What Top Golf Pros Are Paid For Overseas Appearances

Ever wonder why guys like Spieth, McIlroy, and Bubba Watson add events in places like China, Malaysia, Dubai and Abu Dhabi to their schedules?  It’s not because they enjoy traveling around the world to play in a city where no one speaks their language for a chance to hold high a trophy they’ve never heard of.

These guys get paid big money by event hosts simply to appear and hopefully boost revenue for the event.  The system makes sense, and we’re not knocking it, but rather we’re more intrigued by what some of these guys actually earn by showing up.  In most cases it’s more than what the winner earns, which makes me think, how cool would it be to both appear and win?  Now that’ a nice (double) pay day.

 
First let’s talk about Bubba Watson since this story is trending in the news lately.  Bubba leaves Augusta and instead of playing in Harbour Town and Texas, he flies to Shenzhen, China to play in the Shenzhen International.  Why?

Well, according to @secrettourpro on Twitter, Bubba was rumored to take home 3x the amount of the 1st place prize.

Bubba’s appearance fee this week isn’t bad, just the $1.5m!! 😳😳 #STP

— Secret Tour Pro (@secrettourpro) April 23, 2016

But let’s ignore Watson for a second and talk about Tiger Woods, the king of overseas appearances.  In 2013, CBS Sports reported that Tiger earned $8 million for playing in the Turkish Airlines Open and a combination of some other events.  Turns out Tiger ended up doubling the amount he made on TOUR that whole season by stopping over to Dubai for a few events.

If you we’re Tiger Woods, you’d probably do it too.

 
Even guys like Rory are rarely seen on the PGA TOUR circuit until just leading up to the Masters.  Rory usually spends some time in the dessert and other parts of Europe to bank his ridiculous appearance fees.  Rumors are flying that he ditched the WGC-Bridgestone this year to play in the Open De France.  I’ll tell you why; because they’re most likely to Open De Wallet and roll out the red carpet for him.

Earlier this year, Jordan Spieth reportedly banked $1.2 million to play in the Singapore Open and he ended up taking 2nd place.  Between the appearance fees, Under Armour, Coca-Cola, Titleist sponsorship, and the commercials, we’re pretty sure this 22-year old is set for life…and he has a whole bunch more to earn in his future.

The PGA TOUR and LPGA TOUR refuse to pay players to come here to play, so that’s why players here make the trip outside of the U.S.  At the end of the day, if someone told you to go play in a golf tournament on the other side of the globe, travel and arrangements are taken care of, you could win a trophy and money, and oh, we’ll pay you $1.5 million to go…you wouldn’t go?

It wasn’t long ago that Rex Hoggard of Golf Channel reported how PGA TOUR commissioner Tim Finchem thinks the appearance fees are going straight to player’s heads.

“There isn’t anything happening out there that would say the guidelines are starting to get pushed by players in typically unique situations,” Finchem said.

“Certain places have a fair amount of appearance money and it can in turn go to the player’s head.”

Interestingly enough, TOUR players are allowed three conflicting event releases per season which are typically used to go play overseas.  They can earn more releases by satisfying some other requirements.

It’s crazy how for $150,000 you can get George W. Bush to speak at your event, or $750,000 to get Sting to sing at your pool party.  But I guess China wants Bubba Watson badly enough to pay him $1.5 million to come play golf.

H/T ClickON Cover Image Via Instagram