Kalle Samoa will get to play for the biggest sums of money in the golf world next year. Samoa claimed the right to play on the lucrative LIV tour as the first Finn when he won the tour’s qualifying tournament in Abu Dhabi at the weekend.
The jump from the European tour to LIV golf is significant for Samoa both financially and athletically.
– Of course, it’s a big deal in your own career to be able to race around the world with the world’s top riders next year, Samooja tells Urheilu.
– You would have to play on the European tour for many years in order to get the same earnings as there. Maybe I would compare it to getting from the European hockey leagues to the NHL payroll.
Big sums and big names
Beginning in 2022, the LIV Tour will award approximately $25 million in prize money at each race. There are 48 players on the tour, all of whom receive prize money from each tournament. There are clearly more competitors on the PGA and European tours.
In LIV competitions, instead of four, only three rounds are played, and no one is eliminated from the competition after two rounds. 11 LIV players has already earned more than $10 million in prize money over two seasons.
of the United States Talor Gooch acknowledged A whopping 36 million dollars from the LIV Games this year. Gooch previously played on the PGA tour, considered the world’s highest level, for more than seven years and earned a total of $9.3 million during those years.
Gooch has netted a total of $46.5 million during his two LIV seasons. From the European tour, only the prize money king of all time, a sports legend Rory McIlroy has earned more (about 51 million euros, i.e. about 55 million dollars).
Samoa has earned a total of around 2.5 million euros from the European tour in his career.
Many of the brightest stars in the golf world play on the LIV tour today. The last to join was a Spaniard Jon Rahmwhich is ranked third in the world.
According to media reports, Rahm’s five-year contract is worth $600 million.
– From the Yankees there are, for example Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeauwho were all top 5 players in the world when they were still collecting points, Samooja says.
You don’t get world ranking points from the LIV tour, which is largely due to due to the small number of players in the games.
PGA and LIV as alternatives
The LIV tour, financed by Saudi Arabia, has been criticized for scrapping the traditions of the sport and for enabling Saudi Arabia’s sports washing known for human rights violations.
What do you think about this situation and the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia?
– I’ve been following this conversation for a couple of years and I’ve been thinking about it myself. I’ve traveled a lot around the world and tried to educate myself, but I don’t have a direct answer to this. Where is the clean money, I think it’s hard to say clearly in today’s world anymore, Samooja thinks.
– There are problems everywhere. If it goes ahead, the playing places in golf would be quite few if you look at the places where it is played.
In the 2023 season, the European tour was played in, for example, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. There were 45 races on the tour, 19 of which were in Europe.
According to Samooja, Saudi Arabia’s investment in sports can be seen all over the sports world, so it is difficult to avoid it.
– Of course, I hope that their country will go in a more Western direction, and that the human rights issues can be fixed to a better place. Maybe sports, as a small piece, will take it in that direction.
The Finnish golfer says that he decided to go to the LIV qualifiers on sporting grounds. The European Tour lost a lot of players to the PGA Tour this year.
– If I want to play with the best in the world, the options are PGA-tour and LIV. There was no place for the PGA Tour, so this remained a good second option. The place was easier to reach when it is the merit of one race.
A team game
On the LIV tour, golfers represent teams that compete with each other for prize pools in team competitions. There have been 12 four-man teams. In addition, Rahm joined the tour may establish a new team.
Samoa’s future team is not yet clear. The tour is scheduled to hold a reserve event in the near future, where teams can select players.
Of the 12 original teams, four have open spots, for a total of six. In addition to Samoa, they have found their way to the LIV tour Kieran Vincent, Jinichiro Kozuma and Andy Ogletree.
The Samoan says that he has good connections with the German through the manager’s office by Martin Kaymer to skipper the Cleeks team, where there are two spots available. There is also England Richard Bland.
– It’s probably the first thing I would have in my binoculars. Maybe I wish I could get there myself. It would be a European team then.
Samoa believes that the future team will make it before Christmas.
– At the beginning of January, you should be in Miami for the LIV team shoot. At that point, of course, the team uniform is already on.
Negotiations in progress
The LIV tour starts at the beginning of February in Mexico. Before that, Samoa is tentatively planning to play two races on the European tour in Dubai.
According to Samooja, he will not receive a penalty from the European tour for playing before the start of the LIV tour.
– If I played on the European tour after LIV, something might happen, but there is no direct answer to this at the moment. The three main tours are planning some kind of cooperation, so situations can change quickly.
There has been talk of merging golf’s major tours this year. The PGA tour announced in June that it would merge with the LIV tour, but negotiations are still ongoing. The European tour is also included in the negotiations, which are scheduled to be completed during this year.