The PGA’s answer to the LIV: No-cut tournaments, more money and the McIlroy-Woods project. The public is skeptical

The year 2022 will probably go down in the history books of golf as the year that began to change the history of the sport. It’s all the fault of the rival LIV Golf series led by former PGA Tour star Greg Norman, to which the PGA must now respond. It’s trying to do so judicially, but also with revolutionary steps that weren’t even in the cards not long ago.

Revolution or evolution – both of these terms could be considered correct. Golf, in short, is undergoing a forced evolution in these months that the professional world of the game has long been waiting for.

Nor has it had any reason to change significantly, as the PGA Tour, and by extension the DP World Tour, as the organisation that brings together the three leading men’s professional golf series in Europe, has held all the reins.

Into the entire functioning golf ecosystem this year has stepped the LIV Tour, which comes with a revolutionary game model that includes 54-hole (LIV in Roman) tournaments over three days, with much shorter playing times and a team play supplement.

All this with a subsidy from Saudi Arabia’s public (almost bottomless) resources, which is causing quite a stir, especially on the American continent. LIV also aims to attract a new, perhaps younger, audience, aided by its global reach. The future of LIV is based on a series of tournaments to be held in different parts of the planet.

While LIV Golf hasn’t penetrated Europe that much yet, it has already caused a lot of chaos on the American PGA Tour. The best players who have been loyal to the traditional event are moving to the competition for large financial bonuses, and the PGA Tour must respond as its future is at stake.

Many critics of the PGA Tour say the American enterprise, led by Commissioner Jay Monahan, has overslept. From the start, they have failed to respond to the threat of LIV Golf competition, with unpleasant consequences. A number of players have already switched to the new venture, with many of them only just preparing for their big career move.

There is talk behind the scenes of this year’s FedEx Cup Playoffs of as many as seven players who are expected to announce their transfer to LIV after the Tour Championship, which takes place this week at the legendary East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta. The most frequently mentioned name is Cameron Smith from Australia. It would be interesting to see the uproar and the public reaction if he could win the final event of the PGA Tour season.

THERE WILL BE CHANGES

Whatever the outcome of the Tour Championship, it is clear that no stone will be left unturned in the years to come. The PGA Tour is already aware of that, and it held a players’ meeting of the top 20 or so players at the BMW Championship, with Tiger Woods in attendance from his home in Florida.

Although there was a lot of closed-door debate and no official statement has seen the light of day yet, some scraps of the heated discussion did leak out. For example, Rory McIlroy has already said during the past week that Tiger Woods played an absolutely pivotal role.

At the same time, the Irish golfer said that golf is entering a new era, making his words a clear indication that the PGA Tour is planning major changes for the years to come. At the same time, it will try to answer the rival LIV Tour and, most importantly, stop the bleeding in the form of an outflow of elite players.

One of the steps is to be an unspecified project that Rory McIlroy is working on with Tiger Woods. It is a competition to be played off the greens, presumably somewhere in a stadium setting. It’s supposed to be some sort of complement to the PGA Tour tournaments. Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy have reportedly been working on the project for two years.

The very brief information so far is that the events are to be held in front of a live audience and will start in 2024. More concrete information could come in the coming days, as even overseas golf fans have no idea from this information what the project is actually supposed to look like.

Leaked information so far suggests that players like the idea and even PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan has reportedly endorsed it. The proposal talks about a January to March timeframe, with the final event taking place at a later date. The bottom line is that players can make a lot of money from these tournaments.

NO-CUT TOURNAMENTS

A far more concrete proposal envisages a new series of eighteen tournaments around the world, with the top sixty players taking part. Moreover, these would be generously subsidized tournaments, with talk of up to $20 million. The number one challenge is to keep up with the competitive LIV Golf series. The latter offers prize money of $25 million.

Tour players who don’t qualify for tournaments will play in their own series of tournaments to earn their cards and improve their status for the following season. Increased prize money in other tournaments is a given, with the Player Championship, for example, set to increase prize money to $25 million.

Helping to improve the PGA Tour’s financial freedom is also “giving up the Tour’s non-profit status.” Tournaments should be cut-free, meaning no cuts in the starting field after two rounds played, as in the vast majority of PGA Tour tournaments. American journalists, however, are somewhat skeptical of the format.

“If you want to fend off the threat the Tour faces, why make economic races against competition you can’t win? How about differentiating the product?” josh Sens of golf.com asks in his confessional.

His colleague Dylan Dethier in turn wrote: “I would say that by stealing some of the steps the LIV has done right, the PGA Tour is adopting some overdue changes that made it vulnerable to begin with,” he explains. Likewise, many fans don’t like the fact that the PGA Tour is practically just starting to copy what it itself has criticized.

It’s the same with the abolition of cuts, which is one of the criticisms that the OWGR (Official World Golf Ranking) doesn’t want to include results from LIV tournaments in the world rankings, thus depriving its players of credit and the opportunity to qualify for majors or the Olympics.

One of the other revolutions envisions that every player on the PGA Tour would have a guaranteed amount that would be deducted if they earn a tournament win. This, too, is a renovation that follows the path of the LIV. Just like the path that many professionals and fans don’t like. A path that says earnings on the prestigious PGA Tour should be on merit only.

Whichever way golf history moves in the coming months, one thing is clear. Everyone will eventually benefit financially as competition enters the scene. Players will make a lot more money.

Still, it would probably be best for the future of golf and the fans if the PGA Tour and LIV Golf found common ground. Otherwise, world golf will divide the fans, which won’t help it in the overall reckoning.

Source: PGA Tour, LIV Golf, golf.com