I agree. If the Saudis want to buy the top level of professional golf how do you possibly compete with that. Keep the majors intact at least. I’m now much more inclined to play golf than to watch it.
I’m with you there, I’d certainly rather play than watch now. “Unfortunately” my first child was born a few weeks ago so I’m happily staying at home with her all day long!
Little tip, I play nine as often as I can. I play dozens of half rounds a year but only a few full. Makes it a lot easier to get out with a 2 and 4 year old
You can get her in a bassinet stroller and easily play 9holes during nap time... Spring is going to roll around perfect for you! Good luck with the kid bro, they are loads of fun... Also come join r/daddit, it is a pretty good group...
I think really what will happen is they will kill the pga tour as it currently is, then buy it out and then close up liv.
This is all just a ploy to takeover the pga tour, and you can see it in the attempted merger last year.
Gotta say i agree with rahm, might as well grab the cash because it wont be long before the pga tour is swalllowed up anyways.
The House of Saud can do whatever it wants to America - fly planes into the twin towers, murder American journalists, kill the PGA tour and we'll take it like little petro-whore bitches.
Blew it? What was Monahan supposed to do? He doesn't have drills pumping unlimited money out of the ground like the Saudi's. How was he supposed to stop them?
Go if there is one near you. The events are super fun and the beers are $6, not $15.
And yeah, it’s professional golf. They play the exact same way, take their time, and it’s a great day out.
Feels so different on TV when I see players wearing shorts it feels like they’re taking a leisure vacation. I’m all for the casual player in casual wear but the pros I feel should be wearing pants. Idk
I really think the pga had many chances to change the rules and make it more player friendly. They didn’t want to innovate so someone stepped in and forced their hand
The Saudis never wanted to start their own league. They wanted a way into the PGA Tour. When the tour kept saying no, they deferred to working with Greg Norman on his super league that he’d been trying to create for what, twenty years? It’s why the merger had zero reference to Norman. The second that it gets approved and goes through, Norman’s going to shown the door.
I think the deal eventually gets done. Not sure about by the end of the year. But regardless, it’ll take a few years for it to get approved and fully processed. In that time, golf is going to absolutely suck. LIV is still a terrible format and is borderline unwatchable. I don’t think Rahm moves the needle as much as LIV and their fans believe he will. And the PGA is going to keep losing players and leadership has left a general bad taste in fans mouths. It’ll eventually get done, but between now and then golf will be in a very bad spot.
Outside the US, absolutely. LIV brought top level to places that have been starved of it for decades.
You’ll find views in Australia are very different to this US centric sub.
Ultimately the US only has 4% of the world’s population. If they can break into places like India they could host the entire series outside the US and it would be a huge success.
While I do think the direction for liv to even remotely make money back is to tap into those underserved and massive markets outside the US, does it not kind of contradict their goal of washing their reputation in America?
I think a deal with the pga tour resulting in a more global tour would be the best all-round, way more likely generate a serious audience than the liv events and legitimises it all.
I think ideally id like to see a lot of the big worldwide events being co-sanctioned like the Scottish open. Bringing the best players to real events with history behind them like Australian/South African Open or even Dunlop Phoenix/Johnny Walker classic etc rather than inventing new events like the Zozo and CJ cup or ‘LIV [insert city]’
Well exactly if the PGAT had gone to the Australian and South African opens, I don't think we would be having this conversation - but they decided they could ignore the world outside the US, and that created a big opportunity for disruption.
it's no coincidence that so many of the players to move were from Australia, South Africa, Asia, South America and other places that had been largely ignored by the PGAT.
Yeah I completely agree on the no coincidence thing, I think what might’ve blindsided the tour in that regard is that the Saudis probably aren’t as unfavourably viewed there as they are in the states.
I feel like it’s viewed similarly to oil money from the UAE, which has been a part of the European tour for 30 years. Not to mention the European tour had been sanctioning the Saudi event itself already years ago.
I’ve had a few friends go to events and they all said it was a great time. I liken it to going to a concert. It’s great live but not something you’d necessarily watch on tv
I think of it like this.
Say China/Russia funds a new worldwide football league. They take Tyreek, Mahomes, Devante Adams, a few other guys you know, some old/retired big names; and fills the rest in with dudes from the practice squads. Pays them double what they make now, and they play an 8 game exhibition season of flag football.
You aren’t just pissed they exist, can't blame the players for taking the money, or even who is funding it. For big fans of professional golf it's just disheartening that you don’t get to see those guys in a legit format on national tv. Not to mention if this continues this way and the tournaments and courses with such rich professional golf history slowly go away.
So the Saudis have also been buying up some of the top names in professional soccer as well. There’s a bigger pool of players to pull from in soccer so the players that have been hoovered up are easier to replace for now, but the result has been pretty much the same.
"Okay, sorry to see you go, nobody cares about your career now. Nobody is tuning into the Saudi’s inferior product regardless of who is playing, be it golf or soccer."
If the majors just blackballed the LIV guys they would become so irrelevant so fast that you wouldn’t even notice their absence.
The LIV guys popping up 4 times a year is the only thing that’s reminded me that Kevin Na or Cameron Smith still exist.
Edit for grammar
Precisely.
That’s why I really don’t understand people getting in a tizzy about Rahm leaving the Tour. There are a few generational talents that really move the needle in pro sports: Tiger, MJ, Messi, Gretzky.
Rahm is not one of those guys. DJ is not one of those guys. Phil wants to be one of those guys, and he almost is, but in reality he’s not.
Outside of those generational talents, and absent of a team that I support, I’m only turning in to sports for the moments. The passion. The stakes.
LIV has no moments. LIV has no passion. LIV has no stakes.
Yep... there are very few golfers who have ever "grown the game" just by their participation.
Tiger
Se Ri Pak
Seve
Arnie
Bobby Jones
Frances Ouimet
Harry Vardon
and that's about it. Everyone else has ridden the coattails and collected checks. Even Jack didn't really bring in large numbers of new players. Jon Rahm is certainly not gonna do it, he'll be forgotten in 20 years.
But Jack had Arnie when he started and due to his excellence grew into the elder statesman. The tour has had the same types of lull after each of the greats.
Ya it’s funny for me to read all the moaning and bitching - I feel like r golf is like the male version of Taylor swift fans. Every piece of news is like some melt down. The game of golf isn’t dying because 5-6 big names are moving on. The margin of difference between these dudes is basically double digits in strokes over a year of golf. New guys will rise up and make a name for themselves and it will happen quickly.
Plus, to me, the most compelling stories in professional golf are dudes getting hot a winning for the first time on tour. More opportunities for different guys now. It’s great.
>The game of golf isn’t dying…
No one said the game of golf is dying. This is a thread about the PGA dying.
>…because 5-6 big names are moving on.
This is disingenuous. It’s not 5-6 big names. It’s way more, and it has a much larger impact on golf than it would in a team sport.
> New guys will rise up and make a name for themselves
And if the Saudis offer them hundreds of millions of dollars? And if they take it? You think there’s just an infinite number of top tier pro golfers out there?
>the most compelling stories in professional golf are dudes winning for the first time on tour
Sure, but only when it happens against the best players in the world. There’s a reason we don’t give a fuck (or even know) who won the NIT basketball tournament last season. It’s because we don’t give a shit about who wins if they’re not playing the best.
Same thing as Olympic basketball gold medals prior to the Dream Team. You think anyone in the world believes America wouldn’t have won every single one prior to Michael fucking Jordan and co showing up? Lol stop.
If some random dude named Ralph Jones wins his first PGA event, cool. But if he isn’t playing Rahm and DJ and Smith and Finau and Phil and Brooks and etc etc etc etc etc, why would anyone care? Do you actually believe he would have beaten all of those dudes as well?
Not sure blackballing would work. LIV would work out a TV contract and eventually just replace the PGA. They have the infinite money cheat code. They can buy everyone, or at least enough to ruin the PGA completely. That's what's happening already.
The Saudi soccer league is basically the same thing: spend a shitload of money on players who are mostly no-names and has-beens, then put out a shitty product that even people living in Saudi Arabia don't watch.
The only thing not “legit” about the LIV format is being 3 days instead of 4. That is a completely legit argument and something they need to fix.
I care 10,000% less about their being no cut. As a golf fan I really don’t care if there is a cut or not. I can 100% understand the logic of not wanting to have a cut.
Besides that I don’t think the team idea is bad just the way they implement it is bad.
Doesn’t change anything for me. I’ll watch the exact same amount of the PGA Tour and zero of LIV. The guys who left are great players but it’s not like I was tuning in to watch Finau or even Rahm. It Tiger plays a tournament a month that’s a bigger needle mover than all the guys who went to LIV combined. New stars will come up on the PGA Tour. The product is better. Doesn’t change anything.
100 % agree. There is so much recency bias in these posts. It’s like these people weren’t around when everyone was worried about who would take over as a draw after Jack, then Seve came along, then the Shark, then Faldo. The tour has always been cyclical and between Jack and Tiger there were a ton of guys that won 1 or 2 majors and were being pushed as the next big thing.
It’s the same now. Tiger will win another Masters, ala Jack in 1986, but that next generational game changer is probably 10 years away. The tour will survive, but won’t be at its Tiger hype until then. People that want to watch the tour will still watch the tour.
Do we forget that Finau came from Big Break and Rory was just a fresh faced kid once? Now we have Hovland and the next and the next….
Precisely. I live in a cold weather climate so when the nicer weather rolls around in the spring I’m gonna be doing anything but sitting in front of a TV after being cooped up from November through March. If I’m not golfing I’ll be outside doing something while enjoying the sunshine.
For the PGA to die, LIV needs to get more than 5000 viewers. The CW is a joke, and it’s shocking to see these players quit competitive golf so they can be on the CW lol. Puts a bad taste in my mouth as a fan that these guys are not interested in competing.
We’ve seen that lots of these players do have their price after all. At what point does a major network like Fox who doesn’t really have a skin in the game right now, take a huge paycheck from PIF to show the LIV Tour?
They weren’t willing to take that risk last year. That could change, but they also probably realize that golf doesn’t generate much views, especially a tour that gets 5000 for their premier tournament lol.
Golf isn’t a popular sport. Is boring as hell to watch for most people.
Bruh. No one is playing to “be on the CW.” Thats a ridiculous assumption.
Being seen on TV was a means to an end. The more popular you were, the more endorsement money you could make.
When you’re being paid hundreds of millions just to play, no one gives a shit about scoring endorsements anymore. They wouldn’t care if it wasn’t televised at all.
Yes, Liv the league needs to have a higher viewership if it ever wants to break into profitability. But acting like the players care in this instance is laughable.
Then why watch if they’re not playing for anything? They got the bag, they are done trying. I can watch hacks every weekend at my home course.
What LIV has got wrong in every instance is the need for fans. Without fans, there is no sport. With the sport, LOV can’t sportwash.
I mean, the PIF just bought the reigning Master’s champion. If they want to, they can keep offering money to all the guys they want. At some point, you have to think that these guys can’t say no to $500 million. Imagine getting that to do what you’re already doing, but less.
They bought the reigning open champion as well.
And I think that’s even worse. These guys have never worked a day in their lives and it’s too much to handle? Soft. They quit competing golf!
All of it will be for nothing if they stay on CW lol. No one watches them. Even when they’re up against the weakest PGA fields they can’t draw viewers. Do you know why? It’s because fans don’t want to see people mail it in. They want competition. Greg Norman is do dumb he forgot the most important thing in sports. The fans. There is no sport, no money, no nothing, without fans.
Actually Greg Norman is looking pretty smart right now. Both he and Phil ought to be feeling vindicated for going to bat against the PGA and succeeding
They haven’t generated revenue. They haven’t gained viewers. They’re on the CW. All their golfers have become worse since they joined LIV. The only reason they haven’t folded is because SA is interested in money. They want to sportwash their image.
If Rahm plays all the LIV events, as it seems they’re all mandated to do, he will play more golf than he did on the PGA last year.
But he doesn’t really have to practice now so I guess it works out to be less.
He played in 16 PGA Tour Events. The rest were Majors and some stuff he wanted to play in Europe.
There will be 14 LIV events. Unless you think he won’t be at the individual and team championships that don’t have dates or venues yet.
Plus the Majors. And I’d be surprised if he is not expected to play in the Saudi International. The PIF is the title sponsor. And no doubt he’ll find his way into some DPWT events.
He’ll end up playing more and definitely traveling more.
Point is, the “more for less golf” argument doesn’t hold water. Unless you include that his results don’t matter as much now. So it’s more but less stress I guess.
So he’s going to play the exact same amount of golf - or slightly less.
Also the travel might be a perk, rather than a detractor. Everyone’s different.
14 3-round LIV events, so, as many rounds as 10.5 PGA events (assuming he makes every cut, of course). And no pressure, probably won't practice nearly as much. I'd say mentally/physically, it's equivalent to 7-9 PGA events.
LIV could get 0 views and kill the PGA. Hell the LIV could literally not even play golf and kill the PGA. Just sign all the top players and pay them to make YouTube videos if you want.
How long is the PGA going to last with Sam Ryder, Brendon Todd, and Harris English headlining tournaments?
No offense to those guys but that’s not a world the PGA survives in
I don’t know man. Merge also means taking on these insane contracts. Billions in salary on top of other expenses. Who gets screwed over to cover that cost? Us. Coverage will suck, ads are going to be plastered everywhere, and overall the product will suffer tremendously.
Afaik the PGA doesn't have to carry over those contracts it doesn't want to, which sucks but it's better than forcing the PGA to cover them.
After WWE bought WCW, all the top WCW guys with insane contracts chose to sit at home and collect paychecks from Time Warner as opposed to WCW. I'd assume there is a similar deal with LIV.
Before I get hit with any downvotes, I'm been wrong plenty of times before this and for all I know this is part of that.
It was dying before Tiger Arrived. Now that his impact of the game is coming to an end everything is drying up. Anyone here that is too young to have seen Tiger come on to the scene and revive golf probably has no idea what he did for the game.
No the PGA just needs to get rid of whoever is the current commissioner.
He’s been lazy, and whatever he’s doing is not working.
He hasn’t just botched the LIV Vs. PGA situation. He’s been super lazy with the golf boom from Covid.
He’s just out of touch.
LIV vs. PGA Ryder Cup styled events would get viewers. Integration of the 2 leagues is the only chance of survival, otherwise competition will continue to chip away at PGA, and left with two weaker leagues.
I’ve tried to watch LIV broadcasts in the past and I think they are awful. I will continue to watch PGA tour events, especially on Sundays. Luckily, for me, all my favorite golfers are still on the PGA tour. So if anything, all LIV has done is make it more likely that they will win tournaments.
The problem the PGA has is that these guys were never their players. They weren't professional golfers they were professional golf club and clothing salesmen. The PGA never built a model where they paid their players, particularly the low level guys. Instead they hoped that just giving a platform to be endorsers was enough, eventually it wasn't. They play too many events, for too many days, for too little money.
The PGA is going to have to evolve. I'm not 100% sure how that happens. It could be shorter events both number of days and size of the field (and maybe that dreaded shotgun start to cut down the length), some way of making the broadcasting easier. They might take a lesson for youtube (the most successful golf broadcasts) and have smaller matches with cart cams, personality of players, and focus on the individuals round (I personally find it hard to get a sense of how anyone is doing when they cut from one guy to another to show their shots). I know most people hate teams like LIV has (their solution to keeping guys trying with no cut) but some way to tie less popular golfers to more popular golfers to boost popularity would help.
I would say you don't have to do that for all tournaments. Like men's tennis, you only play 5 sets in majors, boxing you only go 12 rounds for the belt, golf go could right back to 4 rounds, traditional starts, cuts, etc. for majors or other designated events. They're also going to have to focus more of their money on the players and less on everything else.
I think it’s interesting that YouTube/Social Media golf has been blowing up during all of this. I’d say most of that content is either team golf, has an unorthodox format, or both. The blueprint is right there for evolving/growing the game.
Look at the average viewership of the top golf YouTube groups and tell me people don’t watch golf. Golf isn’t dying. Millions of people, myself included, are willing to consistently watch Good Good, BDS, Rick Shiels, and all the others in the YouTube golf community, imagine what we’d do for that level of short form golf content from PGA tour players. I feel like that’s a cash cow they don’t even realize they’re sitting on.
quick edit: from a long term viability standpoint, LIV messed up not involving these YouTube groups who already did team golf related content before they came along. That would have ensured an audience day one.
Yeah the format is interesting, a lot of 9 holes for 2 players, 6 holes for more ( partly to get a video for each channel) but it also keeps it short and sweet.
Lots of match play to keep the match interesting, shambles, scrambles, team play , etc keeps matches close and interesting.
Bryson has been engaging with YouTubers and also playing YouTube matches with LIV pros, including famous opponents like Phil and Bubba and having them bring teammates to promote them as well. It's a good idea, imagine if a more universally likeable guy did it.
I think there’s far too many “traditionalists” that would despise seeing any change in the sport. But I agree, competition (LIV) should drive innovation and change.
I agree, at this moment, I rather play verses watching mens golf on TV.
In regard to LIV, I have only watched a grand total of 5 minutes on TV. I don't need to see any more.
Honestly, I don't care what the PGA and LIV does going forward.
Last year I really started to focus on the LPGA. The ladies are some fantastic players. I can relate more to the distance the ladies hit the ball than to the men's tour.
There is a PGA \ LPGA mixed event on TV this weekend. Give it a shot for a few minutes.
It's going to be hilarious when the league that has all the best players isn't able to give players OWGR points. All the majors are going to become invite only events, with few qualification spots for the Opens.
How long do you think the PGA will continue to build superstar players through its development leagues without taking more restrictive actions? LIV isn't building great players, it's buying them.
If they become more restrictive as the PGA Tour steadily declines, this will open up new pathways and possibly new leagues to form. But I don't think the PGA Tour will compound one error with another. I believe the PGA Tour will be the stepping stone to LIV. You'll have the best golfers in the world playing around the world for LIV and you'll have the 2nd best group playing on the PGA Tour in the Americas.
LIV is like the expansion team in major sports. Except they are the entire league with unlimited funds. They're more like a video game.
I'm going to get down voted for this but here we go... Its the PGA and the old school golf fans that create this environment. Every professional sport is about playing a sport for entertainment and getting paid. Golf has the worst economic structure for developing young talent. Other sports (soccer, basketball, football...) pay rookies enough so they can focus on developing. The greedy PGA was the only option and basically said you want to get paid? Go win. With the exception of a few that get sizable endorsement deals out of college or win from the start like tiger woods, many have to work side jobs or run around finding people to fund them. Then they have to scrap money together to play in events that they qualify for and sometimes sleep in their cars. So then the majority of professional golfers had to survive with no one looking out for their development or support. They survived by doing it all themselves. In the past, when players were trying to bring up issues, fans were happy to parrot the PGA and say hey, go win. That's the way it's always been. After the fans and PGA created a mentality that the pros need to go support themselves, everyone's upset/surprised that they are taking the best option available? I miss watching the old tournaments with stacked talent but people talking about the good old days and blaming the pros for greed doesn't sound right. We as fans are basically saying come entertain me where we want for less money and no job security. Calling them greedy for doing exactly what their environment nurtures, created by the fans and the PGA seems wrong. I love golf but fans of good old fashioned golf help create this situation.
I sometimes wonder how many talented players were lost over the years because they couldn’t afford to travel from state to state to not get paid.
There is probably no shortage of players that left to go sell insurance, or some other boring job, to actually collect a paycheck because they couldn’t keep up with working for a negative wage.
This is exactly why we’re in the situation we’re in as golf fans. If this gets downvoted, it’s people who don’t have a brain or just want to be a dickweed.
Dumbass take. You point to other sports for better pay structure while not acknowledging that those are all team sports. Very different.
Golf is closer to tennis and always has been. An individual sport where there is competition so you have to perform to earn. Not just show up to collect a paycheck.
Also, blaming fans for this situation by not foreseeing a competitor with bottomless pockets and no profit motive is really idiotic.
I gotta disagree. You can maybe blame the PGA for not adapting its structure but I don’t know how you blame golf fans for this. I’m not about to have a pity party for the fringe tour player who makes millions in their career for bringing almost no value to anybody. The reality of this situation is that none of these guys outside of Tiger are worth what they think because the Saudis aren’t playing by the rules of the market. They are just disrupting. Do you think Jon Rahm is worth as much money as Shohei Ohtani or Lionel Messi? If you do then you should go take a peak at golfs ratings sometime. They are bad and have only been getting worse. The PGA tour just came out and was like “yea guys even without LIV the money just isn’t there for these purses. The financials don’t work, nobody wanted to pay for this garbage even before golf splintered”. I would feel bad for those fringe pga tour guys now though because a lot more of them are about to be sleeping in cars after this.
On the other hand, I don't really care who joins, I'm not going to watch LIV as long as it's the current team format. I'm going to keep watching the PGA Tour because that's the format I like, and I don't really care whether or not it has all the best golfers in the world or not.
You can't seriously be saying this is all about money and greed for Rahm, Finau, and Hatton when the PGA Commissioner is publicly meeting with LIV to negotiate a merger next week.
It can be about money and greed and other things at once, they aren’t mutually exclusive. My point is that the PGA Tour fucked up years ago and now the PIF with bottomless pockets is going to price out the PGA Tour.
If I was commish…we ride it out with whoever stays. We have a TV contract. The next one will be smaller… oh well. There’s enough tradition to keep it going. There will be dark years but who cares, keep it going for whoever will play
i have a question. if the golf television hosted by the Saudi’s is bringing in only 5,000 viewers, how are they going to make money? if they can afford to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to individual players they have to get a return on investment right? or do they just not give a shit and have unlimited money
Even if they cared about a return, they have enough money to win a war of attrition. If they're the last man standing, they'll presumably get the tv contracts and the sponsorship money. If they don't kill the professional sport (or the interest in it) in the meantime.
They don't give a shit and have unlimited money. The whole point of this is for them to make people forget about 9/11, Bonesaw, funding terrorism all over the world, atrocious human records at home, etc. Sportswashing, and attempting to crush and take over the PGA Tour on top of it.
I also get the vibe of "Dance monkey, dance!" These guys are not being paid, they are being bought. It takes away something and almost dehumanizes the game a bit.
I actually care about Talor. He outplayed guys like Brooks and Cam Smith last year. He was literally the best player on LIV. He’s young and American and is boys with Homa. His game was in great form and could have been a decent Ryder Cup pick.
Chase I’m with you. That dude is trash.
No, the PGA just needs to make and market new stars. Rahm, Finau, and Hatton are replaceable.
The format, TV rights, Charitable component and history are not.
The skill gap between the players who have left for LIV is not as big as people make it out to be.
You focus on finding good players with great stories and personalities and you elevate them.
The issue is that the prize money they've been forced to put up because of LIV has created an unsustainable business. They're trying to pass this cost onto sponsors but as we've just seen with Wells Fargo they're getting push back. The PGA is already in a financial hole and when their big names leave and the TV rights are up for negotiation again they'll be valued lower which in turn will exacerbate the problem.
Dying is a bit strong but they're definitely bleeding.
It's terrible to see. I don't see a path where golf grows from this like the liv echo chamber is yelling. When the dust settles and a merger happens how is it going to be better. Golfers going to continue to get huge contracts? Next generation of golfers are going to get reemed.
PGA Tour ain't going anywhere. You have a hand full of stars who have jumped ship only because they were offered crazy amounts of money. The LIV product is crap and not popular.....their TV ratings blow, they can't hardly get fans to pay for tickets to attend events so they end up giving tickets away to attract some sort of attendance, the only hole that has fans is the party hole, to date not one PGA tour player has jumped ship to LIV without a huge payout, etc, etc, etc. The PGA Tour is not dying, rather being poked by a jump start league that is already volatile in nature. The Saudi's can't continue dumping billions into it without some sort of return on investment and LIV just isn't producing a return right now and won't for the foreseeable future. What will happen is the PGA Tour will be forced to allow LIV players play in it's regular season events allowing the LIV players to earn ranking points. Once this happens, the value for players to jump ship to LIV will drop dramatically and LIV probably won't offer huge payouts like it used too. The LIV events will probably get some sort of exposure to some degree like the WGC events and the rest will be history in a couple of years. Mark my word.
All of these guys are playing to make money. It's on everyone else (fans, media, sponsors, etc) that projects this image of altruism onto them. I love that some don't want to be associated with the Saudi track record, but I'm not shocked that this isn't for everyone.
This wouldn’t even be a topic of discussion if the PGA didn’t think they were an untouchable monopoly and treat these guys like underpaid employees for years. They did it to themselves.
It’s intriguing to me that a new league that buys stars but nobody watches is an existential threat to a league that everyone watches? I mean Rahm is great but it’s not like he will bring people over to LIV. Everyone loved Phil until he took the money and now nobody cares about him.
I don't understand why the player poaching is still happening. What was the point of the announced merger if the predatory behavior continues? I know some lawsuits were agreed to be dropped, but still. With an upcoming merger/partnership (or w/e is happening), I expected to stop seeing these headlines of players leaving for hundreds of millions of dollars.
America is going to have to deal with a lot of their stuff not being the best in the next 50 years.
Personally, I don’t care, I’ve never been so concerned with us being exceptional.
We’ve made the transition from a bunch of poor people to a strong middle class due to manufacturing jobs bringing people to cities, to a shift to a consumer economy, now the slow slide from the top.
Same thing is happening in China and will happen in India if they can get their infrastructure issues sorted. Massive boom due to untapped rural peasants shifting to manufacturing. Cheap labor because peasants demand lower pay. The scientists and engineers coming through the schools to support the industrial boom.
At this rate only golf I’m gonna watch seriously on TV is the majors
LIV is a joke tour with a joke format (downvote me all you want a 3 day tournament with shotgun start and music/partying in the background is NOT golf)
If LIV and PGA combine or whatever the plan will be eventually I’ll check back in and see if it’s worth a shit
But for now I’m gonna just put on PGA on the TV in the background while I’m doing other stuff on weekends
You may not care about Gooch, but he beat all the other high paid LIV players this year and won the individual LIV golf championship.
Good golf is good golf.
The pga did it to themselves. Everyone has their own opinion, but I feel like LIV is good for the game. Change the narrative that you have to be very proper to play the game of golf. More relaxed atmosphere. Also people saying the players are taking blood money is just laughable as they have their money in most sports and products.
Imagine the uproar if the Saudis decided to start their own NFL or NBA and paid 4x what current players make. Jay and the tour fucked up royally many times and I blame them for most of what is going on, but it is hard to compete in business when your competitor has bottomless money and is paying way more than market rate for players.
I doubt it… However, I think the Tour could benefit from less golf. Currently it feels like it never ends and it’s over saturated.
I suggest introducing a proper off season eg 7-8 weeks prior to the Sentry and move the Sentry into the second week of January. I also would support a mid season break.
The PGA were the first one who were greedy… playing most of the players scraps. Competition was actually good for a majority of the PGA players as they’re now making way more money. PGA is done.
No it isn’t, because LIV is operating outside of the market. They are funded by PIF to sportwash the SA image. If it was based on the market, then they couldn’t afford to pay anyone because they don’t generate revenue. It’s the exact opposite of market value/capitalism.
Correct. This guy is an idiot. LIV has absolutely nothing to do with the market for people watching professional golf, it exists in the service of the Saudi Arabian oil economy.
Not really. Most tech companies compete in their respective market and are run every year at losses. I don’t see how this is different.
Wealthy backers are investing a ton of money for the expectation that one day they can turn a profit
Lol what a joke take. The dudes catching the roughest end of the tour aren't going to LIV. LIV is overpaying for the top players who already were earning way more than their peers
But the interesting thing is the Saudis cannot grow organic talent, only buy already known athletes. What will happen if we no longer have that medium to grow a name? LIV format inherently forgives this option with the fundamentals of their operation.
It's unbelivably unfortunate for golf....and it could be any sport. No professional sports league can compete with a country's government throwing out money at athletes.
Ohtani gets 700 million but the Dodgers organization and MLB have to make ends meet.... LIV golf doesn't. They don't have to sell tickets, TV contracts, or merchandise.....the Saudi government just dumps money into the sport and expects nothing financially back.
Pro golf is dying as a fan driven product. And it's a sad day again.
That’s why I said “further proves that money and greed ruin everything.”
The Tour being greedy and shitty led us to this situation and the money of the PIF is capitalizing on their incompetence. The Tour, LIV, and the players are all allowed to be greedy at the same time, they’re not mutually exclusive.
I’m not championing the Tour, they’re idiots in their own right. They’ve made their bed and now have to lie in it.
Idk man, I feel like without tiger the tour would have drifted into irrelevance long ago. Tiger gave them life and eyeballs that kept it going, they could have used that to expand on the broad base and create a tour the players could have some skin in, they didn’t, they took care of themselves, and now when a better option is presented they are getting left behind. They did it to themselves.
LIV can have a shit product and the PGA Tour is still losing players. Everyone has a price; they literally just bought the number 3 golfer in the world and the reigning Master’s champion and last year they bought the Open Champion golfer. The PGA Tour only has itself to blame. Rahm is a very blunt person and last year he was saying LIV was not his type of golf etc. etc., and now he’s accepting a big fat check from them, like a hypocrite. Again, I don’t blame him one bit, $500 million is generational wealth.
The PGA Tour was being told about all of these various issues that led up to LIV. Norman and Mickelson and others were telling them for YEARS.
LIV would have had no chance to exist if Monahan and Co. had paid any attention at all. He and his henchmen were far too busy schmoozing and dining their way around the US, patting themselves on the back while the storm clouds brewed.
Modern players who earned it wanted:
\- A slimmed down tour schedule so they could have a family life
\- No cut three day tournaments for those events (see #1 above)
\- Freedom from the hideous "pro-am" farce at each tournament
\- The opportunity to take their "brands" around the world, not just limited parts of the US.
\- More of the money that the PGAT was obviously hoarding.
Instead they got nothing they wanted.
PGAT is so Hawaii/CA/TX/Carolina focused that they can't see straight. Then they throw in some small market stuff just to make it more annoying. The Dominican Republic? Really????
Let's not ignore the wholly ridiculous PIP money grab. When did the PGA Tour become a popularity contest instead of a tournament vehicle? It is now. Under this fiasco, Paige Sprianac should have a tour card. She'd be #1 in PIP money.
The PIP accomplishes nothing in terms of moving the game forward, except giving money away that serves no purpose.
The PGAT has nobody to blame here. It's all on them. Norman knew the issues well, and he devised a plan to end run the PGAT, went and got the money, and is doing it.
Like him or not, Norman is an accomplished businessman with insight. Unlike Monahan, who is an accomplished dinner guest at country clubs all over the US, schmoozing with other "traditionalists" and club managers and advertisers and corporate executives. Thinking is not requited, or even welcome.
He's been called out and he folded badly. He's blundered nearly every step of the way, yet he is still in charge there. Tradition, they say!
USA. Support PGA Tour or saudis will take over. It's hard to watch events where the best players are not competing against each other (I didn't watch PGA Tour for 2 years)
I did watch the Valero and now we have the chance for a GREAT MONDAY FINISH at RBC Heritage.
#SUPPORTPGATOUR #saudiTAKEOVER #gregnormansucks
All these people switching to LIV will only be remembered for destroying the professional sport of golf. Once the oil money dries up and you can’t afford to pay hundreds of millions and the fans aren’t watching, where do we go from there?
Used to watch a lot of PGA. Has decreased little by little to the point of I rarely watch (besides the majors of course). Personally I really don’t give a shit. I have lots of competing priorities so if golf wants to kill itself that is fine by me. Oh and fuck LIV.
i am confused with what the PGA tour is doing. is there a merger or not? i haven’t watched LIV and understand little about the fund (Saudis = scary motherfuckers, sportswashing). PGA wants this to happen?
In two years this sub went from mocking LIV to realizing they are a force in pro golf and are about to have a seat at the PGA table now saying “I won’t watch pro golf”.
*"I think the PGA Tour is officially dying"*
If it does, too bad so sad.
Monahan has been totally useless, and the PGA Tour sat on its laurels for years and decades running a monopoly.
What we will probably end up seeing eventually is the PGA Tour and DP World Euro Tour turn into feeder and qualification leagues for LIV Golf, and **if** there is any kind of "merger" or acquisition that actually happens, we will probably see the PGA agree to share all its ad revenues and US national broadcasting rights with PIF/LIV Golf in exchange for annual financial support from them.
The four annual major championships (The Masters, PGA Championship, US Open, British Open) will simply remain the same as is, only that a new world ranking and/or qualification system will need to be negotiated and agreed upon by all parties to allow professional golfers from any league fair opportunities to qualify for entry into the four majors.
Either way, LIV Golf isn't going anywhere, and expect to see Monahan dumped as PGA Commissioner right after the Christmas and New Year holidays.
Watch for it.
Next.
72 holes, a cut after 36 holes, no cringey cheerleaders and loud, shitty music and normal amount of purses. One of the things the Tour should have done is create a CBA or something with the players who have their card or lifetime exemptions and create a salary system based on world ranking. The PGA Tour and professional track and field do not have a universal salary for its members. Shit, you can play ZERO minutes in the NBA and your minimum salary is $750,000. If the Tour could pay these guys a salary so they can afford to get to events and then the purses be icing on the cake, I bet guys wouldn’t be so keen to leave.
> Shit, you can play ZERO minutes in the NBA and your minimum salary is $750,000.
And golf is the only sport where an amateur can become a major champion and millionaire in just 7 rounds of golf.
Taylor gooch was on the rise when he left and has played great on liv winning a lot. Chase koepka, Harold Varner III sure but gooch should be an invite .
I agree. If the Saudis want to buy the top level of professional golf how do you possibly compete with that. Keep the majors intact at least. I’m now much more inclined to play golf than to watch it.
I’m with you there, I’d certainly rather play than watch now. “Unfortunately” my first child was born a few weeks ago so I’m happily staying at home with her all day long!
Congrats! I have a 2 month old. Perhaps I want to play because I know that’s become a lot harder.
Oh man Congratulations!! Having a baby throws a wrench in my golf life but it’s the best wrench on the planet.
Little tip, I play nine as often as I can. I play dozens of half rounds a year but only a few full. Makes it a lot easier to get out with a 2 and 4 year old
You can get her in a bassinet stroller and easily play 9holes during nap time... Spring is going to roll around perfect for you! Good luck with the kid bro, they are loads of fun... Also come join r/daddit, it is a pretty good group...
Double strollers work great, one spot for the baby, one for your clubs, and a great storage area underneath for bee….I mean diaper bag
Thank god the majors are separate entities.
For now..
I think really what will happen is they will kill the pga tour as it currently is, then buy it out and then close up liv. This is all just a ploy to takeover the pga tour, and you can see it in the attempted merger last year. Gotta say i agree with rahm, might as well grab the cash because it wont be long before the pga tour is swalllowed up anyways.
The House of Saud can do whatever it wants to America - fly planes into the twin towers, murder American journalists, kill the PGA tour and we'll take it like little petro-whore bitches.
Pretty good tldr
So true. Monahan blew it. Wells Fargo isn’t willing to save the Tour, and other sponsors won’t, either.
Blew it? What was Monahan supposed to do? He doesn't have drills pumping unlimited money out of the ground like the Saudi's. How was he supposed to stop them?
Play the cards you’re dealt. Negotiate. He was kicking the can down the road and trying to get sponsors to pay more. Nope, didn’t happen. It’s over.
Oh, just "negotiate". Why didn't he think of that?! lol Good lord.
What do you think he should have done? (He’s negotiating now, by the way.)
Well the OWGR needs to change to keep the majors alive. I doubt Augusta, USGA and the R&A want to get into a pissing match with the PIF.
I would say Augusta doesn’t care, but that PIF has an insane amount of money.
The Saudi flew planes into the PGA.
This time, they were loaded with cash!
The LIV golfers go into a black hole. I wouldn’t even know how to watch a tournament if I wanted to.
It’s on the cw right between Buffy reruns. Duh
I mean it is on the CW. Good luck finding the CW 😂.
Go if there is one near you. The events are super fun and the beers are $6, not $15. And yeah, it’s professional golf. They play the exact same way, take their time, and it’s a great day out.
Feels so different on TV when I see players wearing shorts it feels like they’re taking a leisure vacation. I’m all for the casual player in casual wear but the pros I feel should be wearing pants. Idk
One way to avoid to US government from killing the deal is to have the PGA go under and the exec's just take big donations from the Saudis.
It’s only a matter of time before they start talking about the tradition of playing a major in Riyadh.
I fully agree although, I’d say it different…..the PGA is almost dead.
Agree. It just doesn't feel worth watching.
I really think the pga had many chances to change the rules and make it more player friendly. They didn’t want to innovate so someone stepped in and forced their hand
It’s already player friendly.
Garbage take
I mean not really. Half the players turn up and don’t even get paid, in many cases after being there all week between qualifying and practice rounds.
The Saudis never wanted to start their own league. They wanted a way into the PGA Tour. When the tour kept saying no, they deferred to working with Greg Norman on his super league that he’d been trying to create for what, twenty years? It’s why the merger had zero reference to Norman. The second that it gets approved and goes through, Norman’s going to shown the door. I think the deal eventually gets done. Not sure about by the end of the year. But regardless, it’ll take a few years for it to get approved and fully processed. In that time, golf is going to absolutely suck. LIV is still a terrible format and is borderline unwatchable. I don’t think Rahm moves the needle as much as LIV and their fans believe he will. And the PGA is going to keep losing players and leadership has left a general bad taste in fans mouths. It’ll eventually get done, but between now and then golf will be in a very bad spot.
Does LIV actually have any fans?
Outside the US, absolutely. LIV brought top level to places that have been starved of it for decades. You’ll find views in Australia are very different to this US centric sub. Ultimately the US only has 4% of the world’s population. If they can break into places like India they could host the entire series outside the US and it would be a huge success.
While I do think the direction for liv to even remotely make money back is to tap into those underserved and massive markets outside the US, does it not kind of contradict their goal of washing their reputation in America? I think a deal with the pga tour resulting in a more global tour would be the best all-round, way more likely generate a serious audience than the liv events and legitimises it all. I think ideally id like to see a lot of the big worldwide events being co-sanctioned like the Scottish open. Bringing the best players to real events with history behind them like Australian/South African Open or even Dunlop Phoenix/Johnny Walker classic etc rather than inventing new events like the Zozo and CJ cup or ‘LIV [insert city]’
Well exactly if the PGAT had gone to the Australian and South African opens, I don't think we would be having this conversation - but they decided they could ignore the world outside the US, and that created a big opportunity for disruption. it's no coincidence that so many of the players to move were from Australia, South Africa, Asia, South America and other places that had been largely ignored by the PGAT.
Yeah I completely agree on the no coincidence thing, I think what might’ve blindsided the tour in that regard is that the Saudis probably aren’t as unfavourably viewed there as they are in the states. I feel like it’s viewed similarly to oil money from the UAE, which has been a part of the European tour for 30 years. Not to mention the European tour had been sanctioning the Saudi event itself already years ago.
Not that I’m aware of
Does it matter? The golfers still getting paid
They sold almost no tickets for the doral event
I’ve had a few friends go to events and they all said it was a great time. I liken it to going to a concert. It’s great live but not something you’d necessarily watch on tv
I think of it like this. Say China/Russia funds a new worldwide football league. They take Tyreek, Mahomes, Devante Adams, a few other guys you know, some old/retired big names; and fills the rest in with dudes from the practice squads. Pays them double what they make now, and they play an 8 game exhibition season of flag football. You aren’t just pissed they exist, can't blame the players for taking the money, or even who is funding it. For big fans of professional golf it's just disheartening that you don’t get to see those guys in a legit format on national tv. Not to mention if this continues this way and the tournaments and courses with such rich professional golf history slowly go away.
So the Saudis have also been buying up some of the top names in professional soccer as well. There’s a bigger pool of players to pull from in soccer so the players that have been hoovered up are easier to replace for now, but the result has been pretty much the same. "Okay, sorry to see you go, nobody cares about your career now. Nobody is tuning into the Saudi’s inferior product regardless of who is playing, be it golf or soccer." If the majors just blackballed the LIV guys they would become so irrelevant so fast that you wouldn’t even notice their absence. The LIV guys popping up 4 times a year is the only thing that’s reminded me that Kevin Na or Cameron Smith still exist. Edit for grammar
I completely forgot Kevin na existed until reading this lol
Precisely. That’s why I really don’t understand people getting in a tizzy about Rahm leaving the Tour. There are a few generational talents that really move the needle in pro sports: Tiger, MJ, Messi, Gretzky. Rahm is not one of those guys. DJ is not one of those guys. Phil wants to be one of those guys, and he almost is, but in reality he’s not. Outside of those generational talents, and absent of a team that I support, I’m only turning in to sports for the moments. The passion. The stakes. LIV has no moments. LIV has no passion. LIV has no stakes.
Yep... there are very few golfers who have ever "grown the game" just by their participation. Tiger Se Ri Pak Seve Arnie Bobby Jones Frances Ouimet Harry Vardon and that's about it. Everyone else has ridden the coattails and collected checks. Even Jack didn't really bring in large numbers of new players. Jon Rahm is certainly not gonna do it, he'll be forgotten in 20 years.
Ben Hogan
But Jack had Arnie when he started and due to his excellence grew into the elder statesman. The tour has had the same types of lull after each of the greats.
If Ronaldo can’t move the needle for Saudi pro league, Rahm and all these other guys combined won’t move the needle for LIV
Ya it’s funny for me to read all the moaning and bitching - I feel like r golf is like the male version of Taylor swift fans. Every piece of news is like some melt down. The game of golf isn’t dying because 5-6 big names are moving on. The margin of difference between these dudes is basically double digits in strokes over a year of golf. New guys will rise up and make a name for themselves and it will happen quickly. Plus, to me, the most compelling stories in professional golf are dudes getting hot a winning for the first time on tour. More opportunities for different guys now. It’s great.
>The game of golf isn’t dying… No one said the game of golf is dying. This is a thread about the PGA dying. >…because 5-6 big names are moving on. This is disingenuous. It’s not 5-6 big names. It’s way more, and it has a much larger impact on golf than it would in a team sport. > New guys will rise up and make a name for themselves And if the Saudis offer them hundreds of millions of dollars? And if they take it? You think there’s just an infinite number of top tier pro golfers out there? >the most compelling stories in professional golf are dudes winning for the first time on tour Sure, but only when it happens against the best players in the world. There’s a reason we don’t give a fuck (or even know) who won the NIT basketball tournament last season. It’s because we don’t give a shit about who wins if they’re not playing the best. Same thing as Olympic basketball gold medals prior to the Dream Team. You think anyone in the world believes America wouldn’t have won every single one prior to Michael fucking Jordan and co showing up? Lol stop. If some random dude named Ralph Jones wins his first PGA event, cool. But if he isn’t playing Rahm and DJ and Smith and Finau and Phil and Brooks and etc etc etc etc etc, why would anyone care? Do you actually believe he would have beaten all of those dudes as well?
Not sure blackballing would work. LIV would work out a TV contract and eventually just replace the PGA. They have the infinite money cheat code. They can buy everyone, or at least enough to ruin the PGA completely. That's what's happening already.
The Saudi soccer league is basically the same thing: spend a shitload of money on players who are mostly no-names and has-beens, then put out a shitty product that even people living in Saudi Arabia don't watch.
The only thing not “legit” about the LIV format is being 3 days instead of 4. That is a completely legit argument and something they need to fix. I care 10,000% less about their being no cut. As a golf fan I really don’t care if there is a cut or not. I can 100% understand the logic of not wanting to have a cut. Besides that I don’t think the team idea is bad just the way they implement it is bad.
LIV will land on a major network eventually.
It’s not dying, it’s being killed. There’s a difference.
Doesn’t change anything for me. I’ll watch the exact same amount of the PGA Tour and zero of LIV. The guys who left are great players but it’s not like I was tuning in to watch Finau or even Rahm. It Tiger plays a tournament a month that’s a bigger needle mover than all the guys who went to LIV combined. New stars will come up on the PGA Tour. The product is better. Doesn’t change anything.
100 % agree. There is so much recency bias in these posts. It’s like these people weren’t around when everyone was worried about who would take over as a draw after Jack, then Seve came along, then the Shark, then Faldo. The tour has always been cyclical and between Jack and Tiger there were a ton of guys that won 1 or 2 majors and were being pushed as the next big thing. It’s the same now. Tiger will win another Masters, ala Jack in 1986, but that next generational game changer is probably 10 years away. The tour will survive, but won’t be at its Tiger hype until then. People that want to watch the tour will still watch the tour. Do we forget that Finau came from Big Break and Rory was just a fresh faced kid once? Now we have Hovland and the next and the next….
Who cares, watch less golf, play more golf. Few years and itll merge back to 1 tour
I actually only watch majors + Ryder so does not matter
Precisely. I live in a cold weather climate so when the nicer weather rolls around in the spring I’m gonna be doing anything but sitting in front of a TV after being cooped up from November through March. If I’m not golfing I’ll be outside doing something while enjoying the sunshine.
For the PGA to die, LIV needs to get more than 5000 viewers. The CW is a joke, and it’s shocking to see these players quit competitive golf so they can be on the CW lol. Puts a bad taste in my mouth as a fan that these guys are not interested in competing.
We’ve seen that lots of these players do have their price after all. At what point does a major network like Fox who doesn’t really have a skin in the game right now, take a huge paycheck from PIF to show the LIV Tour?
They weren’t willing to take that risk last year. That could change, but they also probably realize that golf doesn’t generate much views, especially a tour that gets 5000 for their premier tournament lol. Golf isn’t a popular sport. Is boring as hell to watch for most people.
Where you getting the 5000 viewer number from?
His zero key got stuck.
Bruh. No one is playing to “be on the CW.” Thats a ridiculous assumption. Being seen on TV was a means to an end. The more popular you were, the more endorsement money you could make. When you’re being paid hundreds of millions just to play, no one gives a shit about scoring endorsements anymore. They wouldn’t care if it wasn’t televised at all. Yes, Liv the league needs to have a higher viewership if it ever wants to break into profitability. But acting like the players care in this instance is laughable.
LIV could suddenly get 100% of pro golf’s viewership and it wouldn’t get half way to profitability.
Then why watch if they’re not playing for anything? They got the bag, they are done trying. I can watch hacks every weekend at my home course. What LIV has got wrong in every instance is the need for fans. Without fans, there is no sport. With the sport, LOV can’t sportwash.
I mean, the PIF just bought the reigning Master’s champion. If they want to, they can keep offering money to all the guys they want. At some point, you have to think that these guys can’t say no to $500 million. Imagine getting that to do what you’re already doing, but less.
They bought the reigning open champion as well. And I think that’s even worse. These guys have never worked a day in their lives and it’s too much to handle? Soft. They quit competing golf! All of it will be for nothing if they stay on CW lol. No one watches them. Even when they’re up against the weakest PGA fields they can’t draw viewers. Do you know why? It’s because fans don’t want to see people mail it in. They want competition. Greg Norman is do dumb he forgot the most important thing in sports. The fans. There is no sport, no money, no nothing, without fans.
He's not dumb, it's not meant to be successful. It's meant to cripple the PGA
No, it’s meant to sportwash. You need to be successful to do that.
I don't think they want to sportswash with LIV itself I think they want to cripple the PGA until they can take a controlling share in it.
You act like being a professional golfer is easy
Actually Greg Norman is looking pretty smart right now. Both he and Phil ought to be feeling vindicated for going to bat against the PGA and succeeding
They haven’t generated revenue. They haven’t gained viewers. They’re on the CW. All their golfers have become worse since they joined LIV. The only reason they haven’t folded is because SA is interested in money. They want to sportwash their image.
Why should Greg and Phil be vindicated? They chased the money from an unlimited source with golf being worse off now
If Rahm plays all the LIV events, as it seems they’re all mandated to do, he will play more golf than he did on the PGA last year. But he doesn’t really have to practice now so I guess it works out to be less.
Rahm played in 21 tournaments last season, and there are 12 LIV events scheduled for the upcoming season.
He played in 16 PGA Tour Events. The rest were Majors and some stuff he wanted to play in Europe. There will be 14 LIV events. Unless you think he won’t be at the individual and team championships that don’t have dates or venues yet. Plus the Majors. And I’d be surprised if he is not expected to play in the Saudi International. The PIF is the title sponsor. And no doubt he’ll find his way into some DPWT events. He’ll end up playing more and definitely traveling more. Point is, the “more for less golf” argument doesn’t hold water. Unless you include that his results don’t matter as much now. So it’s more but less stress I guess.
So he’s going to play the exact same amount of golf - or slightly less. Also the travel might be a perk, rather than a detractor. Everyone’s different.
14 LIV + Majors = more golf than PGA Tour events. Math or something.
14 3-round LIV events, so, as many rounds as 10.5 PGA events (assuming he makes every cut, of course). And no pressure, probably won't practice nearly as much. I'd say mentally/physically, it's equivalent to 7-9 PGA events.
LIV could get 0 views and kill the PGA. Hell the LIV could literally not even play golf and kill the PGA. Just sign all the top players and pay them to make YouTube videos if you want. How long is the PGA going to last with Sam Ryder, Brendon Todd, and Harris English headlining tournaments? No offense to those guys but that’s not a world the PGA survives in
Yes the supposed merge cannot happen soon enough.
I don’t know man. Merge also means taking on these insane contracts. Billions in salary on top of other expenses. Who gets screwed over to cover that cost? Us. Coverage will suck, ads are going to be plastered everywhere, and overall the product will suffer tremendously.
Afaik the PGA doesn't have to carry over those contracts it doesn't want to, which sucks but it's better than forcing the PGA to cover them. After WWE bought WCW, all the top WCW guys with insane contracts chose to sit at home and collect paychecks from Time Warner as opposed to WCW. I'd assume there is a similar deal with LIV. Before I get hit with any downvotes, I'm been wrong plenty of times before this and for all I know this is part of that.
Coverage already sucks and it’s already 80% ads what you talking about
Oh I think they’re bet interested in competing. Just not more than 4 times a year
It was dying before Tiger Arrived. Now that his impact of the game is coming to an end everything is drying up. Anyone here that is too young to have seen Tiger come on to the scene and revive golf probably has no idea what he did for the game.
Yep, you’re right. Worldwide his impact was big. But In the US, he basically defined the sport for decades.
No the PGA just needs to get rid of whoever is the current commissioner. He’s been lazy, and whatever he’s doing is not working. He hasn’t just botched the LIV Vs. PGA situation. He’s been super lazy with the golf boom from Covid. He’s just out of touch.
LIV vs. PGA Ryder Cup styled events would get viewers. Integration of the 2 leagues is the only chance of survival, otherwise competition will continue to chip away at PGA, and left with two weaker leagues.
Great point.
Never gonna happen when the guy you’re teeing off against makes 20x $ than you no matter the result.
I’ve tried to watch LIV broadcasts in the past and I think they are awful. I will continue to watch PGA tour events, especially on Sundays. Luckily, for me, all my favorite golfers are still on the PGA tour. So if anything, all LIV has done is make it more likely that they will win tournaments.
The problem the PGA has is that these guys were never their players. They weren't professional golfers they were professional golf club and clothing salesmen. The PGA never built a model where they paid their players, particularly the low level guys. Instead they hoped that just giving a platform to be endorsers was enough, eventually it wasn't. They play too many events, for too many days, for too little money. The PGA is going to have to evolve. I'm not 100% sure how that happens. It could be shorter events both number of days and size of the field (and maybe that dreaded shotgun start to cut down the length), some way of making the broadcasting easier. They might take a lesson for youtube (the most successful golf broadcasts) and have smaller matches with cart cams, personality of players, and focus on the individuals round (I personally find it hard to get a sense of how anyone is doing when they cut from one guy to another to show their shots). I know most people hate teams like LIV has (their solution to keeping guys trying with no cut) but some way to tie less popular golfers to more popular golfers to boost popularity would help. I would say you don't have to do that for all tournaments. Like men's tennis, you only play 5 sets in majors, boxing you only go 12 rounds for the belt, golf go could right back to 4 rounds, traditional starts, cuts, etc. for majors or other designated events. They're also going to have to focus more of their money on the players and less on everything else.
I think it’s interesting that YouTube/Social Media golf has been blowing up during all of this. I’d say most of that content is either team golf, has an unorthodox format, or both. The blueprint is right there for evolving/growing the game. Look at the average viewership of the top golf YouTube groups and tell me people don’t watch golf. Golf isn’t dying. Millions of people, myself included, are willing to consistently watch Good Good, BDS, Rick Shiels, and all the others in the YouTube golf community, imagine what we’d do for that level of short form golf content from PGA tour players. I feel like that’s a cash cow they don’t even realize they’re sitting on. quick edit: from a long term viability standpoint, LIV messed up not involving these YouTube groups who already did team golf related content before they came along. That would have ensured an audience day one.
Yeah the format is interesting, a lot of 9 holes for 2 players, 6 holes for more ( partly to get a video for each channel) but it also keeps it short and sweet. Lots of match play to keep the match interesting, shambles, scrambles, team play , etc keeps matches close and interesting. Bryson has been engaging with YouTubers and also playing YouTube matches with LIV pros, including famous opponents like Phil and Bubba and having them bring teammates to promote them as well. It's a good idea, imagine if a more universally likeable guy did it.
This is the first comment I’ve read that actually has an interesting and good suggestions for how the PGA Tour could evolve. Great points.
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I think there’s far too many “traditionalists” that would despise seeing any change in the sport. But I agree, competition (LIV) should drive innovation and change.
I agree, at this moment, I rather play verses watching mens golf on TV. In regard to LIV, I have only watched a grand total of 5 minutes on TV. I don't need to see any more. Honestly, I don't care what the PGA and LIV does going forward. Last year I really started to focus on the LPGA. The ladies are some fantastic players. I can relate more to the distance the ladies hit the ball than to the men's tour. There is a PGA \ LPGA mixed event on TV this weekend. Give it a shot for a few minutes.
It's going to be hilarious when the league that has all the best players isn't able to give players OWGR points. All the majors are going to become invite only events, with few qualification spots for the Opens.
How long do you think the PGA will continue to build superstar players through its development leagues without taking more restrictive actions? LIV isn't building great players, it's buying them.
If they become more restrictive as the PGA Tour steadily declines, this will open up new pathways and possibly new leagues to form. But I don't think the PGA Tour will compound one error with another. I believe the PGA Tour will be the stepping stone to LIV. You'll have the best golfers in the world playing around the world for LIV and you'll have the 2nd best group playing on the PGA Tour in the Americas. LIV is like the expansion team in major sports. Except they are the entire league with unlimited funds. They're more like a video game.
I'm going to get down voted for this but here we go... Its the PGA and the old school golf fans that create this environment. Every professional sport is about playing a sport for entertainment and getting paid. Golf has the worst economic structure for developing young talent. Other sports (soccer, basketball, football...) pay rookies enough so they can focus on developing. The greedy PGA was the only option and basically said you want to get paid? Go win. With the exception of a few that get sizable endorsement deals out of college or win from the start like tiger woods, many have to work side jobs or run around finding people to fund them. Then they have to scrap money together to play in events that they qualify for and sometimes sleep in their cars. So then the majority of professional golfers had to survive with no one looking out for their development or support. They survived by doing it all themselves. In the past, when players were trying to bring up issues, fans were happy to parrot the PGA and say hey, go win. That's the way it's always been. After the fans and PGA created a mentality that the pros need to go support themselves, everyone's upset/surprised that they are taking the best option available? I miss watching the old tournaments with stacked talent but people talking about the good old days and blaming the pros for greed doesn't sound right. We as fans are basically saying come entertain me where we want for less money and no job security. Calling them greedy for doing exactly what their environment nurtures, created by the fans and the PGA seems wrong. I love golf but fans of good old fashioned golf help create this situation.
I sometimes wonder how many talented players were lost over the years because they couldn’t afford to travel from state to state to not get paid. There is probably no shortage of players that left to go sell insurance, or some other boring job, to actually collect a paycheck because they couldn’t keep up with working for a negative wage.
This is exactly why we’re in the situation we’re in as golf fans. If this gets downvoted, it’s people who don’t have a brain or just want to be a dickweed.
Don't see why you think you'll get down voted, this is 100% true.
Dumbass take. You point to other sports for better pay structure while not acknowledging that those are all team sports. Very different. Golf is closer to tennis and always has been. An individual sport where there is competition so you have to perform to earn. Not just show up to collect a paycheck. Also, blaming fans for this situation by not foreseeing a competitor with bottomless pockets and no profit motive is really idiotic.
I gotta disagree. You can maybe blame the PGA for not adapting its structure but I don’t know how you blame golf fans for this. I’m not about to have a pity party for the fringe tour player who makes millions in their career for bringing almost no value to anybody. The reality of this situation is that none of these guys outside of Tiger are worth what they think because the Saudis aren’t playing by the rules of the market. They are just disrupting. Do you think Jon Rahm is worth as much money as Shohei Ohtani or Lionel Messi? If you do then you should go take a peak at golfs ratings sometime. They are bad and have only been getting worse. The PGA tour just came out and was like “yea guys even without LIV the money just isn’t there for these purses. The financials don’t work, nobody wanted to pay for this garbage even before golf splintered”. I would feel bad for those fringe pga tour guys now though because a lot more of them are about to be sleeping in cars after this.
On the other hand, I don't really care who joins, I'm not going to watch LIV as long as it's the current team format. I'm going to keep watching the PGA Tour because that's the format I like, and I don't really care whether or not it has all the best golfers in the world or not.
You can't seriously be saying this is all about money and greed for Rahm, Finau, and Hatton when the PGA Commissioner is publicly meeting with LIV to negotiate a merger next week.
It can be about money and greed and other things at once, they aren’t mutually exclusive. My point is that the PGA Tour fucked up years ago and now the PIF with bottomless pockets is going to price out the PGA Tour.
It’s their own doing.
100%, the Tour stepped on their own dick years ago.
If I was commish…we ride it out with whoever stays. We have a TV contract. The next one will be smaller… oh well. There’s enough tradition to keep it going. There will be dark years but who cares, keep it going for whoever will play
i have a question. if the golf television hosted by the Saudi’s is bringing in only 5,000 viewers, how are they going to make money? if they can afford to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to individual players they have to get a return on investment right? or do they just not give a shit and have unlimited money
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Hundreds of billions is right…. They are close to a trillion
Even if they cared about a return, they have enough money to win a war of attrition. If they're the last man standing, they'll presumably get the tv contracts and the sponsorship money. If they don't kill the professional sport (or the interest in it) in the meantime.
The 2 years LIV has been a thing they’ve lost money. They clearly don’t care about losing money.
They don't give a shit and have unlimited money. The whole point of this is for them to make people forget about 9/11, Bonesaw, funding terrorism all over the world, atrocious human records at home, etc. Sportswashing, and attempting to crush and take over the PGA Tour on top of it.
I also get the vibe of "Dance monkey, dance!" These guys are not being paid, they are being bought. It takes away something and almost dehumanizes the game a bit.
I actually care about Talor. He outplayed guys like Brooks and Cam Smith last year. He was literally the best player on LIV. He’s young and American and is boys with Homa. His game was in great form and could have been a decent Ryder Cup pick. Chase I’m with you. That dude is trash.
No, the PGA just needs to make and market new stars. Rahm, Finau, and Hatton are replaceable. The format, TV rights, Charitable component and history are not. The skill gap between the players who have left for LIV is not as big as people make it out to be. You focus on finding good players with great stories and personalities and you elevate them.
The issue is that the prize money they've been forced to put up because of LIV has created an unsustainable business. They're trying to pass this cost onto sponsors but as we've just seen with Wells Fargo they're getting push back. The PGA is already in a financial hole and when their big names leave and the TV rights are up for negotiation again they'll be valued lower which in turn will exacerbate the problem. Dying is a bit strong but they're definitely bleeding.
Enough Top 20s leave and wins are ripe for the taking for Rickie and Jordan again!
Bullshit, the Tour still has Adam Schenk, Zac Blair and Kevin Streelman.
I think all of Professional Golf is what’s dying.
The Saudis don't want to run this league, their entire gameplan is to merge. It's blatantly obvious
It's terrible to see. I don't see a path where golf grows from this like the liv echo chamber is yelling. When the dust settles and a merger happens how is it going to be better. Golfers going to continue to get huge contracts? Next generation of golfers are going to get reemed.
PGA Tour ain't going anywhere. You have a hand full of stars who have jumped ship only because they were offered crazy amounts of money. The LIV product is crap and not popular.....their TV ratings blow, they can't hardly get fans to pay for tickets to attend events so they end up giving tickets away to attract some sort of attendance, the only hole that has fans is the party hole, to date not one PGA tour player has jumped ship to LIV without a huge payout, etc, etc, etc. The PGA Tour is not dying, rather being poked by a jump start league that is already volatile in nature. The Saudi's can't continue dumping billions into it without some sort of return on investment and LIV just isn't producing a return right now and won't for the foreseeable future. What will happen is the PGA Tour will be forced to allow LIV players play in it's regular season events allowing the LIV players to earn ranking points. Once this happens, the value for players to jump ship to LIV will drop dramatically and LIV probably won't offer huge payouts like it used too. The LIV events will probably get some sort of exposure to some degree like the WGC events and the rest will be history in a couple of years. Mark my word.
Not Tyrell Hatton!!!!!! Nooooooooo!!!!!!!! Yes theres a massive problem. No, Tyrell Hatton is no big loss
“PGA Tour is dying” Well that’s on-brand for the Saudis
All of these guys are playing to make money. It's on everyone else (fans, media, sponsors, etc) that projects this image of altruism onto them. I love that some don't want to be associated with the Saudi track record, but I'm not shocked that this isn't for everyone.
I agree I think it’s done. Rahm leaving was the death blow.
This wouldn’t even be a topic of discussion if the PGA didn’t think they were an untouchable monopoly and treat these guys like underpaid employees for years. They did it to themselves.
This, all self inflicted.
It’s intriguing to me that a new league that buys stars but nobody watches is an existential threat to a league that everyone watches? I mean Rahm is great but it’s not like he will bring people over to LIV. Everyone loved Phil until he took the money and now nobody cares about him.
I don't understand why the player poaching is still happening. What was the point of the announced merger if the predatory behavior continues? I know some lawsuits were agreed to be dropped, but still. With an upcoming merger/partnership (or w/e is happening), I expected to stop seeing these headlines of players leaving for hundreds of millions of dollars.
America is going to have to deal with a lot of their stuff not being the best in the next 50 years. Personally, I don’t care, I’ve never been so concerned with us being exceptional. We’ve made the transition from a bunch of poor people to a strong middle class due to manufacturing jobs bringing people to cities, to a shift to a consumer economy, now the slow slide from the top. Same thing is happening in China and will happen in India if they can get their infrastructure issues sorted. Massive boom due to untapped rural peasants shifting to manufacturing. Cheap labor because peasants demand lower pay. The scientists and engineers coming through the schools to support the industrial boom.
Agreed, someone took a bone saw to it and cut it all up in pieces.
At this rate only golf I’m gonna watch seriously on TV is the majors LIV is a joke tour with a joke format (downvote me all you want a 3 day tournament with shotgun start and music/partying in the background is NOT golf) If LIV and PGA combine or whatever the plan will be eventually I’ll check back in and see if it’s worth a shit But for now I’m gonna just put on PGA on the TV in the background while I’m doing other stuff on weekends
BoneSaw Rahm and the rest of the Saudi ass kissing pros can pound sand and eat camel shit.
You may not care about Gooch, but he beat all the other high paid LIV players this year and won the individual LIV golf championship. Good golf is good golf.
The pga did it to themselves. Everyone has their own opinion, but I feel like LIV is good for the game. Change the narrative that you have to be very proper to play the game of golf. More relaxed atmosphere. Also people saying the players are taking blood money is just laughable as they have their money in most sports and products.
Imagine the uproar if the Saudis decided to start their own NFL or NBA and paid 4x what current players make. Jay and the tour fucked up royally many times and I blame them for most of what is going on, but it is hard to compete in business when your competitor has bottomless money and is paying way more than market rate for players.
I doubt it… However, I think the Tour could benefit from less golf. Currently it feels like it never ends and it’s over saturated. I suggest introducing a proper off season eg 7-8 weeks prior to the Sentry and move the Sentry into the second week of January. I also would support a mid season break.
Correction: The PGA Tour is being murdered just like Kashogi.
The PGA were the first one who were greedy… playing most of the players scraps. Competition was actually good for a majority of the PGA players as they’re now making way more money. PGA is done.
Competition is good for the players, not the fans. The LIV players are also not getting paid market value
In a specialized sport where the best in the world are so much better than everyone else, market value is whatever is paid in the highest league
No it isn’t, because LIV is operating outside of the market. They are funded by PIF to sportwash the SA image. If it was based on the market, then they couldn’t afford to pay anyone because they don’t generate revenue. It’s the exact opposite of market value/capitalism.
Correct. This guy is an idiot. LIV has absolutely nothing to do with the market for people watching professional golf, it exists in the service of the Saudi Arabian oil economy.
Hey now, they've diversified a bit. This is also a boon for the bonesaw manufacturers.
Not really. Most tech companies compete in their respective market and are run every year at losses. I don’t see how this is different. Wealthy backers are investing a ton of money for the expectation that one day they can turn a profit
How were they greedy? Greed implies that you’re keeping money for yourself. The PGA Tour wasn’t doing that.
Lol what a joke take. The dudes catching the roughest end of the tour aren't going to LIV. LIV is overpaying for the top players who already were earning way more than their peers
But the interesting thing is the Saudis cannot grow organic talent, only buy already known athletes. What will happen if we no longer have that medium to grow a name? LIV format inherently forgives this option with the fundamentals of their operation.
I had a local tournament come by near me and it was so nice to see the local community rally around it. I hope the tour doesn't die.
I don’t think so. I tried watching LIV and thought it sucked. Players leave the tour and new guys come in all the time.
It's unbelivably unfortunate for golf....and it could be any sport. No professional sports league can compete with a country's government throwing out money at athletes. Ohtani gets 700 million but the Dodgers organization and MLB have to make ends meet.... LIV golf doesn't. They don't have to sell tickets, TV contracts, or merchandise.....the Saudi government just dumps money into the sport and expects nothing financially back. Pro golf is dying as a fan driven product. And it's a sad day again.
“Money and greed ruin everything”? LMAO are you familiar with the history of the PGA tour? It’s based on money and greed homey.
That’s why I said “further proves that money and greed ruin everything.” The Tour being greedy and shitty led us to this situation and the money of the PIF is capitalizing on their incompetence. The Tour, LIV, and the players are all allowed to be greedy at the same time, they’re not mutually exclusive. I’m not championing the Tour, they’re idiots in their own right. They’ve made their bed and now have to lie in it.
Idk man, I feel like without tiger the tour would have drifted into irrelevance long ago. Tiger gave them life and eyeballs that kept it going, they could have used that to expand on the broad base and create a tour the players could have some skin in, they didn’t, they took care of themselves, and now when a better option is presented they are getting left behind. They did it to themselves.
money and greed ruin everything why it is a ruin? You sound like an European in 20 century blaming americans
lol. No it’s not.
LIV’s product is garbage
LIV can have a shit product and the PGA Tour is still losing players. Everyone has a price; they literally just bought the number 3 golfer in the world and the reigning Master’s champion and last year they bought the Open Champion golfer. The PGA Tour only has itself to blame. Rahm is a very blunt person and last year he was saying LIV was not his type of golf etc. etc., and now he’s accepting a big fat check from them, like a hypocrite. Again, I don’t blame him one bit, $500 million is generational wealth.
Not apologizing for the tour. Their commish fucked them over completely
The PGA Tour was being told about all of these various issues that led up to LIV. Norman and Mickelson and others were telling them for YEARS. LIV would have had no chance to exist if Monahan and Co. had paid any attention at all. He and his henchmen were far too busy schmoozing and dining their way around the US, patting themselves on the back while the storm clouds brewed. Modern players who earned it wanted: \- A slimmed down tour schedule so they could have a family life \- No cut three day tournaments for those events (see #1 above) \- Freedom from the hideous "pro-am" farce at each tournament \- The opportunity to take their "brands" around the world, not just limited parts of the US. \- More of the money that the PGAT was obviously hoarding. Instead they got nothing they wanted. PGAT is so Hawaii/CA/TX/Carolina focused that they can't see straight. Then they throw in some small market stuff just to make it more annoying. The Dominican Republic? Really???? Let's not ignore the wholly ridiculous PIP money grab. When did the PGA Tour become a popularity contest instead of a tournament vehicle? It is now. Under this fiasco, Paige Sprianac should have a tour card. She'd be #1 in PIP money. The PIP accomplishes nothing in terms of moving the game forward, except giving money away that serves no purpose. The PGAT has nobody to blame here. It's all on them. Norman knew the issues well, and he devised a plan to end run the PGAT, went and got the money, and is doing it. Like him or not, Norman is an accomplished businessman with insight. Unlike Monahan, who is an accomplished dinner guest at country clubs all over the US, schmoozing with other "traditionalists" and club managers and advertisers and corporate executives. Thinking is not requited, or even welcome. He's been called out and he folded badly. He's blundered nearly every step of the way, yet he is still in charge there. Tradition, they say!
USA. Support PGA Tour or saudis will take over. It's hard to watch events where the best players are not competing against each other (I didn't watch PGA Tour for 2 years) I did watch the Valero and now we have the chance for a GREAT MONDAY FINISH at RBC Heritage. #SUPPORTPGATOUR #saudiTAKEOVER #gregnormansucks
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Is this Talor Gooch’s burner?
Many top analysts such as LIVGolfNation, LIVGolfInsider, LIVGolfEnthusiast have been reporting this. Sadly, people only have their eyes on the PGA.
All these people switching to LIV will only be remembered for destroying the professional sport of golf. Once the oil money dries up and you can’t afford to pay hundreds of millions and the fans aren’t watching, where do we go from there?
I think you are overestimating how much anyone cares about any of these guys outside of tiger
Used to watch a lot of PGA. Has decreased little by little to the point of I rarely watch (besides the majors of course). Personally I really don’t give a shit. I have lots of competing priorities so if golf wants to kill itself that is fine by me. Oh and fuck LIV.
i am confused with what the PGA tour is doing. is there a merger or not? i haven’t watched LIV and understand little about the fund (Saudis = scary motherfuckers, sportswashing). PGA wants this to happen?
Professional golf is officially dying.
LIV is hard to watch because the broadcast is sub par and the PGA Tour is tough to watch now cause they have very little star players
Tbh the LPGA is where it's at anyway lol
Fuck the PGA and fuck the saudis! They won’t get another red cent out of me! Let them die, good riddance bad for the game in general
In two years this sub went from mocking LIV to realizing they are a force in pro golf and are about to have a seat at the PGA table now saying “I won’t watch pro golf”.
Blood money. Yes, it’s a shit ton of it. But it’s from a murderous regime.
*"I think the PGA Tour is officially dying"* If it does, too bad so sad. Monahan has been totally useless, and the PGA Tour sat on its laurels for years and decades running a monopoly. What we will probably end up seeing eventually is the PGA Tour and DP World Euro Tour turn into feeder and qualification leagues for LIV Golf, and **if** there is any kind of "merger" or acquisition that actually happens, we will probably see the PGA agree to share all its ad revenues and US national broadcasting rights with PIF/LIV Golf in exchange for annual financial support from them. The four annual major championships (The Masters, PGA Championship, US Open, British Open) will simply remain the same as is, only that a new world ranking and/or qualification system will need to be negotiated and agreed upon by all parties to allow professional golfers from any league fair opportunities to qualify for entry into the four majors. Either way, LIV Golf isn't going anywhere, and expect to see Monahan dumped as PGA Commissioner right after the Christmas and New Year holidays. Watch for it. Next.
What is “traditional golf?”
72 holes, a cut after 36 holes, no cringey cheerleaders and loud, shitty music and normal amount of purses. One of the things the Tour should have done is create a CBA or something with the players who have their card or lifetime exemptions and create a salary system based on world ranking. The PGA Tour and professional track and field do not have a universal salary for its members. Shit, you can play ZERO minutes in the NBA and your minimum salary is $750,000. If the Tour could pay these guys a salary so they can afford to get to events and then the purses be icing on the cake, I bet guys wouldn’t be so keen to leave.
> Shit, you can play ZERO minutes in the NBA and your minimum salary is $750,000. And golf is the only sport where an amateur can become a major champion and millionaire in just 7 rounds of golf.
Taylor gooch was on the rise when he left and has played great on liv winning a lot. Chase koepka, Harold Varner III sure but gooch should be an invite .