The Saudi initiative is not winning any fans from the PGA management.
There is a plan by some Saudi Arabia billionaires to put together what they hope will be the preeminent golf presentation in the world. The business would be called The Super Golf League and would feature 40 to 48 players playing an 18-event schedule in tournaments around the world with big time purses and a season ending team championship. It would compete with the Professional Golf Association or PGA and the European Tour. A number of players have reportedly been offered $30 million contracts to join the new league which would begin play in September 2022. The PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan is not thrilled with the possibility of a new rival and told PGA players that joining the league would mean an automatic suspension and possibly a permanent ban from the PGA Tour. No one knows how the organizers of the Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open and Open Championship will react to the Super Golf League.
But the planned new league won’t get one of golf’s top names. Rory McIlroy said the proposed group plan doesn’t interest him. “They first contacted me back in 2014, so this is seven years down the line and nothing has really changed. Maybe the source of the money’s changed or the people that are in charge have changed, but nothing has happened. No sponsorship deals, no media deals, no players have signed up, no manufacturers have signed up. There’s been so many iterations at this point.” The Saudi project is the second proposed golf group that has come down the pike. In 2020, the Premier Golf League attempted to position itself in the golf world with the lure of big money for players. The PGL wanted to play tournaments all over the world starting in Florida, then Australia, Asia, and Europe and then back to the United States.
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