ORLANDO — Mark O’Meara was ahead of his time in 1999 when he was part of a group of PGA Tour players campaigning for Ryder Cup players need to be paid.
Now he wonders why it took so long to happen.
The PGA of America announced this week that each member of the U.S. Ryder Cup team will receive $500,000, with $300,000 going to charity. The remaining $200,000 is an allowance. Although players are allowed to keep this money, some might donate it to charity.
Keegan Bradley, the Jupiter resident who was named captain of the 2026 team that will face Europe at Bethpage Black in Farmington, New York, in September has already said his entire check will be donated to charity.
“They should have listened to me in 1999,” O’Meara said Thursday after playing his pro-am tour before this weekend’s PNC Championship at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club. O’Meara will play with his son, Shaun.
“Everyone around the Ryder Cup makes money. The guys who put on the show don’t make money. They could have done something back then, they chose not to, and it ‘obviously became a problem.’
The Ryder Cup generates at least $90 million in revenue every two years.
“I’m a professional golfer,” O’Meara continues. “It’s what I do for a living. I know what people think: ‘Oh, that’s greedy.’ It’s not. I don’t think it’s greedy, I mean people are paying to come see you play.”
O’Meara was part of a group of players including Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and David Duval, who first raised the issue of player compensation at Brookline Country Club, outside Boston. That’s when the PGA of America decided to donate $200,000 to charity in each player’s name.
O’Meara, a two-time major champion who has appeared in five Ryder Cups and was the 1998 PGA Tour Player of the Year, believes his position cost him a chance to captain the 2006 Ryder Cup team. went to Tom Lehman.
“No disrespect, Tom is a good player, but Tom doesn’t have the same track record as me and he hasn’t been to as many Ryder Cups,” O’Meara said. Lehman was a member of three U.S. Ryder Cup teams.
“More than likely that held me back. Plus, I had Tiger on my side, and Tiger wanted me to be the captain.
American players considered “ugly Americans”
Stewart Cink has played on five U.S. Ryder Cup teams and served as vice-captain in 2023 under Zach Johnson. Cink doesn’t think players should push to get paid, but now that the PGA of America has made the decision to pay them, he’s in favor of it.
In announcing its decision, the PGA of America emphasized that none of the players had requested compensation.
“It makes a lot of money,” said Cink, who plays at PNC with his son Connor. “It’s a business and these guys are professional athletes.
“We pay college athletes to go to school and play their sport. I have no problem with that.”
The issue reached a boiling point last year in Rome when reports indicated that the American team, beaten by the Europeans, was staging subtle protests against unpaid players, such as Patrick Cantlay refusing to wear a cap. Cantlay denied that had anything to do with his decision to go capless.
And when Europeans said they thought the Ryder Cup was pure and a matter of national pride, and some said they would pay to play for their country, the United States was again described as ugly Americans.
“I hear Rory (McIlroy) say I would pay to play, I’m like, okay, you want to pay to play, go ahead, pay to play, it means a lot to you,” O’Meara said. . “But I’m like, in all honesty, you have your own plane.”
O’Meara says PGA of America is finally doing the right thing
O’Meara remembers captain Tom Kite’s negative reaction in 1997 after the United States lost to Europe 14.5-13.5 at Valderrama in Spain. Europe had a five-point lead going into the final day, too many for the United States to catch up.
O’Meara was angry at the vitriol directed at his captain and the team, saying Kite “had just been massacred in the media”.
That’s when he began to believe the PGA of America should support the players and start compensating them.
“The point I was trying to make is that you should do the right thing,” O’Meara said. “The PGA of America is doing the right thing now.”
Tom D’Angelo is a senior sports columnist and reporter for the Palm Beach Post. He can be contacted at [email protected].
This article was originally published on the Palm Beach Post: Mark O’Meara joined Tiger and Phil in defending Ryder Cup pay 25 years ago
