Kramer Hickok Says 17 Players Have Committed To The Saudi Golf League

“To go after a few extra bucks, I think it might be a little greedy because you don’t know how long that tour (Saudi) is going to be around, you don’t know if that money might dry up. You don’t know what’s going to happen. If you do leave, you are banned from the tour, the tour has said that.”

“We are starting to realize how money-hungry a lot of the players on the PGA Tour are because a lot of it is just money. There are pros and cons. The pros are the money and less events. The cons are you don’t really know who you’re getting in bed with here.”

“It is Saudi-backed money, big corporations have come out and spoken and said ‘we don’t do deals with Saudis because they don’t pay’. And if you try and take them to court, what do they care?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Kramer Hickok (@kramerhickok)

There’s a lot to unpack here but let’s get right into it.

17 guys have already committed, gotten the money, 14 events with 10 of them being in the United States and huge 20 million dollar purses for each event? How does anyone say no to this?!?

If you’re Dustin Johnson and you can play 14 events a year on the Saudi tour and then play in the 4 majors, why would you not sign up for that? He could make an astronomical amount of money that surpasses his career earnings on the PGA Tour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Dustin Johnson (@djohnsonpga)

Hickok does make a good point. It could be greedy for some of the lower level PGA Tour players to hop over to Saudi when doing so would end their potential to ever play on Tour again since nobody knows how long the Saudi tour will be around. But if the signing bonuses are big enough, these players might not care if they get to play golf professionally ever again.

The other quote that I find interesting is how PGA Tour players get “a tiny, tiny percentage” of revenues from the 4 majors. I wonder how much money the Tour makes off of majors that we don’t know about. If this is the case then players should be making much more, especially in a time like this with the Saudi tour. Paying the players more will make them happier and make them want to stay on the PGA Tour.

Hickok also told The Stripe Show that these “huge amounts of money” were sent directly to the 17 players after signing their NDA’s and the Saudi tour is slatted to start in June with player announcements coming this spring.

So these 17 players could be currently playing on the PGA Tour after already collecting their signing bonus with the Saudi tour. Wow, this spring and summer are sure going to be interesting with all of this developing further.

What are your thoughts on Hickok’s comments?

Cover Image Via Golf Week