Norman: Take A Pay Cut
On Wednesday, Greg Norman chimed in with his two cents' worth on the financial crisis.
He said that the PGA Tour should cut back on prize money "out of respect to every citizen and taxpayer who's suffering dramatically".
Frankly, as someone who was on the receiving end of the financial crisis last December (as well as a recently alleged Ponzi scheme involving my former employers), I can say that if prize money is rolled back at one or all PGA tournaments this season, it won't make a bit of difference to me.
It won't get me another job; it won't make me feel any less resentful towards my former employers.
And quite simply, Norman's wish will come true without any help from the Tour at all.
Sponsors will drop away with increasing alacrity this season; already, we have seen it happen.
And now we learn that Wells Fargo Bank, recipient of some 25 billion dollars in taxpayers' bailout money and the new owner of Wachovia Corporation is dropping the Wachovia name from the Charlotte tour stop in late April.
The event will simply be known as the Quail Hollow Championship. Wells Fargo reasons that it would be inappropriate to stick with the Wachovia name since it no longer exists.
Wells Fargo also said it also sends mixed signals to stakeholders (read "the U.S. taxpayer").
WF is on the hook with this tournament until 2014 but you can bet your bottom dollar – which increases in value every week thanks to deflation – that there is an escape clause that will be exercised shortly.
So, while Mr. Norman is sounding the right note even if he's got it basically bass-ackwards, events will soon accelerate and take matters into their own hands regardless.
Norman should run for the position and then do it for free… he has a long history of thinking that he can do it better than the guy who is actually doing the job.
Ironic that a guy who is worth hundreds of millions makes a suggestion like that.
Good point, Tony. Of course, those millions haven’t been earned ON a golf course in recent years…
I think the ‘Shark’ has a valid point. Each week you see nearly six million dollars worth of prize money being handed out on the PGA Tour. That just sounds like a ridiculous amount when you look at the kind of prize money on offer on most other tours. Agreed that some of them might be in their nascent stage but even compared to the European Tour, this is just loads of money.
There was a very interesting explanation I read somewhere that highlighted the fact that the prize money on the PGA Tour is highly inflated due to one man called Tiger Woods. Such is the impact that the man has had on the game that he has single-handedly played a huge role in impacting the money on offer. In his absence the sponsors might themselves have realized the lack of what they love to refer to as ‘Return on Investment’.
With or without the Shark’s detailed psychological insight, one thing is clear that the money has to be rolled back. Primarily out of compulsion or else you will not have the kind of sponsors who can match such a high figure and secondly because common sense should prevail. It is an automatic mid-course correction that the tour can afford to take to keep sponsors on board and try and ensure the game is insulated from the chaos around it.