best financial analyst or stock and currency traders make?

The fact is in many cases the BEST people in a given profession are highly compensated indivdiuals.

You have the best golfers in the world competing on television. The bottom line is as long as the sponsers and broadcasting people are willing to pay sponsership and broadcast fees to the PGA Tour that come to BILLIONS of dollars then IT'S NOT TOO MUCH MONEY.

The bottom line is everyone is paying for this not the sponcers, when you drive that buick tiger advertises and play them OEM clubs the pro's don't play you are paying for the purse be it indirectely the money comes out of the advertising cost which we are paying for.

If Tiger didn't do ads for Buick would the ads stop? My suggestion to those that think the PGA Tour and it's players make too much money and are a detriment to golf........Don't watch them and don't support the sponsors that support the PGA Tour. Either that or start a competing tour and put the PGA Tour out of business.

I personally don't begrudge a good tour player from making a million or two a year in PGA tour earnings. That's about 1/4 of what a weak hitting middle infielder makes a year playing Major League Baseball.

Or you could be a starting pitcher for the Pirates who went 8-18 last year and get a 4.1 Million dollar contract, what a bunch of....

Perez looked like a surefire star after 2004...I was surprised to see that he took a step back in '05. I think he'll bounce back in '06 for you guys.

Actually it's Kip Wells that got that contract...

Was it? Woops, I though Perez was going to arby too...my bad. Either way, I don't think Wells is a bad pitcher either...now if he wasn't on such a lousy team.

Yes, we've had lousy like the Browns have had lousy in Football....ever since Bonds and Bonilla split town the team's been a mess....only team here that's been worth anything are "your" Steelers (j/k you)...Pens are a mess too!

They have a future though with Sydney Crosby and Marc-Andre Fleury...

Yes, the poor deprived area....I've had to deal with it three ways with the Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Cleveland teams in my area, being pretty much equidistant from each town.

At any rate, enough with the threadjacking and back to your regularly scheduled thread...

At least we tried to keep the thread to the top, no one else chimed in...good evening to you sir!