The PGA of America’s decision to pay its players in the 2025 Ryder Cup has gone down like a lead balloon in the majority of the golf world and now Paul McGinley has had his says as well.
The Americans will share around $4m between them to do as they see fit. It’s the first time the PGA of America is paying players directly, with any past payments being agreed to be charitable donations.
The storm the announcement has made has been one of the major talking points in golf this past week.
Rich Beem slammed the decision, while Dame Laura Davies called the Americans ‘disgraceful’ in her assessment of the matter.
Furthermore, Rory McIlroy has said he sees no reason to be paid, further fuelling the tensions between the Americans and Europeans ahead of Bethpage Black.
And sticking with the line of putting the boot in further on Team USA, Paul McGinley has now backed the European stance.
Team USA told their decision on Ryder Cup payments is ‘not good’ for the game
Speaking to Golf Today on the subject of the Ryder Cup payments, former European captain McGinley slammed the decision and suggested that the players in general are eating into too much money at the moment.
“It is true. I don’t agree with it, because it’s not like some faceless entity, some big corporate entity is coming in here and making a whole load of money from the Ryder Cup and taking the money outside of the game,” McGinley said.
“What’s happening, as you know, is on the European side. It’s, you know, we own 50% of the Ryder Cup, and that ownership rests with mostly with the with the DP World Tour, but also with the PGA of Britain and Ireland and the PGA of Europe. And the profits that we make from the Ryder Cup are split between those three entities.
“And those are either using prize funds and, you know, supporting the DP World Tour for young players coming through, including Challenge Tour, as well as supporting ex players who play on the legends tour, as well as going down to grassroots through the PGA of Britain and Ireland and the PGA of Europe.
“And then on the American side is the PGA of America, as we all know as well too. It’s the same thing. There’s 30,000 PGA pros, and that money is going over to their side, where down again, at grassroots level, they’re helping to grow the game and bring people into the game.
“So for me, it’s the one of the one tournament of the year outside of the Olympics that the players play play for free, certainly from a European point of view. And we’re very happy to do it as a representation, knowing that the money is going to be reinvested back into our game, there’s not enough of that going on.
“There’s too much money being taken out of the game by the players. It’s disproportionate at the moment, the prize monies are disproportionate to the whole business model of golf in my view, and it’s not good for the health of the tours and it’s not good for the health of the game.”
Has anyone backed the American stance on paying Ryder Cup players?
Like with any big decision in sport, there some who see the other side of the matter and while there’s a lot of people against this decision, some have backed it.
American golfer Hunter Mahan has backed the stance, saying: “Saying that what Rory said [he’d pay to play in the Ryder Cup] and I saw what Shane Lowry said, I don’t want to speak for everybody, but having played in a few of them, the experience in itself is incredible and overwhelming at times so it’s not something that you would need to be paid to play but at the end of the day it is sort of a goods and services transaction.”
While Rex Hoggard also backed his fellow Americans.
This issue, it seems, is not going away anytime soon and the discussion will likely go right into the weeks before the tournament takes place.
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