Appearance fees will ruin PGA Tour

The corporate fat cats are at it again. A sports management company, IMG, wants to get its tournament directors to lure big stars to tournaments by paying big “appearance fees” to top players like Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, John Daly, etc. for “corporate outings” held before tournaments.

This, in spite of the fact it is expressly against PGA Tour rules to use appearance fees to induce players to compete in tournaments. And what player is going to accept $500,000 to play with the fat cats before a tournament, and then bolt? You can bet there is all sorts of pressure from IMG on these guys to hang around and play. Why not, since they’re already there?

If the PGA Tour caves in, then the biggest tournaments will get all the stars and the smaller ones will be left bankrupt. Not to mention what it will do to the charities. Also, other Tour players will suffer because purses will inevitably shrink.