Chesson Hadley is pretty much your dictionary definition of a journeyman PGA Tour pro. Something that should generally be applauded rather than to pick holes in his career but Hadley is 35, has played 10 years on tour and he has one win to his name, in Puerto Rico in 2014.
He has a career high of 56th in the world and is the current World No. 297. On Thursday he shot a five-under 67 to share the lead at the Canadian Open. Hence why he was making a rare visit to the post-round plinth to discuss his opening round and therefore why he was then asked about the new deal between the PGA Tour and the Saudi Public Investment Fund.
Hadley then queried if the assembled media had an idea of how any compensation might work for those players who didn’t make the move to LIV Golf?
“Is it true that Jay said he's going to reward those who stayed loyal to the Tour? Did he say that?”
When the moderator explained that he didn’t have the details Hadley continued..
“I think he said that about Rory and Tiger, didn't he? Anyway. I would like to be rewarded for some loyalty. I mean, I felt those guys didn't do the wrong thing, who went to LIV. They made a business decision. I don't hold that against anybody. But I would like to be rewarded for my decision to stay loyal.”
It was then put to Hadley that it would be the top-10 players who will be more likely rewarded.
How any compensation will play out is going to be one of the major headaches going forward. Maybe Hadley had an offer in the early days, given the strength of the field in the inaugural event at Centurion that wouldn’t have been unheard of but it’s a fairly embarrassing reflection of where the game is now at.
And also how little the players actually know. Generally there’s a suspicion that the players are getting a pretty good steer on events behind the scenes, with this they appear to know as little as the rest of us.
“The older I get the more I would like to be involved out here. But this is my 10th year and I kind of know how things go,” Hadley explained. “I guess most of the time when they're making changes they have a little bit more detail. Obviously we just have a very, very broad and general framework.
“So, there's some long-term things that I would like to see and some short-term things, obviously, we just don't know anything short-term. So, hopefully, they can get a move on it and they can start giving us some answers to a lot of the questions that we have. Because I, I mean, I know nothing. I know as much as you know.”
