Power of Caring
  presented by CIGNA

Ryder Cup: Two for the money

Click here for more on this story

Posted: Tuesday August 03, 1999 12:55 PM

Mark O'Meara was right about the Ryder Cup. He figured out, way before anyone else, that the Ryder Cup is all about the money.

O'Meara is normally a master of the politically correct answer -- and a PGA Tour party line follower -- but he was the only player with enough guts to tell it like it was a few years ago. The Ryder Cup, he said, wasn't the Great Big Event the media portrayed it as and the players should be paid for appearing in it. His argument wasn't as convincing then and was hurt by his own well-known, Jack Benny -like appetite for money. For instance, O'Meara often stays at discount chains rather than pay the high rates at good hotels when he travels, even though he's won two major championships, is a multimillionaire with a hotel-sized house and a 14-car underground garage, and can easily afford it.

Criticism followed. He was easy pickings for the media -- a millionaire complaining about money. But O'Meara was exactly right. The Ryder Cup players should be paid. These are not your father's chummy little patriotic matches, watched only by purists anymore. The Ryder Cup is a license to print money. It is strictly a commercial endeavor. For September's matches at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., NBC is paying $13 million to televise play -- and corporations are dropping $31 million for the privilege of hanging out on site. It adds up to more than $60 million in sales and a bottom-line profit of somewhere between $23-$30 million.

That makes it the most profitable single happening in golf. It has turned into the game's biggest made-for-television event. The Ryder Cup has totally sold out -- even the name. On the other side of the Atlantic, it's officially known as the Johnnie Walker Ryder Cup, which is the equivalent of renaming that tournament in April the Pizza Hut Masters. Or the Taco Bell U.S. Open. It's about the money.

It is obvious the players should get a piece of the action. What they get now, $5,000 in expenses and some clothes they'll never wear again (because they're paid to wear somebody else's logos, remember?), is about the equivalent of how the NCAA uses college football and basketball players to earn millions in TV rights fees but not pay them under the convenient guise of amateur athletics.

The problem isn't the actual cash. Tiger Woods is going to notice another $100,000 like we notice another $20 bill. Anybody who makes the team is already a millionaire and can rake in all the $20,000 one-day corporate outings he can stand. The players don't need the money. They are professional golfers. They are paid to play golf. So why should the Ryder Cup be a freebie? Oh, making the team means they qualify for the new $5 million World Golf Championship event in August -- a reformatted World Series of Golf. Even last place will come with large guaranteed check. Collecting means spending a week in Akron, Ohio, however. Fill in your own Jay Leno -like cheap shot about that.

The real issue is fairness and control. The Ryder Cup generates huge profits but the players don't reap any. They feel taken advantage of -- and they're right. "We're the product," said two-time U.S. Open champion Lee Janzen, who favors pay for Ryder Cuppers.

As Jaime Diaz wrote last month in Sports Illustrated's Golf Plus, the Ryder Cup has become less fun and more of a chore for American players. The pay issue has added to their disenchantment. David Duval said that if changes aren't made, it's likely that some players (hint: he and Woods) will pass on the 2001 matches.

It won't come to that unless the PGA of America remains unflinchingly greedy. Its take from Brookline should exceed $17 million. The money issue shouldn't be that tough to resolve. The President's Cup, the PGA Tour's pale Ryder Cup imitation, gave $100,000 to each player's and captain's favorite charity. The PGA of America should match that for the Ryder Cuppers and pay each competitor and captain $100,000 for himself. That will cost $5.2 million, about one-fifth of the profits. Sounds like a reasonable rate to pay for the talent who put on the show.

When O'Meara's regular tour caddie, Donny Wanstall , was stricken with multiple sclerosis in 1994, O'Meara and wife Alicia held an auction at their Orlando home as a fund-raiser to help Donny with his future medical bills. When a local writer asked if the auction was going to be an annual event, O'Meara joked, "Oh, no. It's wayyyy too much work."

Players feel the same way about the Ryder Cup now. Attention, PGA of America: No more free lunch. It's time to pay.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Gary Van Sickle is a regular contributor to the magazine's Golf Plus edition.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.

 

Related information
Stories
Last week's underground golfer: Caddies get short shrift
Multimedia
Click here for the latest audio and video
Search our site	Watch CNN/SI 24 hours a day
	Sports Illustrated and CNN have combined to form a 24 hour sports news and information channel. To receive CNN/SI at your home call your cable operator or DirecTV.