HONOLULU — On the morning of June 6, a day that will forever live in infamy on the PGA Tour, Webb Simpson was in Toronto at an RBC outing when a couple of the Tour’s independent directors phoned to let him know about the framework agreement that was about to be announced by Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and Yasir Al-Rumayyan of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
“I said, ‘I’m so confused, I have so many questions but I have to go because I’m doing a clinic,'” Simpson recalled on Friday after shooting even-par 70 at the Sony Open in Hawaii.
It’s fair to say that Simpson is still a little bit confused on how the pending deal is going to shake out despite being one of the six player directors serving on the Tour’s board of directors. But Simpson, a seven-time winner during his career, including the 2012 U.S. Open, is always thoughtful when answering questions and generous with his time and proved to be the most willing player director of late to speak candidly on the record.
In a wide-ranging conversation, Simpson touched on greed in golf, why legacy should still matter and his concern that more sponsors could take their money and run to other sponsorship opportunities. [This conversation has been edited for clarity.]
GWK: Why was the Strategic Sports Group the choice on the equity side?
WS: Number one, their bid, the amount of money they were offering, and two, the team of investors who have crazy business experience, they are owners in other sports, they know activation, entertainment, you name it, they were all there, not to mention how much they love golf.
GWK: From the little I know about how private equity works, they usually want to get a return on investment quickly. How’s that going to happen?
WS: They were very clear that they weren’t making us this offer because they love the PGA Tour or because we love golf in and of itself. We’re doing it because we feel it’s a great opportunity for us to get a return on investment. That made me feel good that they see this as an opportunity. In terms of how quickly will they get it back? I didn’t study economics in college but they seem like the type of group and team to come alongside right now to give us exactly what we need. We don’t need to re-shape a ton of things but we’re in a dire situation with LIV being a threat, and for the first time ever players are not seeing the PGA Tour as the greatest place in the world to play. They are the right group to help us bring that image back.
GWK: From your perspective as a board member, why has Patrick Cantlay received so much flak?
WS: That’s a great question. Patrick cares a lot about the PGA Tour, he cares a lot about its members and I think him caring about the Tour and the members has put him in a place of playing more offense. He cares a lot and he’s trying to do what a majority of players are asking him to do.
GWK: Is he looking out for the entire membership?
WS: I think he is. I think it’s easy for the players who aren’t top players to see the top players on the board as they’ve done the elevated events, they did the PIP, they are just making it about them. I can understand how they can see that. I can promise you that is not the intention; the intention is we’ve got to keep guys attracted to the PGA Tour. If we don’t incentivize the stars, they’ll go too. The currency of sway is money – it probably always has been. We have to speak to that a little bit. I think it’s fair to say all the guys on the board are working their tail off. Patrick has put in so many hours, and I really think he cares about making the Tour the best place in the world to play.
GWK: There have been reports that he is slowing down the process and assuming control. Is that accurate?
WS: No, I think he just wants to get it right. We could all step aside and have no say about anything and we are all trying to have a voice and we need to get it right from Day 1.
There are a lot of rumors and articles about him, and I don’t know how they get started. I’ve talked to him on the phone more than anybody all year. He and I disagree many times but it’s been refreshing to disagree on some things and work through them and just have different opinions. I think that’s what makes a good board. If we didn’t disagree as players and board members, we wouldn’t be representing the Tour well.
GWK: What’s an example of something you’ve disagreed about?
WS: It can be anything from what’s most important in the deal to how should we be thinking about this. That kind of stuff but it would be hard to get into specifics.
GWK: Why is Tiger devoting so much energy to the Tour’s business structure, something he never was involved in in the past?
WS: He’s probably toward the end of his golf career, and I think he wants to do everything he can to set up the Tour for the best future and leave it the best he can.
Arnold passed, and Jack is getting older, I think Tiger has assumed the role of taking care of the PGA Tour.
GWK: In doing so, Tiger’s turned down an obscene amount of money from LIV. Do you get why he did that?
WS: Greed is a very clear exposer. I’m not saying the guys going to LIV, they’re all greedy. I’m saying when these young guys, when it’s such a heavy consideration for them, I feel like this generation has missed or they don’t care about the things that other generations cared about, which is Hall of Fame, how many wins on the PGA Tour, contending in major championships. Everyone talks about the money.
I believe money can’t make you happy long-term. It’ll make you happy in the short-term, but the long-term — I love the King of Israel from the Song of Solomon. He had everything and he said, “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money.” So, I’m trying to get the message out.
I think most guys would agree, now some guys, sure, they want the money, but most of us want – our ultimate goal on the PGA Tour and the ultimate satisfaction of a PGA Tour player is to be in contention, being able to hit shots and make putts. That feels better than any check we’ve ever gotten.
Now, I know guys who are struggling or rookies or guys on and off the Tour it’s important, and I understand that, but I’m trying to convince these young guys, legacy means something. I love Dustin (Johnson), he’s a buddy of mine, but he had the opportunity to go down as one of the top 10 greatest players ever, and as soon as he signed his name to LIV – he still could be, but in the record books, we’ll never know. It’s not going to count. Things like that make me a little sad. But I’m not knocking the guys for going. I just think these young guys think about it different, you know.
GWK: Are players overvaluing how much they are really worth?
WS: Probably. For the amount of eyeballs on our sport like you touched on, I think so. The amount of money we’re playing for is astonishing considering how many people watch our sport. That’s why I’m glad SSG is coming on board, because the way I see it, without SSG, kind of where we were, it’s not sustainable to keep playing for $450 million, or however much we do on Tour, without some kind of subtle to major shift in how we’re thinking about everything.
GWK: Is the Tour’s business model broken?
WS: The model is broken at the purse sizes we’ve been going the last year. And the sponsors are starting to feel it. Sponsors are pulling out. Wells Fargo, Farmers, there will probably be a couple more this year I would think, maybe one or two more. I hope not, but that’s a lot of money to put up for a week, considering the price of stadiums and stadium sponsorships and all kinds of stuff. Hopefully we deliver a product where like I’m close with the Wells Fargo people. They’ve been extremely happy up until having to continue to increase their purse, and they just didn’t feel like it was a good fit for them. So the product is really good. We’ve just got to sell it at the right price. We’ve got to be careful there.
GWK: What are obstacles in keeping sponsors involved?
WS: I think the sponsors will be very happy with SSG and the group of business guys involved. I think it will make sponsors feel a little more comfortable with the future of the Tour and us asking for bigger purses.
GWK: Will tournaments such as the Sony Open be able to pay the increased fees to the Tour starting in 2025 and still be able to match if not grow the charitable dollars? If yes, how do you envision them doing that?
WS: That’s another great question. I don’t know is the answer to that question. I really hope so. That’s what has separated the PGA Tour from the other sports is the charitable giving. That’s really important to us on the board still to continue that at a high level. That’s why we will have to be creative with SSG to figure out how can we continue to increase purses and give a lot of money away and make it sustainable for the sponsors. It’s a great question.
GWK: What's your biggest frustration right now?
WS: My biggest frustration, and has been for about six months, is most of these guys, they don’t know all the details of June 6. They don’t know all the details of what we’re trying to do, so they hear what other guys say and they kind of get in these echo chambers and they’re saying these one liners that we all know really well. My frustration is that they’re not asking more questions. They’re kind of just giving their opinion. They’re not seeking to understand or learn. I’m hearing a lot of you broke my trust once, I’ll never trust you again. I don’t live like that. Somebody breaks my trust and they want to make it right and apologize, I want to forgive them and move on.
I think these guys were so jaded by June 6. But the fact remains we lost 48 — however many PGA Tour players we lost pre-June 6, we were hemorrhaging players, major championship winners. Post June 6 until (Jon) Rahm (in December), we lost zero guys. Litigation stopped. We’re saving tens of millions of dollars a year. That never comes up with these guys. I have to be careful when I remind them, hey, there was some good from June 6, some bad. The Tour handled it, the communication was not good, and I’m sure Jay would like it back to be able to communicate a little more on the front end. But it is what it is, and there was some good from it.
GWK: If you knew what you know now, would you still want to have a board position?
WS: Yeah, for sure.
GWK: Why?
WS: It’s felt good to give back. I’ve been out here 15 years. I felt like I needed to give back a little bit, and I felt this was my small way of giving back. I’ve learned a ton. I love learning about how this all works. It’s been fun to get to know Patrick, Charley (Hoffman), Tiger, Peter (Malnati) and Jordan (Spieth) better and Rory (McIlroy) while he was on it and the independents. I feel like I’ve had so many conversations with the independents, just learning from them.
It doesn’t really make me want to be on more boards in the future, but I’m excited that I’m on it. I’d do it again.
GWK: Are the player directors, especially with Adam Scott replacing Charley Hoffman, too top heavy with top guys?
WS: Probably. It’s a fair point. I think we should probably have one of the six be more in the bottom half, and I’ve voiced that. But the majority of the guys thought this is the best way forward right now. We need guys who have either been on the board before or have experience. So I was fine with that.
I love Jordan. He has great experience. I wasn’t against it. I was kind of putting out a couple names of, but it was one of those things where we all said what we said and the majority won, which is totally fine. Not even the majority. We all unanimously voted on Jordan. We believe in Jordan. Jordan is very smart. But that was my whole reason of bringing up a couple guys because I’m like we’re a little lopsided if we do this, and we’re going to have to deal with it. Players are going to be saying stuff. And they have. They’ve said some things.
GWK: What has Jay Monahan done to restore trust since June 6 that the Golfweek reader and members of the Tour should know about?
WS: He’s totally owned the kind of debacle of communication with June 6. He’s totally apologized. He genuinely wants what is best for the players, and he’s been as transparent as he possibly can be.
I think he saw the threat not going anywhere and knew that something needed to be done, and even though he had said what he said the year before about the Saudis and their regime or their country, however you want to say it, I think he’s like, I’m forced to do this. Like we’re in this position where we have to do it to save the Tour really.
So, he’s working hard. He’s at the point where he’s like, look, I want to get this deal done. I want it to be really good. That’s all I’m focused on. He’s working hard. He’s texting me this week. He’s up in New York working on it.
GWK: I’m hearing he left Hawaii early to keep working on the deal.
WS: Yeah.
GWK: What prevented the deal from being completed by the end of the year?
WS: A deal of this magnitude and what we’re talking about is so complex. Different people, different desires and we’ve got to work through them. We’ve got SSG, we’ve got PIF, we’ve got so many players and it just takes time. I’m hopeful that we’ll have something done soon.
GWK: Do you think we’re pretty close?
WS: I think we’re close, yeah. Not too close but close. A few weeks. Yeah.
GWK: Is there anything else you want to touch on?
WS: Overall I’ve loved this experience, and I realize when you’re representing 200 some players you’re going to have a lot of opinions, a lot of people sharing what they think, and I’ve had to learn to kind of absorb all that, not give them answers they want to hear but just give them the truth.
The other hard part to your question is knowing what I can — like the confidentiality stuff, because I want to be fully transparent with the players especially because that’s what we need the most. So that’s been tricky for me because I want to tell them everything I know, but I can’t. But I don’t want them to think I’m holding out on them. So that’s the hard part.
