One thing is certain after the most recent bombshell: golf fans are losing
Jon Rahm answered a Zoom call wearing a LIV golf jacket 18 months after he said he didn’t see the appeal of the other startup leagues taking the golf world by storm. At a press conference in June 2022, he said that $400 million would not change his lifestyle. On Thursday, he was announced as the new poster boy for the $300 million LIV.
“My heart is in the PGA Tour,” Rahm said last season.
Rahm Thursday: “I will always be grateful to the PGA Tour and the platform they gave me to play on.”
Professional golf is in an absurdly complicated situation. That was before the Rahm news. now? It’s obviously bad.
Before Rahm left, the PGA Tour lost major star power to LIV Golf, including Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau, who then waved the white flag and decided to join LIV Golf rather than continue . Fight the battle. This is understandable. The state investment fund isn’t going to run out of money anytime soon, and probably never will, and as a nonprofit, the Tour can’t compete for revenue. The structure of the PGA Tour was a bit confusing and had to adjust due to the ever-changing FedEx Cup format. To counter the threat of LIV, the tournament overhauled its tournament structure, trying to give top players more money and play these events more often. First, we included designated events that became signature events. Elite players want more. The average player thinks they deserve more. Others say that the common people benefited greatly.
“Men’s professional golf is in a sad state,” Mackenzie Hughes tweeted Friday morning. “The current direction is neither healthy nor good for the sport. I know many of you are upset about recent events, and I am too.”
One of the tour’s most important figures, Rory McIlroy, recently resigned from the policy committee. Tiger Woods joined the tour to stay on the tour, but his playing time is limited, meaning he has to do most of it from a wheelchair. You can’t put that together with the Tour’s old and reliable Woods bandages. Meanwhile, LIV Golf consists of too many unknown pros competing for TV ratings (which they rarely advertise), encouraging nonsensical deals, and competing with a handful of players who make up the league’s promotional posters.
If Ram goes to LIV, his popularity will increase, but by how much? 99% of golf fans agree that Rahm is one of the top five golfers in the world. But how many non-LIV viewers still watch The CW? He’s talented, but doesn’t make the league a very noteworthy player. That’s always been the LIV fight. How do we get people to care about something that has no history or legacy?
There’s the PGA Tour, which Rahm mentioned in his famous June 2022 press conference. “I could retire and live a very happy life with the money I’m making now and not play golf. So I never played golf for financial reasons. “I play for the love of the game and I want to compete against the best in the world,” he said. “Winning at the Memorial is a given. Winning the Arnold Palmer event at Bay Hill meant something. It’s important to win in LA, Torrey, some historical places. That’s very important to me.”
These are adults who can decide for themselves where they want to play, how often they play and what rewards they deserve, but that doesn’t mean the sport will improve.
The era of skill development for professional golfers has arrived. It’s going to get messy.
“Something bad is happening to the game of golf. Money can change everything. “The current divisions in pro gaming are not fun.” Former pundit Colt Knoss spoke on SiriusXM Radio Thursday in response to the Rahm news. “…it’s not good to have half the best players in the world playing in one place and half the best players playing in another place. I never thought I would see anything like this in my lifetime on the PGA Tour or in professional golf.”
Major is the best we have. It’s always been that way, but it’s even more so now. Rahm will not return to defend his title at The Sentry, American Express or Genesis, Tiger events next month. Two of the three are signature events with top players, but the field immediately flooded after Rahm left. The opportunity to see the best golfers in the world at the same time is limited to four weeks a year. That’s great. Once the PGA Tour/DP World Tour/Saudi PIF merger plans are announced, Rahm should be part of the PGA Tour solution. But his departure proves that, despite the framework agreement, there is still no peace between the Tour and LIV. Perhaps this is the last straw in the cap for the LIV brass, chasing down the two-time major champion and warning those on the other side of the power he still wields. Or maybe Rahm knows something we don’t, which is that the two can and probably will work together in the near future. Maybe he’ll get a big check now and get the best of both worlds later?
For now, weekend tournament viewing will suffer. The golf in this division is worse, but Thursday could be the turning point. Could things get any worse? There might be a few more dropouts after Rahm, but I doubt it will be that great. This raises awareness of the unification of sports. The golf schedule for 2024 is already set, but the December 31 deadline for this framework agreement is fast approaching. Maybe some kind of world tour is coming up. Or maybe each league has a way of getting stars to attend the other league’s big events. Thursday may be just the moment you need to get things moving in the right direction. A solution will eventually emerge, but maintaining the status quo is impossible. It just doesn’t work. Golfers deserve better.
