He just said no to a check of 3.25 million dollars (almost 3 million euros) in exchange for participating in a tournament in Saudi Arabia. Of course, the protagonist is not just any golfer, but Tiger Woods himself.
The former world number one has not given any explanation as to why he refused such a succulent offer to play the Saudi International, which will start on January 31, although rumors suggest that his refusal could stem from the bad image of the Arab country since the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabian embassy in Turkey.
Although it may seem exorbitant the figure he has been offered, the truth is that the Californian has already charged on several occasions that fee for participating, known in English as appearance fee, in various tournaments, especially in the United Arab Emirates and even in China.
But it is also true that on some occasions the Persian Gulf countries did not want to pay so much money to have the presence of the Californian. It happened for example in early 2013 when Tiger asked for three million dollars to play the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters. The then president of the Qatar Golf Association said at a press conference that it was not worth paying that money for Woods to play a tournament that distributed 2.5 million dollars in prizes.
It is also true that at that time Tiger was not at his best and was dragging serious problems both on and off the course.
At that time, Rory McIlroy had doubled his appearance fee and was asking for two million dollars. The Australian Open was willing to pay him one million just before the Northern Irishman doubled his fee, but the organizers withdrew their offer.
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