I heard a disgraceful story over the weekend regarding one of the world’s leading golfers. The player in question just happens to be one of Africa’s favourite sons and is admired for his easy swing. The story that was told to me by a reliable source involved the player demanding a $850 000 appearance fee to play in a tournament here in South Africa, an amount larger than the tournament purse! I was horrified to hear this, in my opinion when money is in abundance then why ask for a ridiculous sum to play in your own country?
Tiger Woods is being paid $3 million to play in the Australian Open, the organizers feel the fee will be justified, any tournament involving the world number one and you can count your bottom dollar that the galleries will be packed, but for this foreign based player to ask for R10 000 000 for a competition in his country of birth is simply shocking.
I wish the player who I was told about would ask for a much lower fee and then donate it to a worthy charity, the press would love it and he would not be perceived as a greedy sportsman that hasn’t won a Major in a long time.