Dear Jon,
So it transpires that everyone does actually have a price.
In your case it turned out to be £450 million over 4.5 years.
£100 million pounds a year.
£7,142,857 a tournament.
£132,275 a hole.
For playing LIV golf.
Which is pretty much exhibition golf.
So you will get paid a shed load more money at every tournament.
Even if you come last.
Which you wont.
Because unlike 95% of the ‘competition’ (and I use that word advisedly) you’re actually at the peak of your powers.
To be honest it’s taken this long for me to write because I’m still trying to get my head around it all.
Where it leaves us.
Where it leaves golf.
This is what you said when you broke the news a couple of weeks ago:
“I have officially joined LIV Golf. It’s not an easy decision. There’s a lot of things that LIV Golf had to offer which were very, very enticing. I play golf for the love of the game and for the love of golf. I’m an ambitious person but I’m not a greedy one. But as a husband, as a father and as a family man, I have a duty to them to give them the most amount of opportunities and the most amount of resources possible.”
But none of that really washes does it?
Because this is what you said about LIV in June this year:
"Shot gun three days to me is not a golf tournament, no cut. I want to play against the best in the world in a format that’s been going on for hundreds of years. Would my lifestyle change if I got $400 million? Not one bit. Truth be told, I could retire right now with what I have made and I could live a very happy life and not play golf again."
Should I blame you for succumbing to the colossal sum of money which finally enticed you away?
I can’t deny I am a little surprised and a whole lot disappointed.
By your own admission you don’t like the format, and you don’t need the money.
And Jon, I think there are some other, more important, duties you have as a parent and a family man.
How about being authentic, principled and a role model?
Ultimately your decision has further fractured the game of golf.
Others will undoubtedly follow. A scenario that you will have foreseen and accepted as collateral damage to your own decision.
So you have let down your PGA and DP World Tour colleagues too.
Shane is particularly pissed at you right now. So much so that I’d scrap any plans for a city break in Dublin for the foreseeable.
Clearly you have been seduced, flattered, groomed even, to the extent that you have relinquished your ethics.
I hope that one day you will reflect on the action you have taken and realise you got this badly wrong.
For in my heart I believe you are a good guy.
And let’s face it, it’s been a fabulous few years.
Those two major wins, the compelling extra-hole victory at the 2020 BWM Championship, and of course, whatever the future holds, there are the magical memories of our time together in Rome.
But for now, I think it’s probably best that we don’t see each other.
At least for a while.
Which for my part should be simple enough.
I don’t really use You Tube.
Yours,
Jon