Mark O’Meara Once Pushed for Ryder Cup Pay—and Says It Cost Him

The two-time major champion advocated years ago for direct compensation for U.S. Ryder Cup players, which is now happening, but says that stance cost him a captaincy.

Mark O'Meara was outspoken in 1999 about players being paid for Ryder Cup participation. / Rob Schumacher, Rob Schumacher / USA TODAY NETWORK

ORLANDO, Fla. — If it were up to Mark O’Meara, the U.S. Ryder Cup pay-for-play controversy would have been taken care of years ago.

And he believes his advocacy for it more than two decades ago cost him a Ryder Cup captaincy.

The two-time major champion and five-time U.S. Ryder Cup player said Thursday that he agrees with the decision announced earlier this week by the PGA of America that will see players given $500,000 each, with $300,000 going to charity and $200,000 to keep at their discretion.

It means that for the first time, U.S. players will be directly compensated; presently charitable donations of $200,000 have been made in their name.

“They should have listened to me,” O’Meara said, chuckling, when approached about the subject at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club, where he is playing this weekend with his son, Shaun, at the PNC Championship. “I tried to explain it to them.”

O’Meara, 67, was referring to a different time in Ryder Cup controversy history, when he pushed for players to get paid for their participation in the biennial event.

He explained that he went to PGA of America officials in 1998—the year he won the Masters and the British Open—and suggested that the event had become so big, with those who performed poorly being chastised, that those who were playing deserved some form of payment.

O’Meara said he spoke to the PGA of America president at the time, Jim Awtrey, and made his pitch.

“My take is, ‘Look, you guys are making a lot of money on this deal and nobody really knows where the money is going,’” O’Meara said. “No disrespect to the PGA. They do a lot of good, I get it. But you charge people to get in, everybody around the Ryder Cup makes money. And the guys putting on the show don’t make any money.

“They could have done something back then, they chose not to, and obviously it’s become an issue.”

The issue was a hot one in 1999 preceding the Ryder Cup at Brookline, and O’Meara recounted some of the conversations, including one held at that year’s PGA Championship at Medinah. He noted that he, David Duval, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were among players looking for more transparency.

Then-captain Ben Crenshaw got involved in the dispute and behind the scenes tried to tone down the situation, the result being $200,000 donations made in the name of players to a charity of their choice.

That amount remained the same until the PGA’s announcement this week, which came after weeks of speculation due to a Telegraph report last month that said a $400,000 payment was being considered.

Last year in Rome, the controversy roared again as there were suggestions that U.S. player Patrick Cantlay and the father of Xander Schauffele, Stefan Schauffele, had a dispute with the PGA over their player rights.

Cantlay has consistently denied that he was protesting the issue but the older Schauffele was on record as questioning the system.

The pay plan has garnered plenty of attention, mostly critical of U.S. players due to the enormous amount of money being paid in the game. The European side is not paying players and Rory McIlroy made note of the fact he’d “pay to play” in the event.

O’Meara understands the sentiment and acknowledged that the Ryder Cup is a big revenue generator for the DP World Tour in Europe as well as the PGA of America for its various initiatives.

But ...

“I’m a pro golfer,” O’Meara said. “This is what I do for a living. My name is here on my bag. And do I know what people think. It’s greedy. I don’t think that’s greed. I mean people are paying to come and watch you play. And I told the media back then, I know everybody’s emotional about this, but what if all your different media outlets, whoever you guys work for, they’re going to pay for you to be there, pay for your computer, your hotel, whatever. Now, whatever your salary is this week, would you just take that away and give it to a charity? Do you want to do that? And I was like why should you?”

O’Meara is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame who won 16 times on the PGA Tour. In five Ryder Cups, the U.S. went 2–2–1 and his overall record was 4–9–1.

He was also known for befriending and mentoring Woods early in his career and would have been among those considered to be a future U.S. Ryder Cup captain, a role O’Meara said he was not big on but that he was intrigued by the idea of leading the team in Ireland in 2006, when he would have been 50 years old.

“When I heard that they were going to Ireland, everybody in my camp, they said you would be perfect in Ireland,” O’Meara said. “You’re an Irishman. I played a lot on the European tour. You should go for this. It was going to be at the K-Club (in Dublin). And I am friends with (Irish billionaire) J.P. McManus and Michael Smurfit (who owned the K Club) and I’m friends with guys on the European team.

“So I went to the PGA of America and they knew I was interested and that I wanted the job. And they gave it to Tom Lehman over me. And no disrespect, Tom’s a nice player, but Tom doesn’t have the record I have. And he didn’t play in as many Ryder Cups as I did. And so it (the pay issue) likely held me back. Plus, I had Tiger on my side, and Tiger wanted me to be the captain. And the U.S. got their butts kicked.”

O’Meara recounted a story he had with PGA of America officials in the year after he won two majors and he felt he was given a poor pairing at the PGA Championship.

It was also the year the Ryder Cup pay issue took root and he wondered if it was all related.

“I understand I'm not a star. I'm not even a great player,” he said. “But you know what, I won two major championships, and this is the pairing you put me with. I mean, really? Wow. So, needless to say I'm not a huge fan of the PGA of America.”

Clearly O’Meara was not one of the 12 former U.S. Ryder Cup captains who recently sent a letter to the PGA of America in favor of no pay for the players, based on the traditions of the event.

Lehman, who is also playing in the PNC, said he didn’t sign the letter out of deference to current captain Keegan Bradley.

“I haven’t spoken to him and I want to support the captain,” Lehman said. “I feel like the role of a past captain is in some small way to support the new captain and the team and whatever you can do, whether it be a lot or a little or nothing.”

O’Meara also noted the lack of attention over the recent disclosure by Golfweek that the PGA Tour is now paying $250,000 to each Presidents Cup player and captain as a stipend, with no stipulation that the money go to charity. That policy has been in place for the past two Presidents Cups.

“Did I need the money? No, but it was more principal, I thought, in my small opinion,” O’Meara said. “I understand it’s a sticky subject, yeah, I understand it's something that everybody can talk about. All I can say on my  behalf is that what really set me off was when we played, like in, let's say, Valderrama (Spain in 1997). And Tom Kite was our captain, and it was Tiger's first Ryder Cup.

“Tom did a nice job and we lost. And he just got butchered in the media. I’m like, wait a minute. What is this all about? Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. We’re already pissed that we lost. And if this is the way it’s going to be, then they should look after the players.

“Everybody around the event makes money, except for the guys putting on the show. Why is that player being greedy for even bring that up? And we do keep score.

“I thought it was this could have been addressed a long time ago.  Somebody will say, oh, they shouldn't pay the players, they make too much money, whatever. My take is that I don't think Scottie Scheffler or Rory McIlroy, or anybody in that European team or in the U.S. team, when they play on that team, that, they're going play less hard because they're getting compensated. These guys at that level hate losing.”