James Hahn is one of four player directors on the Tour. Hahn was the only one who voted against the changes the PGA Tour introduced. Speaking to Golfweek, he explained the reason for his decision. “Certain changes were made to combat the LIV Tour, not necessarily make our Tour any better.”
– Hahn said. Hahn believes that the money given is too much, and that it can only grow in the coming period. “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? I understand the No.
1 priority has been to keep our top players,”
James Hahn on the priority
He indicated what should have been a priority. “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.” Hahn understood what the main goal should be, and it seems that this was also the topic of the meeting at the BMW Championship.
“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”.
