Brooks Koepka, by virtue of his win last week at the WGC FedEx St. Jude Invitational in Memphis, won the “Wyndham Rewards Top 10” First Prize of $2 million. Koepka is not competing in the Wyndham Championship which began today in Greensboro, NC. Nor are any other “Wyndham Rewards Top 10” eligible players, with the exception of Paul Casey.
To put it plainly, 9 out of 10 eligible players are willing to take Wyndham’s bonus money … but not play in the hotel chain’s own tournament in Greensboro. Before you rush to judgment and dimiss these players as “ingrate pieces of shit,” listen to Brooks Koepka’s explanation of why some tour players are skipping the Wyndham Championship:
“Don’t get me wrong; we really appreciate Wyndham stepping up with $10 million in bonus money. But to play their Greensboro event … financially, it’s just not worth it to the top-tier guys. Let’s say you win the tournament; your take is $1.16 million. Now get out your calculator: 25% goes to my agent and management company, 50% goes to Uncle Sam and North Carolina, 10% goes to my caddie. Then I have to pay my sport psychologist, my trainer, my physical therapist, my full-swing coach, my wedge coach, my putting coach, my social media manager, and my ion deflector bracelet manager. Although I’m happily married, I’m sure somewhere down the road I’ll be getting divorced — you would not believe the trim I see in my galleries! — and Pat Perez tells me that these bitches will take you to the cleaners.
“Then there’s the hotel (can you believe fucking Wyndham doesn’t comp us?) and room service charges, tips for the locker room and valet parking guys … it never ends. All these fucking guys have their hands out! If I make the cut, maybe I put some gas in my courtesy car. So that’s 10 bucks gone that I’ll never see again. And I’m not even including my jet rental costs. So you see, after you divide up the pie, there really isn’t that much money left.
“I’ll tell you what would attract the best players to Wyndham’s tournament: free stuff. You know, like in the movie “Casino,” where the whales are gambling millions of dollars and stuffing their suitcases with hotel towels and shampoos. Tour players aren’t big on towels, but we do like the soaps, shampoos, sewing kits, Q-tips, and all the other goodies. We give them to our wives and girlfriends and they love ’em! And it’s a lot cheaper than giving them cash!”
