Few people are better placed to comment on the state of men’s professional golf than Paul McGinley who has experienced the game from all angles: first as a player, then as an executive, and now mostly as a pundit. When he’s sounding the alarm bells, you know it’s serious.
Men’s professional golf has more money than sense, according to Paul McGinley, who fears that golf could well be on the road to bankruptcy and there is a sense that the players are cashing in at the expense of the Tours sustainability and the public’s enjoyment.
A peace deal between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf is reportedly close to being struck, with a unified golf schedule now a potential reality for 2026. However, McGinley has warned that golf’s civil war could rumble on due to, in part, players’ lack of a desire to find solutions.
“The world’s two main tours have always been member organisations, and that has worked well for over 50 years, but in this modern world of top-level sport, that dynamic is turning into a double edged sword, as there seems to be too much focus on the present and not enough on the future of the Tours and their financial sustainability. Granted, they have had to react to the emergence of a serious rival, but if things continue as they currently are, then the established Tours are on the road to being unsustainable and maybe even bankrupcy,” warns McGinley when speaking to Irish Golfer Magazine.
“The player power pushing the enormous prize funds, as well as being paid through PIP and SSG money with the implied threat that they go to LIV if it’s not provided, has the PGA Tour on the ropes. The business model is being stretched to its maximum, and with viewing figures declining, how much longer will sponsors and partners be willing to pay the increasing amounts they are now while there is no clarity on what the future holds?”
Men’s professional golf has been divided since the Saudi-backed LIV Golf League began in 2022. Essentially, there are too many tours, and none of them have enough top-class players playing regularly to make their own products sustainable.
Negotiations over a ‘peace deal’ continue in the background, with parties working towards a deal that could see the PIF invest more than $1 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises. LIV has been trying to cherry-pick the top players from Europe and America and has had some success by offering players contracts worth obscene amounts of money. Jon Rahm reportedly signed a deal worth $500 million to join the breakaway tour.
In response to this, the PGA Tour has continued to increase its own prize funds, despite losing some big-name sponsors who don’t feel they can justify committing to tournaments that will have diluted fields. McGinley admits that players have never had it better and are the big winners in golf’s conflict. But there is too much money swirling around the game, and the honey jar could be empty very soon.
“As diluted products, many informed people think both the PGA Tour and European Tour are unsustainable where they are at the moment, and I’m inclined to agree with them. On the other side, LIV has burned billions without much traction, has little commercial or public interest, no significant TV deal, and moderate crowds,” explains the former European Ryder Cup captain.
“Nobody is winning except the players. Players on both sides are really in a hot spot. They’ve never made as much money. It is also clear that due to diluted fields, the competition on each tour is weaker than it would be, and that is a pretty good spot if you’re a player, caddie, or agent, because you are feeding off the percentages of the players.
“The players who’ve gone to LIV, and likely got paid a lot of money, play against small fields for $25 million each time, so of course they are happy. If you are on the PGA or DP World Tour, prize money has doubled and often tripled due to the threat of players jumping over to the Saudis.”
Being a professional golfer has never been more lucrative. But there is a sense that the players are cashing in at the expense of the public’s enjoyment. As prize funds rise, we’ve also seen viewing figures decrease. Golf is dangerously close to becoming an out-of-sight, out-of-mind sport, where the only tournaments that could matter are the four major championships, as fans may grow tired, bored, and disinterested in the run-of-the-mill tour events due to their lack of star power and diluted products.
The PGA Tour, in 2024, drew average viewing figures of 2.2 million for their Sunday telecasts outside of major championships. This is a 19% decrease on 2023 (2.7 million), and with major championship Sundays included, that figure only rises to 2.8 million for the past year.
McGinley feels sorry for the golfing public, who are not being offered a fully enjoyable product, and with the 2025 Ryder Cup ticket fiasco – where fans are being charged $750 a ticket – they are being overcharged to help contribute to the bloated prize funds, as well as players now looking to be paid to play in the Ryder Cup.
“The people in the middle are the ones footing the bill and getting squeezed,” McGinley affirms. “The public are getting a raw deal because they are not getting to see the best players playing together as regularly as they used to. The sponsors pay a lot more money for a diluted product in terms of field strengths.
“The fans are having to pay much more for their tickets, and finally, in the media, where I sit at the moment, viewing figures being down by an average of 20% manifests itself in advertisement revenue being down, leaving them with a massive hole as TV struggles to make revenue while committed to huge payments for TV rights. Even the charities that historically benefited from the PGA Tour with its non-profit tax status are getting significantly less because the profits from hosting events are watered down to pay for these over-the-top prize funds.
“In my view, the business model and long-term sustainability of all three tours is worrying, as no Tour is winning here. It’s not just the players who are vested in the business of pro golf and we really need to find solutions and a shared vision so that professional golf can thrive collectively now and in the future.”
Viewing figures are a key factor for McGinley, who feels a combination of different media platforms and the general disgruntlement towards golf from the public has caused the product to become somewhat stale. Instead of sitting down in the evening to watch a PGA Tour event, people have drifted away from mainstream media and are consuming golf through Instagram, X, YouTube, and TikTok, to name a few.
There has also never been as big a gap between professional golf and regular club golf, thanks to the distance players hit the ball and how similar golf course setups are on the PGA Tour.
“Viewing figures are down due to five or six factors,” McGinley outlines. “Society is changing. Young people’s attention spans are not conducive to sitting down maybe with a glass of wine or beer at the weekend and watching PGA Tour golf on TV the way that we might have done, or still do.
“A lot of it is being consumed through social media and short clips or highlights. There is also a clear public apathy towards golf. Many are fed up looking at players getting richer and richer. It turns many off.
“The game is also accused of lacking superstardom with top players who are very cautious on opinions compared to previous eras. Scottie Scheffler, for example, is a sensational player and a very nice guy, but doesn’t offer the hot takes in the way a Rory McIlroy does, who is not afraid to create debate and often divides opinion.”
There is no doubt that there are many complicated layers to solving the issues professional golf is facing, and the finances are only one element of this. McGinley is also sceptical about how courses are set up for Tour events.
“There is a uniform setup that the players have the power to oversee. The player representatives on committees decide on how uniform golf course setup should be – the width of fairways, sand in bunkers, green speeds, etc. With all of this going on, it’s very difficult for the public to tell the difference between one tournament setup from another. It’s all so uniform, and I believe that golf needs to be much more creative in setting up venues to create a different atmosphere each week.”
Player kickback towards changes of any degree was also amplified earlier this year when the USGA and R&A announced the ball rollback. Again, McGinley points out the unwillingness of players to embrace this proposal.
“I played with Rory over the summer, and he was sixty yards past me off the tee; the golf course was too easy for him. I’m playing decently and hitting driver, 6-iron; he’s hitting sand wedge. Driver, 6-iron for him on par fives, I’m hitting driver, 3-wood.
“The R&A, as well as their counterparts in America, the USGA, are trying to roll the ball back five percent—just five percent. So instead of Rory hitting it 315 off the tee, he is hitting it 300, but the players are completely against it.”
McGinley, who formerly sat on the European Tour board, feels players have too much power and, with the seismic amounts of money in golf, why would they want a deal?
“On its present course, professional golf is restricted in its ability to instigate change from a governance point of view for one main historical reason,” he explains. “The PGA Tour and European Tour are member organisations with players having ultimate veto. Also, another challenge is their independent trader status that gives the players the right to pick and choose their schedule. Again, good for the players, not good for the tour’s business model. No other major sport lets this happen.
“To move the men’s professional game forward and reunite the best players in the game, as well as making it future-proof to be financially sustainable, I would lessen player power and include more of those to whom the business of sport is a speciality, like the SSG group (who include the owners of Liverpool as well as others who own sports franchises in American sports). These businesspeople are now associated with PGA Tour Enterprises, a new subsidiary of the main PGA Tour.”
The PGA Tour is beginning to feel the pinch and looks set to lose long-term sponsors like Farmers Insurance and Wells Fargo, while Honda was a big name to remove itself from a tournament last season.
McGinley states that the diluted fields, because of the spread of players across the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, mean tournaments are now a tough sell to sponsors if the PGA Tour cannot guarantee the big-name appeal.
“If a deal was made to unify the Tours, the first thing I would then do is fix the two fundamentals in golf, and they are independent traders and member organisations. As a former player myself, I benefited from this but realise that golf is now competing in a very different and competitive market against huge sports like soccer, NFL, basketball, baseball, and it needs a cutting-edge premier product with guaranteed fields to sell. This is the one main thing that LIV has got right in their business model,” outlines McGinley.
“Professional golf is unique in terms of the fact that businesspeople don’t have full jurisdiction in running golf; golfers run golf. It’s outdated and needs a compromise.
“We have to dilute, not fully give away, the power of players; that’s the first thing that needs changing.
“The second thing is independent traders; we need to strip away the players’ ability to pick and choose.
“I’m speaking against my own brethren and what I did in my career, but players have to forego this independent trader status. You can’t grow a business when you don’t know what you are selling. Again, compromise is a good place to start with the Tours in control of maybe one or two events for each player per season.
“At present, the Tour goes to sponsors like Amgen and says they want a three-year deal. Amgen ask if Rory McIlroy will be playing. It’s a hard sell when you don’t know what you are buying – you are buying title sponsor of the Irish Open but don’t know the full product in terms of who is going to play.
“The tour needs to be more in control of the players’ schedules, if only on a limited basis. Imagine the conversations the tours could have if they had limited control of every player’s schedule in the world?
“Then, you go to Amgen again for the three-year deal and say, ‘this year we have Rory, next year we will put in Scheffler, the next year we will have Collin Morikawa’, and so forth. It’s a whole different story. The problem is that the players are driving the bus too much; they have too much freedom to say, ‘I don’t want to play there’.
“If those two fundamentals change and golf is run more efficiently from a proper business perspective, then we have a great chance to improve and thrive. Decisions would be made for business reasons.
“The Saudis massively disrupted the business of golf. People say disruption is good in business, but I’ve yet to see the benefits in golf,” admits McGinley.
The DP World Tour has become, outside of certain times of the year, the forgotten figure—the annoying middle child as the older and younger siblings fight it out.
It does seem that the DP World Tour is in a position of strength as some LIV players have been allowed to play in European events, while fourteen LIV golfers played in the recent Alfred Dunhill Links during a period of the season when all the standout events were on the DP World Tour. McGinley has moved to allay fears that the DP World Tour is in a vulnerable position, placing his full support with Guy Kinnings and the board.
“The European Tour is the little guy, and we have two massive financial titans on either side – the PGA Tour and the Saudis. We had a problem; we were going to be crushed, so we had to hitch our wagon to one side.
“The board of the European Tour has a duty of care to look after 500 people. On the assumption that they could have aligned with the Saudis, it would’ve been a very risky move in going against the Americans who would have moved to crush us. Yes, they would be part of a potentially exciting new product with the rich new kid on the block, but also one that is new to the business, with no track record, and at the behest of a governmental or power base change of mood or tenure. It would have been a high-risk move for a board representing the livelihoods of almost 500 members.”
“Who is to say that Saudi would not change tactics? The DPWT ultimately went with the PGA Tour and got a long-term guarantee on prize funds and a formalised access pathway for its members to the PGAT. It was the right decision to make and the one with the least amount of risk attached.”
“The European Tour has two massive financial assets in its production company, as well as a significant ownership share of the Ryder Cup; these underpin its balance sheet with substantial high-valued assets.
“I am watching the negotiations between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia very closely and I have full trust in the European Tour Board to make sure that we are included in any new vision for professional golf; it’s in good hands.”
It’s hard to shake the ‘all about the money’ tag that professional golf is being labelled with. It is refreshing to hear Rory McIlroy stating that the best two events in professional golf were the Olympics and Ryder Cup, for the sole reason that the players don’t play for money, nor are they paid to compete.
That purity could be potentially soiled at next year’s Ryder Cup in Bethpage Black, with reports suggesting that the US team are pushing to be paid to compete as they look to cash in on the massive sums of revenue the biennial contest generates.
Rumblings of the Americans wanting a pay-for-play model have always lingered, but they came to the surface in Rome when Patrick Cantlay reportedly refused to wear the team cap because he wasn’t being paid as he would be wearing a sponsored cap in regular events.
Luke Donald’s Europeans have all come out strongly against the Ryder Cup pay debate as they bid for a first away win since Medinah in 2012, all stating the Team Europe stance is that they don’t want to be paid to compete.
“Luke has done a great job of managing the European Ryder Cup players and continues to do so. None of the Europeans are pushing to get paid. Luke is of the view, as am I, Rory and Shane [Lowry], that the Ryder Cup is sacrosanct, it should be different, and that there is enough money going around in the game that the underpinning of its ethos of representation should be preserved without payment to the players. It will be interesting to see where the Americans land with this.
“The money that Europe makes goes into every level of the tour, as well as the PGAs of GB&I/Europe, and the money that the PGA of America makes goes into grassroots and supporting their PGA pros with ‘grow the game’ initiatives.
“At the moment it’s speculation, but if it’s true that the American players are looking to be paid, I hope it doesn’t happen. It’s important that we stay united in Europe and remain quite happy not to be paid,” admitted the winning 2014 European Captain.
McGinley describes himself as having a 360-degree view on golf, having played as a touring professional, served on executive boards, and currently enjoying a successful career as a golf pundit.
2025 will see McIlroy’s quest for an elusive fifth major enter an 11th year, with the inevitable build-up to his Grand Slam bid at the Masters set to resume sooner rather than later. McIlroy won his four majors between 2011 and 2014, and since winning the 2014 PGA Championship, he has won virtually everything there is to win in golf, outside of a fifth major.
McGinley feels McIlroy’s consistency should be admired, and that what he achieves each year is actually well above average.
“Rory came on the scene as I was finishing playing. I remember being a vice-captain to Olazabal at the 2012 Ryder Cup, and in the practice rounds it was like being with Niall Horan in One Direction—it was just Rory fever.
“It was incredible how big a star he was at that stage. He’s been at this elite level for 15 years. Can you think of anybody playing in 2010 who is still playing at the very pinnacle level of the game and in the top 5 of the world rankings? His motivation to keep going at the level for a long time is so impressive.
“His consistency is admirable. When I turned pro in 1992, Jack Nicklaus wished me luck at the end of a dinner and said: ‘In my career, I have spent roughly 10% of my time winning in this game and 90% of my time losing. You’d better get used to losing and bouncing back in this game if you are going to be successful.’
“Here’s the most successful player in the game saying he only won 10% of the time. If you take that from Jack Nicklaus and then see Rory at around 15%, he’s doing phenomenally well. Granted, Jack massively outperforms him in Majors, but in the history of the game, he does that to every player, bar Tiger.”
At 35 years of age, the second half of McIlroy’s career will be judged mostly on how many major championships he can add to his four already.
The Holywood man has had a string of near misses over the last three seasons, including the 2024 US Open at Pinehurst, where a late wobble saw him lose out to Bryson DeChambeau.
McGinley believes McIlroy’s anguish in majors has certainly a mental issue associated with it—the longer his drought goes on, the tougher it becomes, not easier.
“With Rory, because he hasn’t won a major for 10 years, the pressure is building, the scar tissue has increased, and it is becoming more and more difficult for him. He should have won the US Open last year but left it behind him. He knows that. That’s a big miss and it’s an easy stick some have beaten him with. He has massive pressure playing in majors compared to normal events because he knows he hasn’t won in 10 years, but he will like the look of the Major host venues in 2025. Quail Hollow and Royal Portrush, in particular, are places he loves.”
As we face the 2025 season and so much uncertainty surrounding professional golf, let’s hope a Rory win at Augusta is just one of the big headlines in the year ahead. A deal to unite professional golf and a new shape to its future, while on a more stable and secure financial path, is what the game needs to thrive into the future and leave it a better place for future generations.
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