THE PRO: Smoltz, Bettis, Modano Headline New Golf Tour For Pro Athletes

It’s no secret that many professional athletes turn to golf to fuel their competitive fire after their playing careers come to an end.

Any golf fan who’s watched the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship on the shores of Lake Tahoe or various pro-am tournaments has likely debated which of the big four U.S. sport leagues has the best golfers.

Is it Major League Baseball, where starting pitchers are known for honing their skills on the links between starts? Is it the NFL, where placekickers have been known to carry over their accuracy to the fairways and greens? Maybe it’s the NHL, where the physics of the hockey slapshot seem to carry over well to the golf swing. Or is it the NBA, where height and a deft touch help with both power off the tee and a silky putting stroke?

A new competitive golf tournament series – The Pro Rivals Open, or more simply, THE PRO — is seeking to answer that question by bringing together current and former players from the four leagues, with events designed specifically for athletes and sports legends seeking the experience of a professionally-run golf event.

The new league kicks off in less than three months, with the inaugural PRO CUP at Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Florida, scheduled for Dec. 9-14.

The league’s respective teams will be led by baseball Hall-of-Famer John Smoltz (MLB), Super Bowl champion Jerome Bettis (NFL), hockey Hall-of-Famer Mike Modano (NHL), and 14-year NBA guard and current ESPN Radio lead analyst Jon Barry (NBA). The full rosters for the first event, which includes 12-player teams, will be announced this fall.

The series starts with the Ryder Cup-style match play competition between teams from the four leagues and then will feature four sport-specific golf tournaments spanning the next year to crown the best player from each of the sports. Those three-day stroke-play events are expected to have 54-player fields and will be scheduled to conflict as little as possible with the seasons for the various professional leagues.

“Golf is a great sport, but it’s an individual sport,” Smoltz said in an interview. “Whenever you can get together and have a team competition, much like the Ryder Cup, President’s Cup and some of the other things, it’s what everybody in the four sports that are getting together has been part of. It’s really going to be a great, great tour, and I’m so glad to be a part of it.”

Sites for the other four tournaments that follow the PRO CUP will be announced later, with the events scheduled to run between March and December 2025.

THE PRO was created by Pure Sports Holdings and is managed by ETZEL, an experiential events and marketing agency.

Traditional tournament weeks will include two early week practice rounds, a midweek Pro-Am, and then three days of competition.

The PRO CUP at Innisbrook, which regularly hosts the PGA Tour’s Valspar Championship on its Copperhead Course, will have a tournament Pro-Am that pairs four amateur players with one professional athlete. Competition rounds will be open to the public, with daily and weekly tickets available for purchase.

The purse for THE PRO CUP is $372,000, with prize money distributed based on team performance. Purses for sport-specific tournaments in 2025 will be in a similar range. In addition, proceeds from tournament revenue will go to tournament charity partners within each community.

“Each sport will have its own tournament in its offseason,” the 57-year-old Smoltz said. “We’re kicking it off as the Ryder Cup (type event). And then each year we’ll end with a Ryder Cup. We’re introducing the tour this way because it gives it the best showcase for what’s to come.”

Highlights from the various events will be shared on the fledgling league’s website and social media channels. THE PRO is also in discussions with potential media partners to identify a broadcast partner for its tournaments.

“So much of celebrity golf in the past has tried to replicate, or be on par with, PGA (Tour) golfers. That’s never going to be the case,” added Smoltz. “But what you’re going to see is really good competition and the bantering and the opportunities to see this thing grow. I’ve probably secured about six to eight guys already in building my team and just getting the news and the awareness out. People are excited when they hear about the format and what the concept is going to be. There won’t be many turning it down unless their calendar just won’t allow it.”

Smoltz is no stranger to competitive golf. He’s been a regular on the celebrity pro-am circuit in recent years and competed in several PGA Tour Champions events as well as the 2018 U.S. Senior Open and at Q-School seeking to qualify for the senior tour.

“As a captain, I am probably challenged about as much as anybody in putting together the (MLB) team,” Smoltz said, noting that the individual sport tournaments will eventually lead to guaranteed spots for THE PRO CUP and its Ryder Cup-style team competition. There will also be captain’s choices for that roster. “This has so much dynamics to it, and you know it will keep getting better and better every year.”

With golf’s growing popularity, not to mention the unrest in men’s professional golf and the divide between the two tours that has jaded some golf fans, Smoltz sees a major opportunity for a new offering like THE PRO. This is especially true when it involves names that many sports fans already have connections with. Not that the pro athlete-driven league would be a competitor for the professional golf tours, but non-traditional events like The Match have drawn significant attention.

“Golf has been a conduit for a lot of things — raising money for charities and getting celebrities together for a great cause — and there’s going to be component of that in this as well,” Smoltz said. “But I think what it also does is give an opportunity for people to mingle and spend time with a Hall of Famer or some of the sports figures that we will have in this tournament.”

So, which sport will walk away with bragging rights in December?

“Our (MLB) roster probably has the most depth, but with hockey you can probably make that claim as well,” Smoltz said. “But people are going to be surprised. In match play, the separation is not going to be as great as it would be if we were all playing stroke play. Then that depth would probably come out in the baseball side. But what I’m looking forward to as this rolls out in the years to come is going to be the guys that put the work in to get better. And they’re going to want to make this ‘Ryder Cup team’ no different than professional golf.”