Mackenzie Hughes has reiterated his calls for professional golf to stop focusing on prize money and said the unhealthy obsession is driving fans away from the product.
The two-time PGA Tour winner’s comments came ahead of this week’s Canadian Open which, last year, was partially overshadowed by the shock announcement of a framework agreement between the Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
Twelve months on, a deal to unite the warring factions of men’s professional golf remains elusive, with the Tour stumping up ever-increasing prize funds and equity grants to try and prevent key stars from taking lucrative signing bonuses to join the Saudi-backed LIV Golf.
However, Hughes believes that the unsustainable focus on money is only harming the professional game and urged the Tour to turn its focus back to its traditional routes: competition and charity.
“I think one of the biggest things I think about is the fan and how the fan has been affected by all this,” he said at his pre-tournament press conference. “The fans are just tired of hearing about it, tired of hearing about the money. I don’t think the money that’s going around is sustainable for golf.
“I would love for the game to kind of come back a little bit where it’s like we’re just, we’re talking about the golf now, we’re not talking about LIV, we’re not talking about the money and these purses and all that sort of stuff.
“Because people don’t care. People don’t want to hear it. I’ve said this many times to, you know, the media, the Tour, I mean, it just, we just, we want to, like, I feel like we’re shoving it down people’s throats.
“This is a big tournament for me, you know, I would say far bigger than the one next week, despite next week’s being worth 20 million dollars. That’s not something that I care or think about, but I’m here to win this trophy, it wouldn’t matter if it was for a thousand bucks or a million bucks, I’m here to play well and win this tournament.”
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Earlier in the season, Hughes said pro golf had “lost its soul” as it continued to chase dollar signs, and reiterated his desire to see tournaments turn their focus back to the local community and raising money for good causes.
“The state of the game is not super healthy because of the things we’re focused on,” he continued. “I was talking to some of the RBC people [this week’s title sponsor] and, you know, I think that we, as a Tour, used to really strive for charity dollars, and that was a really big proponent of what we did.
“Now I think that’s become less of a, less of an importance to us and the priority factor for that is not quite as high. To me that was one of the things that the Tour was, it was like a badge of honor.
“We donated more than all the other major sports leagues combined. I would like to see that become a priority again, where we really impact the places that we play and leave them better than we found them.”
Hughes gets his tournament underway at 12.55pm local time on Thursday alongside fellow countryman Adam Hadwin and Ireland’s Shane Lowry.
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