What is the Super Golf League?

The Super Golf League (SGL) is the latest iteration of a breakaway golf league or world tour, designed to entice as many as 48 of the best players to play a F1-style team-based league featuring between 12 and 18 tournaments of 54 holes around the world for a total prize fund of US$240 million.

Originally known as the Premier Golf League, it threatens to rip up the current tour model, dominated by the PGA Tour and European Tour.

 

How would it work?

Details are sketchy. It is believed to be a modified version of the original Premier Golf League (PGL) where selected players would be awarded part-ownership of a team franchise, which would then give them the chance to share in “significant equity value” in a tour that is scheduled to start in 2022.

Who is behind the SGL? 

The proposed new league is backed by Golf Saudi, who also backed the previous iteration, the PGL, with the help of New York-based private equity group, the Raine Group. Golf Saudi is ultimately controlled by Saudi Arabia’s controversial ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is believed by US intelligence to have ordered the murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. The tour is fronted by Majed al-Sorour, chief executive of Golf Saudi.

 

Who has signed up?

So far there are no indications that anyone has signed up to play in the SGL. The PGL initially approached Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy but the Northern Irishman quickly distanced himself and said Woods would never play as he’d be obliged to play 18 events and the 15-time Major winner wants to play just 12 times a year.

Representatives of the SGL have been in Jupiter, Florida for months and are believed to have made formal offers worth between $30m (€25m) and $50m (€42m) up front to 11 players, including Bryson DeChambeau, Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Justin Rose, Henrik Stenson and Adam Scott. According to the ‘Daily Telegraph’, Phil Mickelson has purportedly been offered $100m (€83m) “as the de facto head of the rebels”.

 

What is Golf Saudi saying about the project?

The group behind SGL used last season’s Saudi International, a lucrative European Tour stop that attracts a stellar field based on millions in appearance money, to try and entice the big names to the breakaway tour.

Speaking last year, Majed Al Sorour said: “You will have resistance from different places. But I think it is a really great idea. It doesn’t have to be bad or good. It is something creative that we think is going to be the new world of golf eventually. We are still thinking it is the right way to go.”

 

How much is Golf Saudi investing in golf?

Apart from the $3.5m (€2.9m) Saudi International, which offers appearance money of between $500,000 (€417,000) and $1.5m (€1.25m) to up to a dozen stars each year, the national golf association has got Aramco, the state-owned oil-producer, to sponsor a four-tournament leg on the Ladies European Tour (LET), with the finale being held in the Kingdom. Each tournament carries a $1m (€830,000) purse.

 

Is the threat of the SGL connected to the new “strategic alliance” between the PGA Tour and the European Tour?

Yes. The new alliance, which saw the PGA Tour take a minority investment stake in the European Tour’s media production company, killed off a rival bid to take a stake in the European Tour by the aforementioned Raine Group. The PGA Tour was against the PGL gaining a foothold through the European Tour.

 

What can the PGA Tour and European Tour do to prevent the SGL from happening?
Ban the rebels for life. PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said this week that players who sign up face “immediate suspension and possible expulsion” from the PGA Tour. With the SGL looking for players to sign up soon, that could have repercussions for September’s Ryder Cup.

 

Is it likely to succeed?

Tour insiders have described the SGL as a lame duck. With a top player in line to win $20m (€16.67m) in a season thanks to the FedEx Cup or the Race to Dubai, risking a life ban from the tours and the Ryder Cup on a fledgling new tour is not worth it. While few would want to be seen to accept Saudi money in the wake of the human rights abuses in the Kingdom and the Khashoggi murder, the Saudi International has attracted a stellar field every year. However, it’s understood that the event is unlikely to be sanctioned next year.