ATLANTA — Two-time winner James Hahn doesn’t claim to be disappointed with the changes coming to the PGA Tour next season, but that doesn’t mean he is pleased with them either. As one of four player directors on the Tour’s nine-voting member Policy Board, he cast the lone dissenting vote. In a Golfweek exclusive, Hahn tells for the first time why he felt compelled to do so.
“Certain changes were made to combat the LIV Tour, not necessarily make our Tour any better,” he said in a phone interview on Saturday. “To prevent more players from leaving our Tour, we are ending up paying the top players in the world guaranteed money that has increased exponentially. Three years ago, we started implementing this new PIP program, which has grown to $100 million. It seems like the people who have the most influence of how much money is distributed to the top players in the world have a much stronger voice now than they’ve ever had. I understand the reasoning that the money is used to keep top players and without them, we have no Tour. My question to them is when is it enough? We’ve gone from $50 million to $100 million. When $100 million isn’t enough, will they ask for $200 million? How will that impact our business?”
Hahn noted that many of the same players who bashed LIV defectors as employees who no longer had the luxury to pick their schedule and privilege to play when they want to have essentially given up those very rights.
“It’s interesting how things have switched,” he said of how top 20 players will have to make 20 mandatory starts (three non-elevated starts will be optional) to receive their PIP money. “Purses increasing to $20 million isn’t enough – they needed guaranteed money to give up their freedom. It feels very hypocritical and it could cannibalize the rest of the season and make the other tournaments feel like second-class events. By asking the best players to play more and essentially the same schedule they are going to end up taking the same week off. Are they going to play the Honda Classic with its $8-million purse or the $20 million purses that surround it? I fear we could end up like the ATP (tennis circuit) where only a handful of events draw real interest. These are some of the things we had to think through before we voted.”
Hahn expressed concern that the gap between the haves and have-nots has widened even deeper, and noted several of the meetings have become heated.
“We all want the same thing, what’s best for the Tour, but we have different ideas on how to get there,” he said. “Right now, it seems like they are catering to the top players in the world.”
Hahn understands how the business works – the value of the next TV contract will depend on star power and being able to have the best players competing against each other more often is a good thing. The dollars have grown considerably in the most recent TV deal that kicked in this year and that money gets distributed to the whole membership primarily through larger purses. Hahn contended that the Tour’s rank and file provide value too.
“If we were at a steak house and everything was a la carte how much do you pay for your steak compared to the asparagus and the baked potato? If you were to do a la carte, sure, the top players in the world are worth exponentially more than asparagus. But you don’t eat just steak at a steakhouse. You have to have your sides, right? The Tour won’t taste as good if you just had 20 tournaments on our TV networks just showing the top players in the world. It doesn’t work that way. In my opinion, it’s just as important that they fill the other 20+ events with high performance golf in the tournaments that the top players in the world aren’t playing in. We have to remember that the TV deal is paying for those events too.
“We’re valuable to the Tour – not as valuable – and we’re trying to find a middle ground of how much guaranteed money we should pay the top players versus distributing the money in purses among the rest of the membership.”
Seems like a good compromise for both the top and the bottom. $100mm for the top 20 players on the PIP and $5k travel stipend for non-exempt players on Tour. Agree or disagree?
— James Hahn (@JamesHahnPGA) August 24, 2022
He continued: “The secret meeting with Tiger and Rory set a precedent that the top 20 players can get whatever they want from the Tour. So, what’s stopping the other 90 percent of our Tour from getting together and doing the same exact thing as Rory and Tiger and saying the top 20 players can go play their own tournaments but the rest of the Tour, us 90 percent all stand together and we want more benefits? I feel like a portion of the $100 million could have gone to making our Tour great rather than going to the top 20. These are the little things that irritate the rest of the membership to the point there is a lot of animosity between the haves and have-nots.”
As a player director, Hahn enjoyed a front-row seat to a critical moment in time for the Tour. He wished he could’ve done more during his term on the board, which is coming to an end, but given the unique circumstances the Tour faced he’s not disappointed that he wasn’t able to do more.
“I understand the No. 1 priority has been to keep our top players,” he said. “We’ve lost DJ, Koepka, Bryson, Reed and others. That’s been the No. 1 priority. It takes up all the discussion away from other things that compared to that is meaningless. The thought process has been if we don’t focus all of our attention and throw as much as we can against the LIV Tour to keep our players, a year from now, we might not have a Tour to play on. That’s been the overall theme in these meetings and that’s why we pushed everything else to the backburner.”
Was enough thought and consideration given to the sweeping changes that have been announced since LIV became a reality?
Hahn sees both sides to that debate and says, “We didn’t have that much time to process and think and revise some of the changes that were made because we needed to do it before the end of the season so if someone was considering leaving that they would second guess themselves and ultimately stay with the Tour. If it prevents even one person from leaving, I guess it would be considered a success.”
He continued: “It’s crazy to think that it took a secret meeting between Tiger, Rory and the best players in the world to make a change so fast that could have been made a year or two ago. I was talking to Bryson (DeChambeau) before he left the Tour. That’s what he wanted. He wanted the top players in a room and have a conversation on what they bring to the Tour and how can they be compensated for it. Because of the person that Bryson is, I don’t think he got the respect of his peers to bring together those players.”
The 40-year-old Hahn, who finished 109th in the FedEx Cup this season, never was approached by LIV. With the final wrap-around PGA Tour season starting in a few weeks, he’s motivated by the fact that if he plays the way he knows he’s capable of, he’ll be rewarded better than ever before. And he also knows that the changes being instituted will make it that much harder to retain his job.
“Everyone has their legacy – it’s not as great as Rory or Tiger – but I want mine to remain on the PGA Tour,” he said.
Does he expect the changes that PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan got approved despite Hahn’s opposition to thwart more players from jumping ship to LIV?
“It all depends how invested the LIV Tour is,” he said. “If this were a game of poker, LIV raised, now we raised and it is back to the LIV Tour to call, raise again or fold.”
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