TX-based Cornerstone Sports, a subsidiary of TN-based
Gaylord Entertainment, landed PGA Tour player Hank Kuehne
with an "innovative contract" that gave him "cash instead of
promises" through a five-year, $500,000 contract, according
to Richard Alm of the DALLAS MORNING NEWS. Cornerstone
President Rocky Hambric said that he got advice from his
Gaylord colleagues "on formulating a competitive bid" for
Kuehne. Hambric: "It's a unique deal as far as the golf
management business is concerned. It's a very common
arrangement in the music industry." But Alm wrote there is
"some risk in committing so much money to an as-yet unproven
talent over five years," as Kuehne "can't compete until he
has a PGA Tour card." Hambric: "We took an amount of money
that he is bound to earn in a worse-case scenario. If we
would have advanced him all of what we think we can get, it
would have been a gamble. The only way we could lose is if
he went three years without a tour card." Hambric added, "I
don't think this will become a standard kind of thing."
Cornerstone "expects to announce deals for Kuehne to endorse
golf balls and apparel before the start" of next weekend's
Sprint Int'l in CO (DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 8/14).
