Tuesday
Nov232010
Kaymer Passes On PGA Tour Membership, With A Twist
He is going to play a few more times in the U.S., so hardly the slap that it will may be portrayed as. Alistair Tait reports.
“It really doesn’t fit for me playing both tours next year,” Kaymer said on the eve of the Dubai World Championship. “So I will stick to the European Tour. I will play probably two or three more events in America but I will play in Europe.
“I consider the European Tour my home. That is where I feel comfortable. I think you play against the best players in the world, with the number one in the world, Lee Westwood, Rory McIlroy, you have all of the great players here.”
All?
Tuesday, November 23, 2010 at 09:33 AM
Reader Comments (20)
As for Alien's argument, how many 'great' players are there on the PGA tour? Take Tiger and Phil out of the mix and who’s left?
I think the Euros have realized that they can compete and win anywhere, and that the Euro Tour provides enough of a test to prepare their best players to play against the best the rest of the world has to offer. Why should they commit to a season on the PGA when they can enjoy the comforts of home and still challenge, contend, and win majors?
The PGA Tour is not the be-all and end-all when it comes to golf - - it’s a brave new world!
Here's a few reasons: better courses, deeper competitive fields, bigger prize money. Euros, of course, have come to depend on Appearance Money so if that's guaranteed and the lack of competition makes it easier to win, why not stay close to home?
Now they win a few and all of a sudden they are trying to convince others (and themselves) that the ET is where the great players hang out.
Deluded and a bit sad, imo.
In reality, it doesn't mean a damn thing.
Unless you need something to hold on to.
I'd love to see some enterprising writer ferret out how much these guys get paid just to show up, the top Euro's like Westwood and visiting US players like Mickelson (counting Asian appearances)> It must be a lot.
I think there have been a few who truly preferred the Euro culture and tour lifestyle but can't think of them at the moment. Westwood may be one but as World No.1 for now he's surely raking in the app. fees also.
Not sure if that is still the case but I dont think too many of our sponsors have such deep pockets that they can be shelling out huge sums left right and centre.
If so, how can one claim "all the great players are here" when 20 of 25 are actually there? Could one be categorized as a buffoon if they made such a claim?
This guy and that nattering nabob Euro commish who is running around high-fiving the guy's decision are frankly delusional. They need counselling.
In addition to Del's point about the world ranking, consider, for example, that the European Tour counts eight -- count 'em, eight -- US PGA Tour events as European Tour events. The winnings from those events count toward the Race to Dubai, or the Order of Merit, or the Knights of the Golden Fleeced, or whatever those Euro-weirdos call the money list over there. Then consider that six of the top 13 guys on the Euro money list are members of the PGA Tour! What's more, you can be counted as a member of the Euro Tour by playing only 3 tournaments in Europe all year; you play your eight US "European Tour" events (the three US majors, the four WGC events and the BMW Open) plus the British Open and you play your three Euro events, and boom, you're in the Race to Dubai.
I think that's ridiculous enough and makes a joke of the so-called "Race". How much more ridiculous would it be though if, say, Ernie got hot and won a couple of US majors and got in his three Euro events (which he does) and topped the Race to Dubai? After playing only three Euro tournaments? And didn't even play in Dubai?
The European Tour is completely parasitic in relation to the PGA Tour, whereas only one Euro event counts as an official PGA Tour event and that's the Open Championship, which is so time-honoured and in a class by itself that it does not seem to be a European Tour event. Besides, win the Open or come second and the earnings might get you the 125th spot on the money list (leaving aside the applicable exemption and your status as winner of a major). Hardly determinative of anything on the PGA Tour money list however.
The fact that three players in the top 10 decide to play, say, only 9 events in the US instead of 15 doesn't really make any difference to the competition on the PGA Tour. Let them go to Qatar instead and compete for the $40,000 top prize against an incredibly weak field. Poor Rory, homesick. Poor Lee, doesn't want to leave the town. Poor Martin, delusional about where the best players are. Wusses.
For starters take "your eight US "European Tour" events (the three US majors, the four WGC events and the BMW Open)." There are six events, not 8, played in the USA that are co-sanctioned (if that is the right word) by both PGAT and ET. The fourth WGC is played in China. Also it has only been the last 4 years that the WGC-CA has been settled in the USA (previously it alternated). There are BMW-sponsored tournaments in England, Italy, Germany, and the USA. The one in the USA is is not an ET event.
While it may seem reasonable to co-opt the American majors and American WGCs as PGAT events, the only sense in which that is true is that they count as official PGAT prize money. If you think otherwise, ask some of PGAT's top-125 "all-exempt" players who were not exempted to play Doral or Firestone this year. The majors, of course, are all run by other organizations. The WGCs were created under the aegis of the International Federation of PGA Tours, which has 6 full and 2 associate members. PGAT has a seat at that table--and so does ET.
A player only has to play three times in Europe to keep his card? Hmmm, actually I thought it was only two. Unless I'm mistaken, until a couple years ago they didn't have to literally play 'in Europe' at all. In any case, your calculation for 2010 should run: 4 majors (1 in Europe), 4 WGCs (1 in China), 4 regular ET events. Next year they will need 5 regular ET events. That assumes they actually qualify for those majors and WGCs. Sergio, for one, might not next year.
The first-place money for the Qatar Masters is not $40 thousand; I realize you were being facetious. In 2010 it was 290,000 euros, which after a few years of dollar-inflation will soon be equivalent to $40 million.
ET is not a parasite of PGAT. It is an imitator. It has its own sources of players, of sponsorships, of media coverage that are not part of PGAT. It has undoubtedly benefitted from star power of top American pros, from PGAT's upward pressure on purses generally, and from the David v. Goliath attraction of the Ryder Cup. But it also owes much of its survival to its being willing to go to places that PGAT did not want to go. How is that parasitism?
Leaving aside the Ryder Cup, ET is not even really a competitor. The best players can play wherever they want, the rest stay home, and we do not see an exodus of Americans giving up their PGAT cards. All that has changed over the last few years is that, thanks to the WGCs, Dubai World Championship, and, it now appears, even the Players Championship, the undeniable prize money differential between the tours has lost much of its impact for the top ET players. They are eligible for ten of the richest events in golf--that's a lot, isn't it?--and they don't have to join PGAT to play them. They can start to factor in the intangibles; and for some (e.g. McIlroy) the intangibles incline them to stay with the ET. For others, not (e.g. McDowell). That does not make them delusional, and so long as they stay at the top they can always change their minds.
I was mistaken about the BMW event, which is in Wentworth, not the US. And the HSBC Champions is, of course, in China. However, I listed it as American because the OWGR lists it as a "USA" tour event -- along with all the other WGC events. And in any case, China is not Europe.
And it is also true that the PGA Tour itself does not run the majors or the WGC events -- although neither does the European Tour, which in the case of the latter events, as you point out, co-sanctions with the PGA and other Tours.
The point I was trying to make is that most by far of the biggest events that count on the European Tour are held in the US. Although I was joking about the size of the purses in European Tour events, they are still significantly smaller in most cases than those in the US. In fact, the two leaders who are duking it out for the Race to Dubai this weekend have earned fully half of their official earnings for this year in the US. Ernie Els, sixth on the list and a PGA Tour member, has earned almost 90% of his Euro Tour earnings in US events. This reliance on US events is arguably to the disadvantage of players like Francesco Molinari, who earned more than any of the players above in European events. To have the winner of the Race to Dubai determined to such a significant degree by earnings from US events, to have 7 of the 9 most important events in golf played in the US, and to have a number of PGA Tour players on the Race to Dubai leaderboard, certainly makes nonsense of all the claims that the best players are playing in Europe.
The Kaymer claim that "all the best players" are in Europe is patently false, and the failure of the brass of the European Tour to offer any caveat to that remark while applauding it is regrettable, irksome, jingoistic and stupid. At least seven tournaments held in the US attract the world's best, including the six mentioned above and the Players, whereas in Europe there is only the Open Championship. In addition, the four Fedex Cup playoff events attract stronger fields than any of the other European tournaments in terms of OWGR strength of field. In addition, as Del mentioned, the fact that 20 of the top 25 in the OWGR are PGA Tour members makes that comment all the more bone-headed.
The European Tour is parasitic because there are several PGA Tour members in the top echelons of the Race to Dubai. There are no European Tour members at or near the top of the PGA Tour money list. This weekend, there are no less than 10 PGA Tour members in the field at Dubai; try seeing that at a PGA Tour event.
It's not as easy as you suggest to change your mind once a Euro player gives up playing privileges in the US -- Westwood and McIlroy will have to wait five years before they can re-apply. Both of those guys missed quite a few cuts in the US and I think they know the European events will be easier pickings for them. If they would rather play that ersatz, ugly Jermiah ghost-town excuse for a golf course than any of Harbour Town, Doral or Pebble Beach, more power to them I guess. Just don't try to rationalize your chicken decision by claiming you're playing against "all the best players".
Your take on dollar inflation and the $40 million first prize money is interesting; I'm no speculator, but if I were I would bet that the exchange rate is going to go the other way. Europe is looking more and more like a sub-prime borrower. In a few years the Euros may have to cart their winnings away in wheelbarrows.
$40 million was myself being facetious. But I can remember when $40 thousand first prize was great money on PGAT.