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“I simply don’t watch golf as a lot as I used to.”
“I watch the majors, however that’s about it.”
“The PGA Tour tells me the perfect gamers play right here when a number of the greatest gamers don’t play there.”
These are just some of the feedback via cellphone calls, emails and textual content messages I’ve obtained in latest months concerning the PGA Tour. And virtually the entire feedback have are available relation to the continuing battle between the PGA Tour and LIV golf over the past six months of negotiations between the PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabian Public Funding Fund and the defection of Jon Rahm from the PGA Tour to LIV for a large contract of someplace between $500 and $600 million.
Due to that contract, Rahm is not going to be allowed to defend titles in three PGA Tour occasions on the West Coast swing in January and February, together with The American Categorical match in La Quinta.
The PGA Tour and the PIF could really feel they’re battling for the guts and soul {of professional} males’s golf on the planet. However the message from readers appears clear: The fixed combating and insulting and preening of some figures on each side may simply kill the goose that laid the golden egg. In what’s a distinct segment sport to start with in comparison with the goliaths of the NFL, the NBA, main league baseball and even soccer, golf is perhaps turning off its followers with the bickering and with the highest gamers within the sport getting collectively solely 4 instances a yr on the main championships.
Tony Finau and Talor Gooch speak throughout a observe spherical forward of the 2022 Masters at Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership. (Picture: Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Sports activities)
Reputation in danger
Take into account two particular circumstances, Phil Mickelson and Jon Rahm. Mickelson was one of the vital standard golfers with followers all through his profession, finally successful 45 PGA Tour occasions and 6 majors in an period dominated by Tiger Woods. However Mickelson misplaced a lot of that goodwill from followers together with his ongoing battles with the PGA Tour and the USGA, together with his feedback about who he could be coping with if he jumped to the LIV tour and why he may nonetheless cope with “scary” individuals as a method to reshape the tour. By the point he did make the soar in June of 2022, Mickelson’s public picture was vastly totally different than it had been when he received the 2021 PGA Championship.
Rahm had been an admired determine in golf for his robust play but in addition his considerate explanations for not eager to play on the LIV tour. These included a dislike for the LIV 54-hole format and the shotgun begin for rounds. Lower than a yr later, Rahm jumped to LIV. Had he lied earlier than? Was he a hypocrite? Did the cash change his thoughts? These are all questions and allegations readers have made in opposition to Rahm within the final two weeks.
Rahm is shifting to a tour that has loads of cash however has struggled to search out any tv viewers on this nation. Broadcast on the CW community, LIV tour scores have been so dangerous the tour stopped reporting them and a few CW stations throughout the nation interrupt LIV to point out money-making infomercials. If a golfer hits a 3-wood on the LIV tour and nobody sees it, did it actually occur?
However, the PGA Tour may very well be on the verge of the identical factor. The winners of three of the final 5 majors (Rahm, Brooks Koepka and Cam Smith) play on the LIV Tour now, so that they received’t be in PGA Tour occasions. They are going to be within the majors, which aren’t PGA Tour occasions however run by the USGA, the R and A, the PGA of America and Augusta Nationwide Golf Membership. There are nonetheless greater than sufficient gifted gamers on the PGA Tour, however Rory McIlroy, Patrick Cantlay and Victor Hovland, amongst others, don’t play each week. Possibly LIV scores don’t go up, however may PGA Tour scores go down?
The PGA Tour may additionally have a sponsorship downside. Wells Fargo has already introduced it’s leaving its match after 2024, unwilling to fulfill the monetary calls for of the tour for an elevated (or signature) occasion. AT&T left the Byron Nelson match in Texas, apparently to have the cash for a signature occasion at Pebble Seashore. Sponsors come and go now and again, however the PGA Tour wants stability nowadays, even in sponsorships.
The PGA Tour appears on the verge of saying a cope with the Strategic Sports activities Group, a gaggle of householders in different main sports activities, that would infuse billions of {dollars} into a brand new for-profit enterprise mannequin. The tour can be nonetheless speaking to PIF, which most likely must be a part of the deal if the PGA Tour doesn’t need different huge names poached away by LIV.
Regardless of the deal is, it must get achieved quick. There may nonetheless be harm emotions and distrust and anger, however followers aren’t all that fearful concerning the emotions of gamers or tour energy brokers. They only need the perfect gamers enjoying collectively extra usually. With out that, the followers is perhaps those with the harm emotions and distrust.
Larry Bohannan is the golf author for The Desert Solar. You may contact him at (760) 778-4633 or at larry.bohannan@desertsun.com. Observe him on Fb or on Twitter at @larry_bohannan. Assist native journalism. Subscribe to The Desert Solar.
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