Rory: "The emergence of LIV or the emergence of a competitor to the PGA Tour has benefitted everyone who plays elite professional golf."

— Kyle Porter (@KylePorterCBS) March 7, 2023

I guess now the truth is allowed to be spoken by the protectors of the narrative after a year of absolute bull***** Brandel is still doing some solid goaltending though.

Shocking

I bet Greg Norman is really happy now. PGAT stronger than ever thanks to him

Bunk Moreland said:

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Rory: "The emergence of LIV or the emergence of a competitor to the PGA Tour has benefitted everyone who plays elite professional golf."

— Kyle Porter (@KylePorterCBS) March 7, 2023

I guess now the truth is allowed to be spoken by the protectors of the narrative after a year of absolute bull***** Brandel is still doing some solid goaltending though.

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key word being "elite". Rory already getting pissed on by other PGA pros for there players only meeting this morning and screwing the little guys on the PGAT.

JP_Losman said:

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I bet Greg Norman is really happy now. PGAT stronger than ever thanks to him

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Stronger than ever? The "5th Major" this week doesn't even have its defending champion playing.

45% of the Major winners of the last 7 years aren't on the tour. The PGA has been dealt a big blow and imo it's already noticeable in the fields this season.

The LIV fields are terrible with half of them about age 40 and older and playing like crap. The PGA Tour has improved noticeably in the past year and their results have shown on the golf course in their events this season with most of the top players in contention.

I'm not arguing LIV is a better product. I'm saying a lot of the guys who left the PGAT to go to LIV hurt the product and field, and the Tour currently is not in the best shape it's ever been.

Bunk Moreland said:

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I'm not arguing LIV is a better product. I'm saying a lot of the guys who left the PGAT to go to LIV hurt the product and field, and the Tour currently is not in the best shape it's ever been.

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I, for one, have lamented the absence of Jediah Morgan at every PGA Tour event since LIV started. Such a loss of his star power. The PGA Tour is doing just fine.

I certainly miss some of the bigger stars - if the PGAT could get Koepka, Cam Smith, DJ and Dechambeau back it would be immensely better off. I'm not sure if there's many more that would move the needle much. Mickelson seems done but he probably has a run in a major or two left in him.

Lol, yeah that's who he was referencing

Get your head outta the sand

LIV isn't doing great, they took some of PGATs top players and even more of their top personalities. PGAT is REacting to LIV right now. I promise you PGAT wasn't thinking "we are fine" this time last year. Looks like LIV didn't take full advantage of where they were and have lost momentum so PGAT will probably be ok but they lost a large portion of their product.

I posted earlier (probably in a different thread) PGAT lost 50% of their top PIP player (player impact program)

The PGA Tour's Player Impact Program is a way of rewarding players who, according to the Tour, "generate the most positive interest in the PGA Tour."

IMO PGAT is lucky that LIV is so bad at marketing and getting their product on TV

If they cant get on youtubeTV I'm moving into the category of hoping LIV fails and they allow some sort of avenue back to the PGAT

All LIV needs to do is cut ties with Norman and they would be better off.

I think the LIV strategy was going according to plan last year and the PGAT, if left to its own devices, would have totally dropped the ball and a number of other guys like Xander, Cantlay, Cam Young, and others would be playing LIV right now.

That scenario was only prevented by Tiger stepping in, starting his TGL to drum up $$ to help incentivize PGAT stars considering LIV to stay, and essentially organizing a movement (with Rory as de facto leader) among those PGAT stars to force the PGAT to make necessary changes.

The LIV momentum seemed to stall after the Delaware meeting last year. Even though Rory got the headlines from it and was the "spokesman", Tiger's influence is what made that meeting happen and it got the top PGAT players on the same page.

From there, PGAT brass could no longer hide behind the rights of rank-and-file players and event sponsors to resist change. Change had to happen right then and finally, FINALLY, they had to give in to their stars.

There's been lots of debate around here about LIV, how successfully it would be, how good the guys who defected actually are, etc. But one thing is pretty clear at this point. None of these changes to the PGAT would have happened without LIV's presence. I was never a denier, but I was skeptical of that. Props to Bunk and Aggie369 for seeing it early on.

I think it's a big win for Phil because, IMO, this revamped PGAT is what he ultimately wanted to see come from all this. I don't see it as quite as big a win for Greg because I think he really believes in LIV and wants it to succeed (and it very likely won't now). It's a big win for Tiger too. At the end of the day, he still runs the show.

At this point, IMO the sooner LIV folds and the star players return to the revamped PGAT, the better. Hopefully the PGAT allows it to happen smoothly.

This is all good for elite players. I think it is extremely premature to call this good for all players. These changes are all in a trajectory to exclude the rank and file. Fan impact is a question too. More events with all the best players is good. But smaller fields = more snoozers. Half the LIV events have been decided by 3+ shots.

The last 2 weeks of the PGAT were great. Crazy drama, but the big name factor wasn't what drove it. One week had them, the other didn't. Cutting fields and risking having that less often is dicey

DannyDuberstein said:

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This is all good for elite players. I think it is extremely premature to call this good for all players. These changes are all in a trajectory to exclude the rank and file. Fan impact is a question too. More events with all the best players is good. But smaller fields = more snoozers. Half the LIV events have been decided by 3+ shots.

The last 2 weeks of the PGAT were great. Crazy drama, but the big name factor wasn't what drove it. One week had them, the other didn't. Cutting fields and risking having that less often is dicey

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Fair points. I think it remains to be seen how successful these PGAT changes will be and how much drama they'll produce. But I'm also not sure if status quo was a feasible option.

The other factor is where do you think all this $$$ is going to come from? Sponsors. Yet people bich incessantly about the aspect of these events that are the reason these sponsors invest - visibility thru commercials and visibility thru having one of their blowhard C suite executives get interviewed during a round. Think that is gonna decrease with this changes? Fick no, expect more sponsor pimping.

So in summary, unless you are one of these elite guys or their agent, in the words of Winston Wolf, let's not start sucking each other's d***s yet, gentlemen

Yeah. Whether things are better or worse really depends. Better for who? Elite players? Rank-and-file players? Fans?

LIV clearly drove the Tour to find more money. That's clearly better for the elite players (and should trickle down some too). While I don't begrudge the payday, Jordan Speith isn't my idea of a charity case either. At the end of the day, I'm largely indifferent to the larger purses. Good for them but really don't see why us as fans should be spiking the football for this or acting like professional golfers were treated like kids in a Dickens novel before LIV showed up.

I would say it's a mixed bag for the rank-and-file and time will tell. Clearly less opportunities to play but potentially better chances in the events they do get into. We'll see. My guess is the rank-and-file are split on whether this is good for them.

As for fans, having 2 tours is not ideal and if the Saudis are willing to see this through for a few more years, this will continue to water down professional golf, which is bad for fans IMO. And as Danny said, these enormous purses that the Tour had to find in order to keep their talent will likely come at a cost to the fans of increased advertising, etc. I'm also curious if the Tour can keep up monetarily. There's only so many entities in the world willing to give away $20 million/year to sponsor a golf tourney. While I realize the new format was necessary to counter LIV, it will be interesting to see if it is sustainable. Unlike LIV, the PGAT doesn't have the luxury of losing $500 million/year.

Most of it from new TV contract I think

More big players together more often and basucally on pre confirmed dates helps with TV leverage

Good analysis Deluxe.

The Saudis and LIV golf have done a lot of things poorly but that will happen when you have Greg Norman as your CEO and front man. Not much good will happen with Greg at the center of controversy and his ego and personal motives involved. The PGA Tour is in a better and stronger place today than they were a year ago and in large part to LIV golf. Right now, there is considerable risk for a top golfer on the PGA Tour to want to join LIV golf. In the end, with golf being a niche sport, there is limited room to have multiple major golf tours across the globe.

I think the PGA Tour would eventually welcome back former LIV golfers except for Patrick Reed. Reed can go play the Antarctic Tour.

Which that tv contract $$$ ultimately comes from sponsors. Most of these elevated events were already drawing the great players. Now, I think you will see a value trade-off, some weeks a little more valuable but at the expense of other weeks getting harmed.

As far as additional value from getting the best players together with a smaller field and no cut, the WGC did that for 20 years. But it gradually fizzled out, the number of events declined, and now it's 0. I think it's a dangerous assumption that these smaller no cut elevated events will all be a home run. For the players in them, sure. For other players or the overall product in the long run, TBD

130 million!




https://www.ocregister.com/2023/03/14/fred-couples-tees-off-on-liv-golf-and-nutbag-phil-mickelson

PJYoung said:

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130 million!




https://www.ocregister.com/2023/03/14/fred-couples-tees-off-on-liv-golf-and-nutbag-phil-mickelson

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Sounds like LIV's CFO has the same understanding of Return On Investment as our own athletic department's.

Or the federal government.

Go easy on me if I'm missing something obvious, but now that the PGA has nearly tripled the pay-outs on many of the tournaments rather suddenly, where is that money coming from? And it begs the question...was that money always there, but going somewhere else?

New TV deal and sponsors mainly

Had no idea this was going on - up against 1st weekend of March Madness seems like not the best timing.

HyFlyers are 1 back heading into tomorrow. Steely and Tringale are both T3 and I’m T10. My man Piot is ready to go low. Check out the final round on CW at 10:00 pacific. #LFG Let’s Flyin Go!

— Phil Mickelson (@PhilMickelson) March 18, 2023

Same. Saw something on Twitter and didn't even realize Tucson was this weekend.

Another marketing blunder.

I saw it was going to happen, and my YouTube feed is showing all kinds of updates…and I just can't make myself give a s***. I'm glad these guys took the opportunity to put a big check in their pocket, but I really wish those top 5-10 players were back on the regular Tour.

LIV will always have scheduling issues in the US with a lot of other major sports and entertainment avenues going on almost every weekend. LIV golf can't compete against the major pro sports or NCAA tournament, etc. Next couple of weekends coming up on the PGA Tour is the Match Play and The Masters.

Yeah
I had no idea either, I wanted to watch too

Just terrible marketing

I get the argument that the PGAT has too many events, but this is what happens when you don't play every week. Your fans have to care enough to learn your schedule.

Dechambeau, Cam, DJ, Reed, and Koepka all on the bottom half of the leaderboard. No one is going out of their way to see who wins between Cameron Tringale and CH3.

Id rather watch lieshman, Sergio, oosti over spieth and fleetwood honestly

I'd be pulling for lieshman and oosti over spieth if they were on same course

Spieth is great and fun to watch when he's playing well. Don't care if he's a sip.