***2022 PGA Tour Thread***
- Thread starter BigJCy
- Start date
That is a truly awful field.In the meantime, the John Deere Classic,....
PGA Tour
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The Tour changing the schedule to a week earlier really hurt them. They never had a great field but some better guys would play so they could then get that chartered flight over to the British Open for the next week. Now The Open is two weeks away so they don't have that flight any longer.
That bank off the grandstands on 17 that shot back like a rocket and somehow stopped on the edge of the rocks above the water was crazy.
All depends on how the contracts are written in the relationship between tour and player, and also with the Fed Ex criteria (two separate issues). I don't believe that making players be exclusive necessarily blocks competition. It just means that the competition has to step up and be worth leaving for.
If any player goes to LIV, that tells me all I need to know about them. And the same for the guys who could make a lot more money, but are sticking with the PGA Tour…where they already make insane money, but aren’t intent on tearing down the entire system of professional golf while doing it.
For me, the LIV thing is already terrible without any of the Saudi stuff. It’s degrading to the competition within the sport by turning it into more of an exhibition. Greg Norman has always been an awful guy. We know about Patrick Reed, Bryson, Sergio, and the Phil rumors that circulated for years are now out in the open. These are the greediest of greedy people, who are willing to take blood money because they have no self-control or dignity. The crazy $$ associated with being a PGA Tour pro wasn’t enough for them. They are insane and completely out-of-touch with reality. If they want to make that crazy money, fine but there are going to be consequences - people will hate you, you will have almost no fans, and the people you’ve burned bridges with are going to fight back against you destroying their livelihoods.
The awful thing is that for someone like me, this LIV stuff has so disgusted me with professional golf in general that I have almost zero interest in following any of it anymore. I used to watch nearly every weekend, have the PGA Tour app on my phone. I’ll never follow the LIV, but the weakening of the fields on the PGA Tour because of some of the guys who have left has made it feel less “legitimate.” Maybe I’ll get back to being more of a fan in the future, but the fact that Monahan is bending to a lot of the LIV stuff with their changes (even more insane purses, a no-cut international series) is just gross.
Presumably anti-trust/anti-competition laws related to the golfers being independent contractors, or at least that's what they were already being investigated for.
Maybe, just maybe, the PGA is making similar changes to LIV because it is something that the players like. Just because the PGA has been doing the same thing every week for decades doesn't mean it is the best.
"Tearing down the entire system of professional golf"
No.
I’m sure the players will like the changes. More money, more guarantees of money. I find it very difficult to have any sympathy for people who are already making millions who are whining that they don’t make enough money. And yes, the way in which LIV has gone is tearing down the entire system of professional golf, and in a bad way.
The PGA and DP World Tours aren't going to have the money to compete with the Saudi PIF. They just aren't. LIV will prove an impossible lure for even more current players on those tours because they're offering more money for less work. Who cares what the fan support might be - the PIF isn't making any money off of this. It's sportswashing funded by oil money, which the world isn't going to stop buying anytime soon. As more players leave the PGA and DP World Tours for LIV, I don't believe there will be a corresponding rise in viewership or fan support for LIV. Golf will just lose those fans permanently. I have zero interest in following a tour whose primary leaders are the Saudi government, Greg Norman, and yes, Donald Trump - and I guarantee that I'm not alone. The players who have chosen the LIV have been completely fine with being ineligible for Ryder Cups, Presidents' Cups, and potentially even majors down the line due to bans or not accruing OWGR points. Their actions show that they do not care about the history of the game or the greatest events in the sport.
The greediest players will make a ton of money while the overall standard of competition declines, because the incentives to work as hard for a high standard of play will be less with the increased guaranteed money. There will be a PGA Tour in 10 or 20 years, but it may hold half as many tournaments and for similar purses as today with reduced corporate sponsorship while LIV continues to pour tons more money into an inferior product. Communities around the US will no longer host the best golfers in the world annually for tournaments, which will be a hit to those local economies and for the game of golf in those areas. Overall, there will be fewer people that follow golf and it will fade in the post-Tiger era into even more of a niche sport. You can't replace the history and legacy of the PGA Tour simply with cash. Those running the LIV could care less about the growth of the game internationally, or even turning a profit. Their motivations are strictly selfish. Just as conference realignment is slowly degrading college athletics and widening the gap between richer and poorer, the PGA Tour/LIV battle will end with no winners except the players of LIV. Maybe 100 people will benefit in the short-term while millions lose interest in the game of golf. And as a golf fan, that is very sad, but I have little I can do to affect it.
