Columnist Dean Juipe: Malcontents want bigger slice of pie

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, Oct. 13, 1998 | 10:32 a.m.

The money is huge. Astronomical, actually.

They're playing for a collective $107 million on the PGA Tour this year, with that gold mine spread across 45 events.

Next year the windfall will be even greater, with an anticipated 21-percent increase driving the total purse to $130 million.

The tour is big business, big riches. But, as anyone who has ever taken even a semi-serious fling at golf can attest, it is the most difficult sport in the world and the men who excel at it deserve the luxuries they encounter.

Pro golf is the ultimate in risk/reward. Play poorly and you're a permanent spectator at tour events; play spectacularly during the annual PGA Tour Qualifying School tournament and you can earn your tour card and assure yourself a spot in 144-man events like this week's Las Vegas Invitational; play unbelievably solid golf over the course of the tour season and finish among the top 125 money winners and you're welcomed back the following year.

It's fantastically simple: The money goes to those who are playing the best. It's the perfect example of free enterprise, capitalism, and supply and demand all rolled into one.

Yet even the most theoretically perfect system can have its detractors, its malcontents. Say hello to the newly formed Tour Players Association.

The TPA's 50-plus members are hands-extended begging, looking for something for nothing. As Bill Murray wryly said in the movie Caddyshack, they're hoping for "a little something for the effort."

Essentially comprised of players on the lower rungs of the tour, the TPA is lobbying the PGA Tour hierarchy to implement a fairly drastic change by golf's noble standards. TPA members don't object to the concept of a cut halfway through a tournament to trim the field to the top 70 (and ties), but they want everyone in the field to receive a check.

As in, shoot a pair of 80s and take home $2,500 or so to ease the pain.

From a purist's point of view, it's blasphemy.

Aside from marveling at the players' abilities, the greatest appeal of the pro golf tour is that its rewards are absolutely, positively based on performance. The tour has been that way since its first full-fledged season, 1938.

There's only one way to look at it: The escalating money on the tour has led to a case of the greeds. The second-division players have first-division stars in their eyes.

In essence, what they want is an appearance fee, a stipend for just showing up. They want to be paid even if their play wasn't worth paying to see.

Spearheading the rebellion are a couple of dust-covered players from the lower echelon: Larry Rinker and David Edwards. Their vitals: Rinker, 41, has been on the tour since 1981 but hasn't finished in the top 100 single-season money leaders since '92; Edwards, 47 and a tour player since '75, hasn't seen the top 100 since 1987.

They're friendly enough and undoubtedly well-meaning, yet their complaints on prize distribution and two or three other fairly insignificant matters come off as sour grapes. Graciously, PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem has met with them and likely will again, yet he's under no obligation to suggest or agree to any tour policy changes.

Very few of the tour's leading players support the TPA or its proposals.

"I just can't follow Larry Rinker," said Fred Couples, speaking for those who sympathize with the forlorn yet don't always reach for their wallet.