Saudi-backed golf tournament pays $120,000 - to the loser

Agencies | St Albans

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

If anything summed up the absurd amounts of cash being lobbed at the new LIV Golf Invitational Series it was the $120,000 cheque handed to Andy Ogletree for coming dead last on Saturday.

Had the 24-year-old American been playing on the PGA Tour this week he would have been heading home after two rounds contemplating a financial loss for his efforts.

But with no cuts and prizemoney supercharged by the backing of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, the former U.S. amateur champion enjoyed easily his biggest payday -- no mean feat considering he was 24 over par for his three rounds at the opening event at The Centurion near London.

According to the PGA Tour, which Ogletree joined after turning professional in 2020, he has career earnings of $38,000.

He will no longer be able to play on the PGA Tour after the organisation on Thursday moved to suspend all the players who had jumped on board the LIV bandwagon.

For a player forging a career, getting barred from the PGA Tour would usually amount to financial suicide.

Yet if Ogletree plays in the remaining six individual events this year, even finishing last in all of them, he will be looking at earnings of close to $1 million.