It’s tempting to think that the highest sporting fines are dished out for appalling acts of misbehaviour.
Perhaps Manchester United footballer Eric Cantona kung-fu kicking a Crystal Palace fan or even a golfer smashing up a tee box after a string of errant drives.
But, in golf and many other sports, the reality is different. However, it’s fair to say that several players down the years have been hit hard in the pocket for stepping out of line.
And one megastar, who we’ll reveal shortly, once picked up a punishment that ran into the millions of dollars.
‘Wild Thing’ lives up to his name
It won’t come as a surprise that ‘Wild Thing’ John Daly comes up in the discussion. In 2010, Daly’s list of misdemeanours was released in a 456-page file. Overall, he had been handed fines that amounted to over £65,000.
The biggest single fine was £20,000 for hitting balls over the heads of spectators in a grandstand during an exhibition clinic in 1993. He was also once fined £13,000 for an altercation with fellow player Jeff Roth during the 1994 World Series of Golf in Akron.
LIV fines have spiralled
Given how much money swirls around, it’s also not unexpected to find that the controversial breakaway LIV Tour has been involved in some substantial fines.
Estimates suggest that LIV Golf has paid out a mighty $20million dollars in fines to the DP World Tour.
That was due to a rule that said every time a LIV golfer played in a LIV tournament that was held at the same time as a DP World Tour event they were handed a fine that had to be paid before they could play in future DP World Tour tournaments.
Without the fine, players would have been banned from the DP World Tour.
In 2023, former Ryder Cup stars Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood lost a legal battle with the DP World Tour over the imposition of these fines.
However, even to LIV, $20m isn’t exactly loose change and they’ve announced that players will now have to cough up themselves.
Estimates have said these fines could have been as much as $1m per player per season.
Fines for slow play – one of the big bugbears of so many players and fans – have been called for too.
PGA Tour star Anthony Kim suggested fines up to $50,000 for the persistent dawdlers although the preference is for penalty strokes. That would hit big-earning players much harder.
The massive $3m fine for a WD
But back to the biggest golf fine in the history of the game and here’s the big reveal. The player in question is none other than Rory McIlroy. And the fine was a massive $3million.
In 2023, the Northern Irishman pulled out of the RBC Heritage at Hilton Head, the tournament always played the week after The Masters.
The problem was that it was McIlroy’s second WD of the season at a designated event, tournaments brought in to get the star names playing together more regularly. That second absence triggered a rule that said players would be fined 25% of their PIP winnings.
PIP, now abandoned, was the Player Impact Program – an idea introduced in 2021 to financially reward the 10 most impactful golfers on the PGA Tour.
Rory’s reward for helping “generate the most positive interest in the PGA Tour” in 2022, saw him trouser $12m for finishing second behind Tiger Woods ($15m). But by being docked 25% of it, McIlroy was effectively ‘fined’ a whopping $3m for his withdrawal at Hilton Head.
Ouch!
Although, then again, Rory’s earnings for the 2022/23 season were a whopping $13,921.008.
Even with the fine, he still cleared $10m and that’s not taking into account all his other sources of income.
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