PGA Tour Hits New Greed Level With “Shakedown” Of Rhode Island

We’ve already established that the PGA Tour may be one of the world’s greediest 501-c-3  “not-for-profit” organizations.

After we published their 2016 tax return, you didn’t need to be a partner at KPMG to figure that out.

Now the tour is preparing to take its greed level to new heights.

This week Jay “The Sherriff Of Nottingham” Monahan dispatched some of his henchman to basically tell the state of Rhode Island that they want a piece of the action should the smallest state in America open its borders to legal sports gambling as now allowed thank to last week’s ruling from the stately Supreme Court Of The United States.

First we need to point out that The Tour wasn’t ballsy enough to head up there all by its lonesome.  They jumped on the coat-tails of Major League Baseball and the NBA.

What the  Goodfellas  from the three organizations were after was a piece of the action.  They basically told the lawmakers up there in The Ocean State that they wanted to wet their beaks if there is a chunk of gambling money flowing through the coffers.

What all three failed to realize that, unless your name happens to be Pete Rose, you’re not placing too many bets on baseball games.

The NBA?  I’m looking for someone I know who watches NBA games — haven’t found them yet.

So now we get to golf.

Someone needs to tell Commissioner Jay Monahan before he sends “Moose and Rocco” up to Rhode Island, is that virtually none of the big-time gamblers give a hoot about golf.

The 50,000-pound giants in the room are NFL and College Football.  Simple as that.  When it comes to those twins, money bet on golf is smaller than a pimple on a gnat’s ass.

Doesn’t matter.

There’s no end to the greed when it comes to the PGA Tour.

Now when it comes to gambling, The Tour has already turned a blind-eye to a couple of high profile situations that featured on the The Tour’s most highly-decorated players.

Enter Phil Mickelson.

Before we venture further, we refer to this paragraph from the PGA Tour’s Player Handbook:

Said handbook has special language related to gambling and it reads that a player shall not:  ”associate with or have dealings with persons whose activities, including gambling, might reflect adversely upon the integrity of the game of golf.”

Maybe you noticed that Phil was pretty chummy with a fella named Billy Walters, who now sits in the Federal Hoosegow, a convicted felon.

Seems Phil owed Billy, a known bookie, a sizeable sum of cash, millions to be in the ball park.

Also seems that Lefty was pretty chummy with Walters, to the point that Walters hatched an insider-trading scheme to help Mickelson pay down his gambling debts to good old Billy.

Enter the  Dean Foods Caper.

Lefty got off scott-free because he got his information from Walters, who got his from the Chairman of Dean Foods.  And that technicality, kept Mickelson from a guest suite at the nearest Federal Pen.  Had Lefty been getting it from The Chairman, well, therein lies the get-out-of-jail Free Card for Philly-Mick.

So obviously Mickelson was “associating with” and “had dealings” with a person whose activities did include gambling and certainly did reflect adversely upon the integrity of basically anyone and anything, the PGA Tour included.

The Tour kept its head buried in the sand on that one and now, it wants in on profits from gambling.

Which brings us back to that “501-c-3” “not-for-profit” nonsense.

The Supreme Court needs to make another ruling:

Any “not-for-profit” that asks for proceeds from gambling revenues, should immediately forfeit its “not-for-profit” status.

Simple as that.