PGA Tour players are notoriously reluctant to travel beyond their backyards, and if the attitude of world number 41, Kevin Kisner - hardly a sporting superstar - they appear a bunch of pampered, overpaid and ungrateful brats, Kisner saying when asked about the new Tournament in South Korea, “It just seems like we should play at home, but I’m not sure where the Tour is trying to go.
“Obviously, they want to make it more of a world Tour, which is great. We’re playing for US$9.25 million, but not all of us want to get on a plane and fly over there and play for it,” Kisner adding, “I’d rather have a US$9.25 million purse in Aiken, South Carolina.”
Kisner, who has earned almost US$2.2m so far this term without winning a Tournament and US$10.7m in career earnings with just one modest PGA TOUR victory concluded, “The economy is not growing fast enough in the U.S. to keep asking people to throw money at us.”
It could be argued that in the case of the US$2.5m Japan Airlines Championship that there is currently no Japanese senior’s circuit, and that the LPGA Tour travels the world without criticism, both of which are true.
But the first-ever Champions Tour event in Asia sucks sponsorship revenue and media space away from the domestic scene, while women’s golf can realistically only support one major professional circuit at this time.
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