Making Money In Pro Sports

Golf: Making the cut

    There are a number of pro sports out there and each one has its own rules by which the players must abide in order to get paid. Obviously the winner of a sporting event is not the only one to make money. Players who do well and come up short make money as well. In team sports the players pretty much know what they are being paid as they are under contract with a team. And if they have a good season (like say for instance in the NFL their team makes it to the Super Bowl they'll make extra money - a bonus in addition to their regular salary - in fact the winners will have made around $180,000 for their playoff run and the losers around $130,000 according to Andrew Brandt of ESPN).

    Individual sports, like golf, tennis, fishing, etc., do things a bit different. Players or competitors in these sports don't to my knowledge get contracts to play. Instead they must enter tournaments and try to do their best to make as much money as possible. In other words, if a player does really well he'll make good money, if he does poorly he might not make any money at all. In fact, he may go home in the negative since he/she paid money to be there. I'll be covering golf in this blog post as it is the sport I wish I could be a pro in:

     In golf a cutline is commonly used to determine who stays in the tournament (and thus will make some money) or goes home. The cutline itself is not just decided by taking the best half of the golfer's scores for the first two days and keeping them in the tournament (although some tournaments may very well do it this simply). The following are the current rules by which the known pro golfing tournaments make their cuts:

(this info was garnered from:

http://golf.about.com/od/golfterms/g/bldef_cutline.htm

     PGA Tour = "Regular" PGA Tour events are cut after 36 holes to the low 70 scores plus ties. If that results in more than 78 golfers making the cut, then another cut takes place after 54 holes, again to the low 70 plus ties.

     The Masters = Following the second round, golfers with the low 50 scores, plus ties, plus any golfer within 10 strokes of the lead, advance to play the final two rounds. Those outside the Top 50 plus ties and not within 10 of the lead miss the cut.

     The US Open = After 36 holes all golfers in the top 60 plus ties make the cut. Golfers outside of the top 60 plus ties are cut from the field and fail to advance to the final two rounds of play.

     The British Open = Everyone in the Top 70, including ties, after 36 holes makes the cut.
     The PGA Championship = After 36 holes the golfers with the low 70 scores, plus any ties, make the cut and play the final two rounds.

     There are other tours out there being played by golfers too. The top level of men's professional golf in the United States is the PGA Tour. The second level is the Web.com Tour, which is the official developmental tour run by the PGA Tour. The Gateway Tour and rival ventures such as the NGA Pro Golf Tour (formerly known as the Hooter's Tour) and the Pepsi Tour are the level below that. The fourth and lowest level of tour golf is the mini-tour circuit (akin to satellite tennis tournaments). There are also tours in Europe, Japan, Canada, China, Korea, etc. And last but not least there are pro tours for senior men and women. So pretty much no matter your skill level or where you live you're probably not far from a professional golf tour.

     At any rate, making money in golf - apart from the lucrative endorsement contracts that some do manage to acquire, requires one to make the cut in tournaments. Make the cut and you are guaranteed a check. Miss it and as Arnold said in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, it's..."Hasta la vista, baby!"