ORLANDO, Florida – As the new “signature” event of only 69 players and 72 holes Arnold Palmer Invitational tees off this week at Bay Hill Club & Lodge, the 2024 PGA Tour season seems to have lost it ‘mojo‘ and trending on a downward spiral, possibly in self-destruction mode, as well as losing its prestigious reputation in the world of golf across the globe. Let me call this as I see it, not the way the mainstream media and the powers-to-be want us to see it.
This is not your grandfather’s PGA Tour anymore. Not even close!
It’s easy to blame the LIV Golf League for this mess. It’s not the loss of some of the PGA TOUR’s best young players, whose decisions as “free agents” was to upgrade their financial wellbeing and futures, but the inability of the PGA TOUR and its leadership, particularly Jay Monahan, to understand that “money talks and players will walk.”
The traditionalist will forever blame The Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia that has presented itself as “an opportunity to reinvigorate golf” through rich paydays, star players, team competition and slick marketing.
The concept from the beginning was to let the PGA Tour and the rest of the golfing world know that the monopoly was over, and that “free enterprise” was about to change the face of professional golf forever.
The non traditionalist sees this as the beginning of a fair and equal competition to change forever the face of professional golf by making it an international sport the way it was always meant to be. It’s certainly not the first sport that has suffered through the financial burdens of international competition and it won’t be the last.
The PGA TOUR should look at how they want to address the numerous issues that have come from their attempt to build a mini-LIV format that they now call “Signature Events“. This new PGA Tour model sure look a lot like the LIV Golf model. So, what’s up with that?
The eight (8) events are predominantly built on last years top 50 FedExCup finishers, along with the 2024 tournament winners. It also includes Aon Next 10 and Aon Swing 5 which are new eligibility paths to ensure the Signature Events have the needed number of participants.
One current problem, that seems to be raising its ugly head this year, is the failure of the PGA Tour’s top golfers, who mostly all participate in the Signature Events, are not participating in a number of weekly tournaments leaving disappointed fans in their wake. Let’s take a look at why.
To put money in perspective, Arnold Palmer over his professional career from 1955 – 2011 had PGA Tour total earnings of $2,130,239, although he parlayed his golf fame into the third highest earner in sports history earning roughly $885 million according to Sportico.
Would anyone like to guess why some of these guys don’t play every weekend?
If you really take a good look at these number that include lots of zeros going into player bank accounts, you will see a large number of players on top of the FedexCup standings who really don’t need to spend their weekends playing in tournaments except the big money events. The numbers used here show top 8 but there are a number of top 50 who make even more money than some of the ones listed.
Now, the PGA TOUR is shamelessly singling out its top players and giving them special treatment providing more opportunities than the majority of its membership to make even more money with the benefit of with added free time. Again, this model closely resembles LIV Golf.
With little transparency or media scrutiny, the PGA Tour looks like they’re going to create a closed group of players to start playing in International Team competition. Definitely has LIV Golf sounding ingredients all over it.
From a golf media perspective this whole debate has been great but I truly believe what the fans & golf media and golf world wants to see is a “Match for the Ages” pitting the best 12 PGA Tour players vs. the best LIV Golf players. Let’s get in on!
https://www.pgatour.com/leaderboard
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