History Could Look at LIV Golfers as Pioneers, Not Pariahs

The PGA Tour was driven down an unsustainable path by trying to keep up with LIV, but when the dust settles and a deal is done, everyone in pro golf will win.

HERTFORDSHIRE, England — Are LIV golfers the new Curt Flood or Ed O’Bannon?

For those of you that are too young to remember Curt Flood, he is the reason why free agency in sports exists today.

In 1969, Flood challenged the reserved clause in Major League Baseball, which had effectively made him beholden to the team he was contracted to.

Even though he lost in court in 1975, through arbitration the reserved clause was emasculated and free agency became part of baseball.

Ed O’Bannon was the named plaintiff in an antitrust class action against the NCAA to protect former student athletes' use of images and likeness for commercial purposes.

O’Bannon would be a partial winner in the suit but more importantly his lawsuit was the forerunner of additional suits against the NCAA that would eventually give student athletes much more control over their name, image and likeness.

So now we look at the LIV Golfer. As many signed up for bonuses of seven, eight or nine figures, most would not consider them pioneers or trailblazers.

Flood wasn’t seen that way, either, when he complained about the lack of free agency while under contract to the St. Louis Cardinals for $90,000 per year, which in 2023 money would be $703,677. Most dismissed his complaint as frivolous.

While most players who joined LIV Golf did so purely for the money, Phil Mickelson had additional motives—he wanted to see the PGA Tour’s books, wanted to know where all the money was going and why. If the Tour was a player's organization, why was he not given such access?

Mickelson also ultimately wanted more of the pie to go to the players, especially the best and highest-profile players that brought the eyeballs to television and put butts in the seats.

It would have been hard to find a player on the PGA Tour who didn’t want more of the pie, but Mickelson’s method for accomplishing the goal was not the way of a genteel sport where players call penalties on themselves.

So, Mickelson found another pie and got a bigger piece by joining LIV.

The amount of money Mickelson received to sign is irrelevant, but it was significant and it launched a series of events that eventually would cause the PGA Tour to blink.

At this point you could argue that the PGA Tour and Jay Monahan didn’t blink. Instead they found an opening and seized it.

That’s how Jimmy Dunne, PGA Tour Policy Board member and one of the architects of the PGA Tour’s strategy regarding LIV, outlined the Tour’s approach in numerous interviews.

Dunne confirmed that the timing was partly tied to a decision in Europe by an arbiter in favor of the DP World Tour and certain favorable decisions by the federal court in California, where the antitrust case against the PGA Tour resided, and that those decisions buoyed the Tour and had it looking hard to see if a deal could be done.

Dunne also stated in a Golf Channel interview that he could read a balance sheet and then pivoted to the PGA Tour finances.

“I don’t know if it’s (PGA Tour) ever been in a stronger position,” he said.

That contention is at odds with PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, who in a press conference with media at the RBC Canadian Open (after a contentious meeting with players) was asked how he would describe the Tour’s immediate financial future had the deal not been made, and how sustainable the elevated purses and mounting litigation costs would be without the influx of Saudi Arabian money.

“Between our reserves, the legal fees, our underpin and our commitment to the DP World Tour and their legal fees, it's been significant,” he said. “But you have to look at all the monies that we make, we make in the commercial realm and we're in long-term media deals. We've done a number of long-term sponsorship deals thanks to the great partners that we have.

“But this puts us in a position where we've got capital that we can deploy to the benefit of our members and through our tournaments, and it gives us capital to deploy in growth businesses that ultimately will generate a return that we'll reinvest in our players.”

Does this sound like Monahan wasn’t concerned about the financial viability of the PGA Tour if they continued down the path they were on?

What started with dipping into reserves for $100 million during COVID-19 to cover expenses and purses had expanded to $140 million (over two years) for the Player Impact Program, $140 million for enlarged purses with new elevated events and enormous sums in legal fees on a case that likely would have gone on for years.

In the player meeting in Canada, Monahan said the legal fees were close to $50 million and an additional $15 million for the European Tour.

By any measure, the Tour was going down an unsustainable financial path.

So, when I hear that an arbiter’s decision in London or a couple of victories in Federal court are pyrrhic in nature, I must pause and, like Mickelson, want to look at the books.

With the Tour also in the middle of potentially merging with the European Tour Group according to court documents filed in a Florida state court, and the millions of dollars involved with propping up what is likely a financially strapped entity itself, the LIV decision by players seems less like a money grab and more a prudent business decision.

A decision that has forced the PGA Tour to look inwardly and take a different approach going forward.

Mickelson was not right about everything. It’s clear the amount of money in the PGA Tour coffers was not near as much as he maintained.

But what is crystal clear is that the players that stayed on the PGA Tour benefited greatly from the LIV players jumping ship and creating a competitor in professional golf.

It’s not easy to see it now, but over time professional golf and professional golfers will be the beneficiaries of the last year of turmoil.

LIV Golfers are pioneers and deserve some credit for the positive outlook going forward, not derision for taking the leap and ultimately moving professional golf into a new direction.