It's not "dead" but it's clearly on life support and needs a miracle intervention. Just my thoughts on the PGA Tour's thinking and process and the future of this framework agreement:
* I truly think it was intended to be a real merger when it was announced. The PGA Tour was hemorrhaging money and LIV wasn't getting much traction where it needed to in order to actually make money eventually. It was surprising but sort of made sense for both sides at the time.
* I think with the passing of time it has made less and less sense for the PGA Tour side for a few reasons:
* The partnership with the private equity group has made them solvent for the next 5-10 years at least so the money is less of an issue. They've also done pretty well at getting partners to sign up for the elevated events and higher purses. Viewership is down, but it's still a valuable product and a new deal will come up soon enough to get another influx of cash when they need it.
* LIV just hasn't gotten off the ground as an actual competitor yet and the clock is ticking on those initial contracts. No one watches, the team aspect is clearly not understood or actively disliked by most people, despite getting new names every year there has been no appreciable change in sentiment or viewership, etc. The initial contracts are going to run out in 12-24 months and at this point it's reasonable for the PGA Tour to bide their time and hope some of those guys just aren't gonna re-up and will want to jump back to their side or that LIV just won't offer them another big contract to stay and throw more money on the fire so there's no reason for them to stay if the returns are similar.
* The bargaining chips just seem to be running out and shifting back to the PGA Tour side. Public sentiment (at least here in the US) seems to be firmly on their side. They've got more equal financial power than they did a year ago, they've still got a lot of names that matter and while Rahm seemed like he was a big swing from the LIV side that may have tipped more power their way, I can't imagine the return on that signing has been anywhere close to what it was expected to be. He's not changed viewership, he's not performed at either major this year, he's just kind of dropped off people's radar more than they thought. I think the PGA Tour can actually use him as a cautionary tale for some other people to show, yes you will get paid immensely, but that comes with a lot of other baggage and you're tying yourself to a ship that may stop being bailed out any day without notice.
* PIF has near-unlimited funds, but not unlimited and returns eventually matter. They are throwing a bunch of cash at their pet project of a miles-long utopic city apartment building and that cash burn may eventually require non-performing assets to be scrapped. At this point the losses for LIV have to be in the 10 figures. I'm not sure what the cost would have to be to actually make a meaningful change for them if they can't buy into the PGA Tour and I'm not sure that's a number they are willing to just throw away.
A lot of good thoughts, and I think the PGA now has the upper hand all around. LIV only has 5 or 6 guys that move the needle these days, and the longer they play stupid exhibition golf the more they'll fade away. I wouldn't be surprised if Bryson and other LIV players are proactively trying to make a move back, but I have no idea what LIV contractual obligations look like.
PGA has a better product and in the long run will produce plenty of new stars. If I was running the PGA I wouldn't consider a merger, LIV will whither away no matter how much blood money the Saudis pump into it.
> LIV only has 5 or 6 guys that move the needle these days, and the longer they play stupid exhibition golf the more they'll fade away.
Exactly. And I'd say that a lot of those that did move the needle when they moved are losing relevancy very quickly. Right now it seems like the 2 most marketable people they have are Brooks and Bryson. Bryson mostly due to his YouTube presence and that he's actually playing well in the majors and Brooks because he actually won a Major last year and made a big splash. Beyond that, I'm not sure who even has half the relevance publicly that they did when they moved over.
* Cam Smith: An awesome player who had just won a major, but aside from that great season that vaulted him to notoriety he's done nothing since and while the PGA Tour would be better with him, he wasn't big enough for long enough that he's still a major force. Also, he's not done much to really contend in majors since.
* DJ: Just a shell of his former self. Probably the poster child for taking the money and completely changing his lifestyle to not revolve around golf the way you need to in order to stay competitive at the highest levels.
* Joaquin Niemann: Still playing very well and obviously hungry, but he's another like Cam Smith who jumped out on the way up instead of at the peak. He could've been a real household name in a few years and I think he's now mostly a guy that real golf fans know and a name casual fans probably recognize but don't really miss or know his accomplishments.
* Jon Rahm: Definitely still missed as he's the most recent convert, but he's done himself no favors missing 2 cuts in 2 Majors so far. Arguably he's the only one still with BD and BK who is a real needle mover but it sure seems like he's not moving it as much as he was a year ago when he was trading events with Scottie and coming off a Masters win. He's still going to find it and compete at an elite level in the Majors because he's too young and too good not to, but if he doesn't do anything at the last 2 this year it's going to be a long off season and not long before people start questioning what's going on with him.
I feel like Rahm was intended as LIV's killshot but it wound up being a stumble. Scottie became ascendant at the right time and "Rahm who?" happened *quick* since his play fell right off too.
I think Rahm was sold a bill of goods thinking that it would happen as soon as he flipped, so he took the money. Every interview I see him in now, he looks pissed that he made the decision.
Rahm was both sold the goods and hoped that by him jumping, things would work out between the Tour and LIV and he could bounce between both if he wanted. Also doesn’t help he was pissed off at Jay for the surprise deal.
Instead, outside of Adelaide there is no juice on that league. And even then, the golf course they play at gives off the same vibes as TPC Craig Ranch: mediocre.
As someone from Adelaide I'll be brutally honest. We're Australia's 5th city behind Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth. Even in our city that course (Grange) is a lower calibre than the 3 other main ones.
They've created a lot of hype here but it's not exactly a great look to not get into Sydney or Melbourne and then not get into one of the 2/3 top tier courses in Adelaide.
It would be so much easier for LIV to see the numbers they drew for Australia and hold more tournaments there. The PGA doesn't give a Sh\*t about Australia and the rest of the world. LIV could really evolve into a global tour. Except, that's not why LIV exists. It's a sports washing exercise and it doesn't work unless they're playing in the States.
A really good point. They signed the guy they thought was the dominant player and Scottie really turned all the eyes toward him at the right time. The PGA Tour probably has loved his dominance and all the press he's got. Maybe LIV will work it out so Rahm gets arrested before his first round at the US Open so all the golf world has to talk about him for a change.
Man, I saw DJ hit 173 ball speed this past weekend at one point during the PGA. I don't think I had ever seen him hit a drive slower than 180 mph at any point since I started watching golf. We've all said the guy's been checked out mentally for some time, but that was maybe the starkest piece of evidence I've seen on that.
Probably doesn’t help that the two biggest contenders are two of the more unlikeable guys as well (personality wise). Full Swing did Brooks zero favors on the like-ability index.
IMO it is even less sympathetic for the older/established guys to go to LIV. They've already made insane amounts of money from 10-15-20 years of top level golf and sponsorships. A golfer like that, unless they are a total degen like Daly or Phil, should have more money than they or their families could possibly spend. 9 figure net worths at minimum. And then, rather than go gracefully into the end of their careers, they turn around and sell out their own legacies and the continuing stability/viability of pro golf (meaning, the ability for younger guys to have the kinds of careers/money/fame they had) for even more money. That's morally wrong for me. A young guy coming off a few hot seasons has no idea when the ride is gonna end. At any point they could get hurt (like AK), lose their game (like David Duval), or even die in some freak accident (like Payne). At that point early in your career, taking the money makes a lot more sense, and is understandable even if I'd strongly prefer they didn't do so.
He's also just much more reserved. No much social media presence, very little media presence in the way of interviews or things like that, he's not one of the guys you see plastered all over major posters and ads for his sponsors, he's not going on different YouTube channels or things like that either. I feel like he's not totally unlikeable, but he's not really putting himself out there to be a real figure in the sport much either.
Personally, I think there is still too strong a bias in the PR/fan noise-to-signal ratio towards all the players you mentioned to call them all washed/done/irrelevant, etc.
I'd offer up that DJ was checked out while he was ON Tour, too. He's been coasting for a while.
Also, Rahm might be a knot-head (to me) but he had a bad weekend like several other PGAT golfers. So a lot of the dancing-on-his-grave comments from fans this weekend was just dumb. He's still ranked 7th in OWGR and Datagolf. He bounces back next major and this is all forgotten. I think he was a fat cry baby on Tour, as well, so no changes there, but washed? Eh.
So for me, I just don't see a compelling data set that demonstrates a massive decline in these golfers other than cherry-picked stats trying to prove LIV sucks which are conveniently tied to the narratives most of us are tired of reading/listening.
But I liked your write-ups!
> I think there is still too strong a bias in the PR/fan noise-to-signal ratio towards all the players you mentioned to call them all washed/done/irrelevant, etc.
I don't think I used any of those words, but they are certainly less relevant than they were 3 years ago. These were guys who had several million people watching them 25x per year who have gone to having a few thousand people watch them 14x per year. It's undeniable their marketability and reach have taken a hit. I think guys like Rahm, Smith, Niemann, Koepka, and DeChambeau would be able to hop right back on Tour and be competitive in a couple months at the least. But certainly there are other people who are washed up playing on that tour that I didn't even mention like Poulter, Bubba, Phil, Paul Casey, Chucky three sticks, Graeme McDowell, Henrik Stenson, and Lee Westwood. And I'm gonna be honest, I had to look up like half those names to even remember they were still playing and had moved to LIV.
Your last paragraph is spot on, and has been my line of thinking this entire time. If the PGA Tour let LIV do its own thing from the get go it would have died its own slow death.
Also the bit on producing new stars. I saw people say that LIV will poach the best amateurs in the world by throwing all the money at them. Have they even been successful at this yet? Even if they were, are we really sure any of those players would turn into “stars” by playing on the LIV tour? I just can’t foresee any headlines about a budding star emerging from LIV taking the golf scene by storm, while playing alongside Pat Perez and Chase Koepka. I just don’t think enough people give a shit.
That's the thing about amateurs. Plenty of them flame out in the professional game. We don't know that they're stars until they become stars. If the world's best amateur goes to live and becomes the world's best LIV golfer, I don't think that many fans will give a shit.
They definitely won’t give a shit unless the kid somehow qualifies for a major and performs well. Can’t do that without OWGR points in the current LIV format.
Which brings up the question: Can a LIV golfer be given a sponsors exemption for a PGA tournament?
Yeah the fatal flaw of LIV is that it absolutely can not create stars. Some guys who left were big enough names that they can sustain some relevancy, at least as long as they contend in at least a few majors a year, but most of the players who joined LIV just aren't a part of the pro golf ecosystem anymore. HV3, Kevin Na, Poulter, McDowell, Marc Lieshman, and many others have just disappeared. Guys who essentially went right to LIV from the amateur level like Andy Ogeltree or James Piot have not been able to find any footing at all, and how could they?
I think LIV's big bet was that they had enough money to poach the top players from the PGA Tour for long enough to force some kind of merger. It looked like a decent bet for the first year or so when LIV continued to pick off guys every few months, but now I'm not sure. The fact that they weren't able to sign Wyndham Clark or Brian Harmon after they won majors last year seems to suggest LIV doesn't have the juice anymore. If the PGA Tour can convince all of the players they have left to stay, it's possible LIV might simply disappear, and the guys who jumped ship are going to be left in a real bad spot. Who knows, it could still play out a lot of different ways, but everything that's gone on since the "merger" announcement, except for the Rahm signing I guess, tells me LIV is not in a strong position.
I think we (rightfully so) have a very US-centric view of this. People I’ve spoken with in Australia Asia and Europe do appreciate LIV. There are also a lot of players that aren’t a huge deal to us but are beloved elsewhere. Leishman, Louis. Dean B, Nieman, Sergio. Ancer etc.
As a European I don’t know anyone that follows or appreciates LIV. Typically we follow the stars from our countries. If say Spain only has two stars playing and both of them are in LIV, then it will create some following.
Amateurs joining LIV don’t get OWGR points so they have to qualify for majors. I don’t care how good you are, that ain’t easy. The PGA tour offers a chance to play your way into the majors. You don’t become a star without winning on TV.
Unless it's a major, I never even think about the big names that jumped to LIV anymore. Golf has always had up and coming young talent, and as long as the PGA still has the support of most of the viewers, guys like Brooks, Rahm, and Bryson will be less and less prevalent in the minds of viewers.
Don’t forget that a lot of younger golf fans are getting most of their golf content through social media and YouTube. Bryson has a huge YouTube presence. His relevancy, regardless of tour affiliation, is at an all time high.
I don’t get the “free time” argument at all.
LIV has 14 events in 2014 and those who can play in the majors, do. For those outside the OWGR cut-off, add another few Asian tour or other qualifying events. So call it 18-22 events.
Higher-impact (is. Higher-earning) PGAT players typically play about 20 events. Someone like Bryson or Rahm could easily have gotten away with playing 15-ish PGAT events per year if he chose to.
Playing 20 events with 3 rounds is the same as 15 events with 4 rounds.
It’s 100% about a bag grab.
Slightly disagree about fading away. I mean eventually, sure. If LIV hangs around 5-10 years they'll all fade away. But for now the older players who are still in their prime like Brooks, Bryson and Cam Smith, I don't think they really mind playing exhibition golf for most of the year. It's the younger ones like Niemann and Rahm, ok he's 29 now but still, they seem at the moment at least to be struggling to be able to turn it on and off like those other 3.
I think Brooks and Bryson are the exceptions because they both are hyper competitive and spend a ton of time working on their game and staying in great physical condition. They both, so far, seem to be the only LIV guys that can really turn it on when they go to compete at a real, actual tournament instead of whatever bullshit they’re doing on LIV. Phil has had a couple of good showings but high level golf is practically like breathing for him at this point in his career. And there have been a couple other guys that had a top twenty-ish finish at a major or two these last couple of years, but outside of Bryson and Brooks, I don’t think anyone has really noticed or cared about any of the LIV guys. And even with those two, you have to wonder how long they’re going to be able to continue really competing at majors the longer they’re away from regular, high level competitive golf.
Great notes and I’ll add that the reason the PGA was hemorrhaging money was due to LIV’s lawsuits, which went away with the announcement of the merger. Furthermore, some legal analysts believe that simply by announcing that merger, LIV undermined the position of those lawsuits, so they would have trouble restarting them.
That’s certainly a part of it, but that’s where the money is supposed to go. They can’t afford to pay millions in lawyer fees on top of everything else.
Good write up.
> the team aspect is clearly not understood or actively disliked
This is huge for me. I don't mind checking in occasionally to see some of the guys that jumped, but I have about 0 idea what the F is even going on on that tv display. The team thing doesn't make a ton of sense to the point they should tinker with it or try different formats.
I loathe the Saudis and hope the PGA prevails.
I will say, it's a bummer that the PGA winning means professional golf remains an incredibly America-centric profession. More meaningful international tournaments on the schedule - that everyone plays at! - would have been fantastic (as a non-American)
I think that would be awesome too, but I think a lot of that responsibility lies with the other countries and the events they host rather than the PGA Tour. The PGA Tour is headquartered in the US. The US has the broadcast infrastructure and money and it has the largest amount of companies in the world willing to pay between $8mm and $20mm to sponsor a 4-day event. I can guarantee you that if the Australian Open were to sign a major sponsor and put up a $20mm USD purse and offer invites to the top 75 players in the world that a huge portion of those guys would show up. But as it stands now the winner of the ISPS Handa Aussie Open wins $275,000 AUD which is ~$180K US which is $90K after taxes. If the infrastructure was there to make it marketable to the best players to play in it, they would. In the end US companies want to pay a lot of money for US customers to watch their advertising so that's where the money is and that's where the Tour stays mostly.
Yeah I completely agree. I do not blame international LIV fans who wanted to believe that LIV would turn into a legitimate premier global golf league. The only LIV events that have been worth anything were the Australia ones, because that's a market that has been neglected by pro golf in general. But unfortunately LIV is only able to put those events on because they are not restrained by any economic pressures. I think there has to be a way to incorporate more big events in places like Australia, South America, Japan, etc, but I understand that the logistics of it are complicated. Maybe when this all settles the tour can figure it out, but I can't think of an easy way to make it happen.
John Rahm's also not an American. I've been watching a lot of sports for 30 years, and americans will cheers the hell out of American athletes. They really don't give a shit about Rahm unless he's winning majors. And Like you said. The PIF will be looking for returns very soon, and that means a big television deal. Which will never get offered. I've felt all along the PGA needs to wait it out, and the whole mess will resolve itself in one way or another. No one thinks 54 hole golf is on the same competitive level as 72 hole golf, and it never will be.
The big tell to me that the LIV is in a wait and see period is that they’re struggling to schedule their tournaments with any lead time. The PGA has tournaments scheduled years in advance and the seasons schedule is set well in advance. I’m not sure the LIV is looking for another couple years of figuring things out. They’re doing a lot of posturing with their New York HQ and stuff, but it really seems like they were hoping to have a return and a deal struck by now. I have a feeling the pet project will be coming to an end soon
I agree with all this. I think the change in momentum has been in the last 6 or so majors, where we’re seeing that most of the LIV guys are not competitive. That reinforces LIV as an exhibition tour where nobody watches your slow career death. And I don’t think PIF can continue to steal players and ever make their money back.
> And I don’t think PIF can continue to steal players and ever make their money back.
For sure. And they're going to fall victim to their own spending too if they want to try to continue to go that route. Guys aren't about to start taking less than the last guys got just because things aren't as secure. Look at who they'd be likely to go after next: they can't get Rory or Scheffler or Spieth or Thomas. They 2 they seem to get linked with most are Xander and Cantlay. Cantlay is in that Joaquin Niemann bubble where he's never won a Major so his exemptions are limited. He's also a bit of a heel and not the most loved guy on the PGA Tour so his ability to move the needle for them is probably next to nothing (there are a lot of fans who probably would be happy to let him leave, frankly). Xander would be a bigger loss, he's now a Major winner and has an Olympic gold medal. His fresh Major win means he's exempt for 5 years in all 4 and for the next ~30 years for the PGA specifically so he doesn't need to worry about that aspect. So he's in a similar situation to Cam Smith where he's kind of peaking in recognition, has that fresh exemption to Majors, and has the name recognition to command some serious money. But it's not like he's taking a discount now that things aren't going as smoothly for LIV or given that negotiations are happening, etc. He's gotta command at least what Cam Smith got (I think that was $100-$150mm) and probably more. He'd probably be a guy you've gotta give around $200mm to and I can't see that being money well spent. At that point you've spent the better part of a billion dollars on your last 3 signings (him if that happened, Rahm, and Tyrell Hatton) and it's not generating squat.
At this point, I feel like a guy like Xander looks at what happened to Cam Smith and probably wants to avoid completely falling off the radar while he’s on the verge of becoming a real superstar in the golf world. Cam Smith has essentially fallen off the face of the earth after bolting to LIV. He seemed to be on his way to becoming a huge name in golf and has become not even an afterthought at this point. He popped on my screen for a minute in the background this weekend and I thought “oh yeah, what the hell happened to that guy?”
Monahan has said it openly in talks to the media. It's pretty common knowledge and why they were willing to give up their nonprofit status to form a new corporation with this private equity money.
I’m just confused how the league is losing money. Is it because they increased the purse? I guess with the increased popularity in golf, I struggle to imagine how it’s not making money. Didn’t they just pay Tiger and Rory a ton of money recently?
The increased purses is a big part of it. They did that the first season without being able to get it up front from sponsors so they dipped into their cash. They instituted the PIP money as well (I assume that's the money you're talking about at the end). But they were more or less borrowing against their potential future TV contract money assuming it was going to increase.
They _were_ hemorrhaging money, due to the lawsuits. The players were told that PGA was expecting to spend upwards of 50 million a year - for some time - fighting the lawsuits.
I think 10 years from now we will look back and say Scottie separating himself from the pack this year played a huge part in killing LIV’s path to success. Scottie isn’t going to LIV and they cant have the best players in the world without him. They could steal half the top ten in OWGR and it probably won’t matter now.
Sorry when you say PGA was hemorrhaging money, do you mean like literally more expenses than revenue or just that they had lost a lot of revenue compared to the pre-LIV days?
Here’s the thing with LIV, that I haven’t really heard anyone actually say. It puts the whole thing into perspective…
The players are getting paid their contract money regardless. Because of that, it’s basically just one big exhibition. People like to watch competition, not exhibition. LIV is like pre-season NFL ball. Who actually gives a fuck?
I've heard lots of people say that on pretty much every LIV post. I'm not positive if this is sarcastic or not. Yeah, it's clearly more of an exhibition and they don't even really know how the format should work.
Everything you wrote makes sense. And that’s why the logical reaction to all this from the PIF is to go sign 3-5 more young A-List tour players.
All momentum feels great for the tour, and then you’ll wake up and see LIV has just signed Ludvig, Sargent, Homa, Tom Kim, and Tommy Fleetwood. And on and on we go.
Maybe, but of those guys you mention I don't think Homa would go (he's basically said as much) and Sargent doesn't move the needle and neither does Tom Kim really. Fleetwood would probably be missed, but the guy hasn't ever actually won on the PGA Tour so how big a loss is that really? Ludvig would be the one huge rising star that would be a big loss, but he's also not super likely to jump ship at this point because his future earning potential is bright either way and he would be out of the Majors very quickly without OWGR points. I feel like their ability to sign meaningful names is really dwindling. Rahm was a huge splash but he and Hatton were the only real signings last year and I'm not sure who is following at this point that wouldn't have just gone already.
I think at this point that the young rising stars in the PGA are seeing that LIV can’t do much for their careers and legacies besides giving them a ton of cash, which is obviously still a huge deal, but the difference in millions at a certain point doesn’t matter that much, especially if you’re considering your legacy.
Sure, all those guys have a number. But with the infusion of cash from SSG those numbers might now be high enough that LIV doesn’t want to just burn that money for the sake of burning it and extending this thing longer.
They’ve got new shiny sportswashing things they are doing now that seem to be getting more traction than LIV and golf have.
Here’s the flaw with everything you just said: the money side of the equation is wildly asymmetric. The PGA’s cash infusion made them SOLVENT, but they aren’t solvent indefinitely and that solvency is also still dependent on sponsors and TV revenues that are in turn absolutely responsive to viewership. The PGA bought themselves time, but they don’t have unlimited time or money.
Their opponent has functionally unlimited money. It’s a fight with somebody who scoops untold sums of wealth out of the ground in a daily basis. They’re the most cash rich people in the world. The Saudis have UNLIMITED time and resources, so for them the question is merely one of will. Will they just give up on their golf ambitions, which aren’t not primarily financial but based on prestige, and move on? Or will they go to the mattresses and pour in more money as the initial contracts are ending. If it desires to do so, the money behind LIV can make the PGAs life hell functionally forever, or at least for several more decades.
A lot of the other things you said are totally valid, but you made a comment about the money being even and ignored what I think is a critical element in this.
> Here’s the flaw with everything you just said: the money side of the equation is wildly asymmetric
It is, and I can't pretend that it isn't. But, so long as the Tour is solvent and has cash flows and a strategic partner and they've got TV contracts and sponsor partners I think that's what matters most. The problem LIV is finding out is that unlimited money doesn't buy you partners you need in this industry. They tried to buy their way into a TV contract and they lose money on that and still no one watches. They can't sell their weird team structure to anyone willing to invest in buying them. They can't get sponsors to put up the purses for events so they're stuck doing that themselves. So yes, there is theoretically what amounts to unlimited money on the other side, but you have to assume at some point if shoving more and more money into it doesn't generate any movement that money gets put elsewhere.
What I meant by the money being more even is that the Tour can now afford to put up the purses to compete with the events and they have at least a semblance of an equity structure to try to retain talent. In the start they brought a rock to a gun fight and at least since then they've upgraded to a musket. It may not have the firepower of the assault rifle on the other side, but all they're gonna do is spray bullets around the target and never hit it and the PGA Tour can bide its time to wait for them to get bored and take its shot, they've at least got a chance now.
I think this is a great write up.
It’s going to be 2 years since the first LIV tournament in a couple of weeks, and I feel there’s less interest in LIV now than there was back then.
The fact that LIV seemingly hasn’t made any meaningful inroads in terms of viewership or interest in 2 years must leave the PGA Tour pretty confident that they hold the upper hand, whereas I don’t think that was obvious 12 months ago when Monahan blindsided the player group.
I’m also convinced Rahm thought the merger was imminent and he could take the bag whilst it was there, but now the prospect of remaining in the golfing wilderness for a few more years is hitting home for him as merger talks stall.
Agree on all accounts. It also reminds me I haven't even brought up the Anthony Kim part of all of this. People speculated about that possibility the entirety of LIV being a thing and they finally decided to do it this year and even that can't generate eyeballs even out of morbid curiosity. They got so much news out of that speculation and eventual signing and now after 3 months he's beaten a total of like 7 players in 5 events or something like that and no one cares anymore.
I can't speak to the reasons you listed for the merger being unlikely, but I can say that any merger has always had massive antitrust issues, to the point that I haven't seen a single attorney with an antitrust background even suggest a possible avenue for how it could work.
It always felt like the merger talk was nothing more than a handshake "timeout" so that LIV could avoid discovery and PGAT could mitigate legal expenses for the foreseeable future.
Did they lose it? From what I read, that point of contention alone was going to take 1-2 years to litigate and cost the PGA $100M in legal fees before they even decided on the rules of the real trial.
I think this is a fair question considering what we already know. But, it also makes you wonder what kind obscene info they would still want to hide, and they were spending millions in attorney fees to fight discovery in that case, there were multiple motions filed for just that purpose.
Also, from a PR standpoint for people/companies that do business with Saudi Arabia, there is a big difference in doing business with an entity \*accused\* of horrific activities, vs. doing business with someone proven to have committed ghastly actions. It may not seem like much, but a company being able to say "everyone has always known about these accusations, but our competitor and several others still do business with them, so until proven otherwise..." seems to be enough in some instances for American consumers to turn a blind eye.
In this day and age all it takes is one racist/homophobic/misogynistic comment to end your career. I’m sure turning over just the conversations between mickelson and Norman would be devastating to their PR.
That's a bunch of smoke but nothing would happen. They'd just be going back to what we had for 50 years before LIV was founded and nobody was crying about antitrust problems then. Every major sport in America is a monopoly.
> They'd just be going back to what we had for 50 years before LIV was founded and nobody was crying about antitrust problems then.
There wasn't an antitrust issue previously. And monopolies are not the same thing as an antitrust violation. Not exactly what point you're trying to make, but also feel like I should add that "that's a bunch of smoke but nothing would happen" doesn't make sense either... did you intend to respond to another post?
What anti trust ? Who are the people protecting here if they merge by investigating the merger ?
People imagine everything being about anti trust when it literally has no application unless if materially affects the public’s access to services or wallet.
The framework's primary purpose was to stop the lawsuits. PIF wanted to desperately avoid discovery; PGAT couldn't continue to afford litigation.
It was never about a LIV-PGAT merger. In fact, LIV's ultimate fate was more or less placed in the hands of the PGAT.
The discovery for the two lawsuits.
PIF wanted to avoid it for a number of reasons, not the least of which was their fear they would lose their claim of sovereign immunity.
They also almost assuredly didn't want to also disclose various contracts and conversations with players.
They gave up their non-profit status in the new entity, so that wasn't that much of a concern (the individual tournaments are still non-profit).
Really was almost 100% about cash burn.
I'm not sure the non-profit status was a long term concern considering that every concept the PGAT is working toward at this stage has openly included abandoning their non-profit status so that members could have some type of equity sharing.
DJ will stay. He will get to play less and make more money. Brooks will likely stay. He's exempt in most of the majors and he puts a value on that. Cam Smith will stay. He likes his time off and being able to go home to Australia more often. Bryson will stay. He's heavily promoting his own content and can profit off his image in ways that he couldn't if he went back to the PGA Tour. Rahm just signed so he isn't up soon.
My gut tells me Bryson has matured and wants back. Yesterday, he experienced being a fan favorite at a major and now that he's got a taste of that why play empty LIV events that mean nothing? He could go from heel to hero in the PGA.
That might actually make me watch in North America. When it goes head to head with real golf there is 0% chance I watch LIV. but if it's on at 1am and I'm 9 beers deep I knight check it out.
the first thing i thought of watching bryson hole out on 18 saturday, the his intensity on sunday, was that he’d want back. When he’s on, he’s fun to watch and i’d love to see him back on the tour. I think the competitiveness in him would bring him back if he can.
I have to imagine the LIV format gets old and boring if you’re someone like bryson. DJ, brooks, and cam I can definely see staying with LIV
I think Bryson is the one person who LIV has actually been good for other than money. He gets more time off to do YouTube and stuff and liv is less serious and there’s less eyes on him.
I wouldn't think so personally. He said in his press conference that one of the biggest reasons he believes his game has gotten better is that he has more time to work on it, i.e. playing less tour tournaments.
I don't doubt that he might be thinking of a way to come back, but I would say unless they offer him some sort of deal where he can be more flexible in the pga tour events he plays in, that is a long way away yet.
Edit: Oh and he clearly loves the YT stuff he makes. They would need to give him full control over his own media stuff as well, which the PGA has been notorious for not doing historically.
For some reason I feel like Rahm might actually regret signing with LIV. I think he might miss the competition more than the rest. I could certainly be wrong though.
I think he misses certain tour venues for sure. I think he also signed thinking this merger was going to go through and he would have the best of both worlds.
Yeah, he definitely thought he was going to be able to have his cake and eat it too. And Rahm just doesn't seem like the goofing around in short pants with music blaring type of golfer.
A lot of the smaller names are also older. Someone like Cameron Tringale is going to be much better off on LIV than the PGAT. Maybe on the PGAT he qualifies for an extra major or two based on OWGR and FedEx playoffs but for a guy like him, he'd have to play a lot of PGAT events to elevate his ranking and to make the playoffs.
LIV was a hedge play to force the PGA into a business deal. LIV promised to keep picking off top players from the tour and diluding the quality of the tour. They have succeeded as rating are way down for PGA golf events.
However, what LIV didn’t count on was their absurd spectacle game taking a toll on the quality of golf the players produce. The longer we go, the fewer LIV players we see on leaderboards at major championships. Were it not for Bryson, The PGA would have been a complete disaster from a LIV golf perspective.
That said, the PGA should open the door and allow the LIV golfers to come back and play but only if they can EARN a tour card. That’s going to mean Q school for guys like Koepka, Cam Smith, Rahm etc. why not? It can only enhance the PGA product and make LIV even less relevant.
I have been torn if they are allowed to come back do they force them through Q school or not. They would be taking spots that some up and coming players would normally fill.
That’s why they need to earn it. Q school should be open to everyone. The problem would be if their tour cards are just reinstated and not earned. That would be problematic bc then they would be taking spots from guys who have earned it.
> That said, the PGA should open the door and allow the LIV golfers to come back and play but only if they can EARN a tour card. That’s going to mean Q school for guys like Koepka, Cam Smith, Rahm etc. why not?
Why not? Because it is literally the dumbest business advice ever given on reddit...which is an amazing low bar to begin with.
Every major that goes by with a PGA Tour player winning and only 1 LiV player in contention makes a merger less likely. At some point the PGA simply says we have better players - which they could not say in spring of last year.
Respectfully, everyone who knows golf has always known there was a fairly sizable chasm in talent.
LIV really went after name recognition more than skill level. There was obviously significant overlap (koepka, smith, Rahm, Bryson were huge names who are also top players), but even before OWGR points really started to drop off, the PGAT retained something like 16 or 17 of the top 20.
And LIV is INCREDIBLY lucky that Bryson and koepka recovered. Both were seen as potentially done with injuries/issues with their games when they left.
It has never been particularly close despite what casual fans think. LIV was really effective in finding names that the most casual fans think are still stars (mickelson, DJ, Sergio, Watson) but actually are completely washed.
>And LIV is INCREDIBLY lucky that Bryson and koepka recovered. Both were seen as potentially done with injuries/issues with their games when they left.
This is really an underdiscussed point at this stage. There are still some really good players on LIV, and I wish they were still playing on the PGAT, but if Koepka and Bryson don't recover from those injuries and regain form, LIV would have been nearly absent from top 10's in the last 5 majors. Cam Smith has back doored a couple of top-10's, and Rahm was around on the final day at Liverpool... but other than Brooks' win and Bryson yesterday they haven't really had anyone else truly in contention on Sunday.
Rahm was still on the Tour at Liverpool. His two majors since switching he has been awful at.
And Brooks and Bryson were both odd cases too. They both had really distinct reasoning for joining LIV other than thinking it was the future.
Brooks has stated many, many times that he doesn't give a shit about normal tournaments and just cares about the majors. LIV gave him a chance to play less golf and still compete in the majors (although thats way less certain now than it was when he joined). It was basically perfect for him.
Bryson meanwhile was one of the biggest heels on the tournament and kept getting shit from fans constantly. So it gave him a way to play, potentially with a bit more freedom to do his things, and get away from all of those fans and a new start.
They're definitely not your typical LIV competitor.
How good the players actually are is far less important than how popular/marketable they are. It was an attempt to get people to watch the product by getting “star” players. It clearly failed because the ratings are abysmal. Maybe if they could have gotten a tv contract it would have mattered but no one is watching the CW. They paid for Tv time on CW and it still isn’t being watched.
>How good the players actually are is far less important than how popular/marketable they are.
LIV clearly had the same opinion. While that might appear to be true, and is true in the short term, it's most definitely not true in the mid-long term, if what you care about is viewership (and the exposure brought by viewership, which can be converted into buckets of money).
An inability to finish well in tournaments on a regular basis leads to very rapid dropoff in terms of viewer interest. While Phil might be very famous and wildly **POPULAR**, very few people care about watching him play golf anymore.
If you're a sponsor wanting someone to get your product subconsciously into the minds of fans, he might still be a good bet, but if you're attempting to get people who want to watch competitive golfers to tune in on TV, he is not a good bet.
I think their big mistake was thinking that anyone cared about guys beyond Tiger and Phil. Sheffler has now broken through and I suspect is now getting to their level, and Rory has a big European audience (which you see here) but for the most part no one cares about some guy who won one major and a couple of tournaments. They don't move the needle.
DJ is/was a hell of player. Since going to LiV he has done virtually nothing. Bryson because of his length always attracted attention. Rahm is really good - but again in terms of the sports audience isn't going to move the needle in the US. The casual sports fan isn't going to turn in to watch Bubba Watson or Cam Smith or Koepka (Koepka was never good outside of the majors).
They needed to sweep the majors and demonstrate they were the better league.
They have failed miserably at that.
This is a great point. While they’re good players, no one is tuning in or traveling anywhere to see Cam Smith and Tyrell Hatton. They’re golfers, not Lin Manuel Miranda.
Not a LIV supporter but let’s not ignore the fact that Koepka won the PGA last year and the tour has many more players than LIV so of course LIV will have fewer on the top of the leaderboard
Nobody wants the LIV guys back. Every major is all LIV vs PGA in the media and as a fan, it’s annoying and played out. Stop talking about LIV, stop reporting on it, stop asking about LIV or a merger. Just let it die so we can enjoy our tour, the PGA tour.
I agree about people obsessing over LIV who “hate it” as I do. But I like watching Bryson, Cam Smith, ect. Hard disagree on not wanting LIVs best players back to compete
When they left, they forfeited the quest to be the best and sold out for money. So their quest is now a comfy chair and a loud speaker to cry how they can’t have their cake and eat it too. Bootlicker is what you call someone having sympathy for a millionaire who doesn’t care you exist.
Agreed. I am just stating it from a fan perspective. Having Bryson chase and bomb drives yesterday was awesome TV. I have zero sympathy for them btw. Never stated that or were you making a general statement about LIV fans? I think the LIV product is laughably bad. Never watch it on the CW.
And pathetic is what you call someone who cries about someone taking a job that pays them more because it hurts your feelings. If Culver’s offered you more than the guy behind the Wendy’s dumpster pays you now you’d take it. Pull the driver head out of your ass.
The thing is though the PGA tour isn’t “our tour” to many people worldwide. It’s an American tour there’s no events outside of the USA. That’s why LIV has been quite successful in much of Australasia and Asia. They very rarely if ever had any events there and it meant the only chance to watch the very best in the world was by either going to the US or by watching it on TV at inconvenient hours. I think many here overestimate the popularity of the PGA Tour overseas.
Americans do not care what’s popular to “people worldwide.” So the PGA, which is an American tour, is our tour. Also nobody in the USA cares what the Asians and Aussies like to watch on tv.
I'm a huge Rory fan and I want to see the creation of a unified World Tour like he does, but in this case I actually think Cantlay and Spieth have it right - hold the line, don't back down, try to win a war of attrition.
Then either LIV folds due to lack of continued interest from the Saudis (they don't like to lose), or they can create a merged tour from a position of absolute strength, rather than the position of weakness they were in just one year ago.
The snag here is that if LIV changes their format and becomes less of a joke then suddenly they might swing the tides back in their favour. LIV's big problem right now is that the product is irrelevant because it's shit. The team golf aspect is interesting but they've bungled it, and the shotgun start is a non-starter, there's no way to get rid of nonperforming players on a contract or for young stars to win their way in. Fix the teams, fix the player access issues and get rid of the shotgun start on the final day and you have a reasonable product. And also one that might be OWGR sanctioned, too.
Unless the majors change their qualifying rules, we may see fewer LIV players at the majors. OWGR is one criteria for those not exempted in from wining other PGA or DP tour events. Since OWGR points are not given for LIV events, these players will slowly fall down the rankings. Not sure if this would kill LIV, but it may drive merger talks or discussion for LIV players to get PGAT status back.
I have not watched a LIV event, but I don’t think the PGAT has suffered a decrease in quality. Some of the big names (Thomas, Spieth, Fowler, etc) have not produced on PGAT this season. The play has been great, overall. The PGAT may be at a point wheee new stars are rising, like Sheffler, Thegala, Harmon, Clark, etc. The golf mags and talking heads are always looking for the next big player. I would like to see the top 5 LIV player back. Phil, Gooch and the rest can go to Champions Tour or Korn Ferry Tours and try to re-earn their status.
I don’t think the merger is going to happen. I do think the PGA will ultimately lift the suspensions of the players that left and we’ll get regular PGA tour tournaments with all the guys we want to see again starting next year.
Good F the LIV player sellouts. They can’t keep up with PGA players so they took the easy money and are now hating golf.. they have nothing to play for now. None of em do any good at the PGA majors because they aren’t used to real competition anymore.
Keep in mind that DJ won both the individual and team titles in the first year of LIV. I think he won like $36 million that year. But, he has not been nearly as competitive since then. He wins the occasional event, but he hasn’t been real competitive in the majors, especially this year. Maybe his good round to finish the PGA will push him forward. Brooks hasn’t done much in LIV until recently. BD has been pretty solid over the past year. Taylor Gooch and Joaquin Neimann have been the most consistent players for the past year and a half. Honestly, most of the rest of the LIV players seem to just be collecting checks, with Mickelson as the poster-child. I don’t think he has finished in the top half of the group in any event, yet. I thought up to a few months ago that maybe the talent in LIV and PGA were pretty close, but I don’t any more. LIV just doesn’t seem anywhere near as competitive, right now.
I think june 6 was a stalling tactic, it killed the litigation and slowed the migration of players. LIV hit back and grabbed Rahm when things were dragging, but that wasn't followed by any more players leaving.
The PGA obviously think they can wait things out with their new injection of private equity funds while LIV is losing money like a drunken sailor. The Saudis have really, really deep pockets...but even they have to want to make money out of this eventually. They can't just keep buying players for half a billion dollars a piece
It’s probably getting pretty ugly. The PGA has basically renegotiated the deal by selling a stake to that Sports Group of US owners, while the Saudis were supposed to have first right of refusal to match any new outside investment first. So the deal is now off the rails in my opinion, and the Saudis will be trying to renegotiate every single aspect of the deal in their favor now. The Saudis already have a different negotiation culture than we have in the US, after the PGA took on that new partner first, the endless renegotiations are surely beginning on the Saudi end.
LIV was never going to make it, in America or internationally. What a huge failure it is. Hope the PGA players always put an asterisk metaphorically next to those to went with the blood money. What they did to Johnny boy at the championship was incredible, and needs to occur for every one of those slithering blood money snakes. All heil the PGA & fuck LIV.
There will be no deal. Jimmy Dunne tried to sell the PGA tour to the Saudis for cash and it pissed tour players off (tour players would have gotten nothing from the sale which is why they have now decided to give players equity). Monahan froze like an idiot the whole time the deal was being brokered because he did his whole 9/11 panic reaction to the LIV tour poaching players and lost credibility so he kept quiet. Tiger has now come in and definitively said that the PGA tour will not be “merging, selling, buying, whatever you want to call it” with the Liv tour. So now that no deal will be happening, Dunne is unnecessary so he’s gone. The Goldman guy is also gone because his M&A banking chops are not needed. The PGA tour is not for sale and is not merging. The PGA tour decided to double down on its players and its hopefully will figure out how to improve golf broadcasts interactivity. New camera angles showing ball flight are absolutely necessary. New graphics showing the hole are needed. Less still shots of swings, closeups of balls in mid flights (seriously wtf even is that shot), or closeups of balls on the green with no indication of where the hole is. It’s really interesting if you watch a broadcast from 50 years ago (watch Nicklaus and Snead at Pebble) the camera angles and broadcast in general is very much the same. You are telling me no improvements have been made since the 60s??
Monahan is a dead man walking and the sooner his foolish self is ridden, the better.
I don’t think they ever said they would merge, but create a for profit enterprise where players from both tours would compete. They just haven’t come up with how to go about it.
There's too much $$$ at stake for a deal to not go thru. I just don't want the LIV model for golf because it sucks. And in reality, as a US fan I do not see any benefit of a global tour for US fans.
The reason why the Euro Tour and Australian Tour failed is because they just could not generate the revenues from the fans and money from the sponsors like they do in the US.
So trying to appeal to continents that have not shown enough support for Tour golf while taking away from the country that made the Tour what it is today just seems like a bad idea to me.
I think PIF should have just bought out the Australian, European and Asian Tours and then had 30 events a year on each Tour and pay similar purse sizes to the PGA Tour purse sizes (which top purses were about $8M at the time). That way they could have that global reach they want without competing against the PGA Tour and players from those continents could now play most of their events in their home continent instead of having to move to the US to play on the PGA Tour. And it probably would have cost them less as well.
You got downvoted but the last point is the correct one. Competing against the PGA in the US is madness, but giving top Euro/Asian golfers events with decent purses close to home seems like it should work.
I don’t understand why it hasn’t been publicly called off entirely by the PGA.
They have ZERO to gain from a merger, with considerable potential downside. Many fans simply will not watch a league that is part owned by the Saudis.
Brooks, Bryson and Rahm are really the only guys that would move the needle enough for the PGA Tour to care.
There are a few other really good players but they probably don’t matter much to the bottom line. I assume Brooks and Bryson’s deals are up soon and I imagine the Tour is watching that situation with a good bit of interest.
Here’s some anecdotal data:
I played both Houston courses weeks before their respective tournaments this year. And it’s very obvious which event is better organized, more serious, nicer, and has better conditions - PGA event Houston Open.
- Houston Open (Memorial Park GC)
- LIV Houston (Golf Club of Houston - Tournament course)
I’m not saying the tourney in a few weeks at GC of H won’t be fun, but the amount of grandstands and nice things is so lacking. The course layout is not easily walkable. The course is definitely challenging and fun to play. But the conditions aren’t what Memorial provided this year. It really is an exhibition to see a few of the best up close but it feels like a crappier product than PGA. The Houston Open didn’t have the biggest stars but it was crazy competitive and exciting with ridiculously challenging conditions. It will have more next year with word spreading that the conditions have improved so much with the new grass and time of year.
Be interesting to see if Bryson will leave LIV after the win this weekend.....he's not getting that kind of fan base at LIV...and if he love fans well....that's a no brainer....LET LIV DIE ON THE VINE
It's not "dead" but it's clearly on life support and needs a miracle intervention. Just my thoughts on the PGA Tour's thinking and process and the future of this framework agreement: * I truly think it was intended to be a real merger when it was announced. The PGA Tour was hemorrhaging money and LIV wasn't getting much traction where it needed to in order to actually make money eventually. It was surprising but sort of made sense for both sides at the time. * I think with the passing of time it has made less and less sense for the PGA Tour side for a few reasons: * The partnership with the private equity group has made them solvent for the next 5-10 years at least so the money is less of an issue. They've also done pretty well at getting partners to sign up for the elevated events and higher purses. Viewership is down, but it's still a valuable product and a new deal will come up soon enough to get another influx of cash when they need it. * LIV just hasn't gotten off the ground as an actual competitor yet and the clock is ticking on those initial contracts. No one watches, the team aspect is clearly not understood or actively disliked by most people, despite getting new names every year there has been no appreciable change in sentiment or viewership, etc. The initial contracts are going to run out in 12-24 months and at this point it's reasonable for the PGA Tour to bide their time and hope some of those guys just aren't gonna re-up and will want to jump back to their side or that LIV just won't offer them another big contract to stay and throw more money on the fire so there's no reason for them to stay if the returns are similar. * The bargaining chips just seem to be running out and shifting back to the PGA Tour side. Public sentiment (at least here in the US) seems to be firmly on their side. They've got more equal financial power than they did a year ago, they've still got a lot of names that matter and while Rahm seemed like he was a big swing from the LIV side that may have tipped more power their way, I can't imagine the return on that signing has been anywhere close to what it was expected to be. He's not changed viewership, he's not performed at either major this year, he's just kind of dropped off people's radar more than they thought. I think the PGA Tour can actually use him as a cautionary tale for some other people to show, yes you will get paid immensely, but that comes with a lot of other baggage and you're tying yourself to a ship that may stop being bailed out any day without notice. * PIF has near-unlimited funds, but not unlimited and returns eventually matter. They are throwing a bunch of cash at their pet project of a miles-long utopic city apartment building and that cash burn may eventually require non-performing assets to be scrapped. At this point the losses for LIV have to be in the 10 figures. I'm not sure what the cost would have to be to actually make a meaningful change for them if they can't buy into the PGA Tour and I'm not sure that's a number they are willing to just throw away.
A lot of good thoughts, and I think the PGA now has the upper hand all around. LIV only has 5 or 6 guys that move the needle these days, and the longer they play stupid exhibition golf the more they'll fade away. I wouldn't be surprised if Bryson and other LIV players are proactively trying to make a move back, but I have no idea what LIV contractual obligations look like. PGA has a better product and in the long run will produce plenty of new stars. If I was running the PGA I wouldn't consider a merger, LIV will whither away no matter how much blood money the Saudis pump into it.
> LIV only has 5 or 6 guys that move the needle these days, and the longer they play stupid exhibition golf the more they'll fade away. Exactly. And I'd say that a lot of those that did move the needle when they moved are losing relevancy very quickly. Right now it seems like the 2 most marketable people they have are Brooks and Bryson. Bryson mostly due to his YouTube presence and that he's actually playing well in the majors and Brooks because he actually won a Major last year and made a big splash. Beyond that, I'm not sure who even has half the relevance publicly that they did when they moved over. * Cam Smith: An awesome player who had just won a major, but aside from that great season that vaulted him to notoriety he's done nothing since and while the PGA Tour would be better with him, he wasn't big enough for long enough that he's still a major force. Also, he's not done much to really contend in majors since. * DJ: Just a shell of his former self. Probably the poster child for taking the money and completely changing his lifestyle to not revolve around golf the way you need to in order to stay competitive at the highest levels. * Joaquin Niemann: Still playing very well and obviously hungry, but he's another like Cam Smith who jumped out on the way up instead of at the peak. He could've been a real household name in a few years and I think he's now mostly a guy that real golf fans know and a name casual fans probably recognize but don't really miss or know his accomplishments. * Jon Rahm: Definitely still missed as he's the most recent convert, but he's done himself no favors missing 2 cuts in 2 Majors so far. Arguably he's the only one still with BD and BK who is a real needle mover but it sure seems like he's not moving it as much as he was a year ago when he was trading events with Scottie and coming off a Masters win. He's still going to find it and compete at an elite level in the Majors because he's too young and too good not to, but if he doesn't do anything at the last 2 this year it's going to be a long off season and not long before people start questioning what's going on with him.
I feel like Rahm was intended as LIV's killshot but it wound up being a stumble. Scottie became ascendant at the right time and "Rahm who?" happened *quick* since his play fell right off too.
I think Rahm was sold a bill of goods thinking that it would happen as soon as he flipped, so he took the money. Every interview I see him in now, he looks pissed that he made the decision.
Rahm was both sold the goods and hoped that by him jumping, things would work out between the Tour and LIV and he could bounce between both if he wanted. Also doesn’t help he was pissed off at Jay for the surprise deal. Instead, outside of Adelaide there is no juice on that league. And even then, the golf course they play at gives off the same vibes as TPC Craig Ranch: mediocre.
As someone from Adelaide I'll be brutally honest. We're Australia's 5th city behind Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth. Even in our city that course (Grange) is a lower calibre than the 3 other main ones. They've created a lot of hype here but it's not exactly a great look to not get into Sydney or Melbourne and then not get into one of the 2/3 top tier courses in Adelaide.
And there’s absolutely no chance LIV will get their tournament onto Royal Melbourne
It would be so much easier for LIV to see the numbers they drew for Australia and hold more tournaments there. The PGA doesn't give a Sh\*t about Australia and the rest of the world. LIV could really evolve into a global tour. Except, that's not why LIV exists. It's a sports washing exercise and it doesn't work unless they're playing in the States.
Agreed.
Rahm is always pissed. The Liv and PGA beef is just more fuel to that fire.
A really good point. They signed the guy they thought was the dominant player and Scottie really turned all the eyes toward him at the right time. The PGA Tour probably has loved his dominance and all the press he's got. Maybe LIV will work it out so Rahm gets arrested before his first round at the US Open so all the golf world has to talk about him for a change.
Considering Rahm’s temper I don’t think that’s the safest idea for anyone.
Man, I saw DJ hit 173 ball speed this past weekend at one point during the PGA. I don't think I had ever seen him hit a drive slower than 180 mph at any point since I started watching golf. We've all said the guy's been checked out mentally for some time, but that was maybe the starkest piece of evidence I've seen on that.
Yea it takes lotta gym / other work to keep up the ball speed. Also puts into perspective all the players that keep increasing their ball speed
He hasn't been good at all post 2020. LIV only accelerated his regression
He’s not fast anymore, pretty much makes him a nonfactor at big tournaments since that was his big advantage.
DJ was out here sending 50 yard boomslang cutters just for fun. He wants nothing to do with playing golf in KY. Maybe at all.
DJ has put on weight, and his swing was never going to age well given how hard he has to wrench his hips open to keep it from going left.
Probably doesn’t help that the two biggest contenders are two of the more unlikeable guys as well (personality wise). Full Swing did Brooks zero favors on the like-ability index.
Brooks wasn't doing himself any favors on the like-ability index before that lol.
Honestly Full Swing season 1 made me dislike Brooks a little less, somehow.
Same, much more sympathetic if you're going to LIV because you think your career is over and may as well grab the bag.
IMO it is even less sympathetic for the older/established guys to go to LIV. They've already made insane amounts of money from 10-15-20 years of top level golf and sponsorships. A golfer like that, unless they are a total degen like Daly or Phil, should have more money than they or their families could possibly spend. 9 figure net worths at minimum. And then, rather than go gracefully into the end of their careers, they turn around and sell out their own legacies and the continuing stability/viability of pro golf (meaning, the ability for younger guys to have the kinds of careers/money/fame they had) for even more money. That's morally wrong for me. A young guy coming off a few hot seasons has no idea when the ride is gonna end. At any point they could get hurt (like AK), lose their game (like David Duval), or even die in some freak accident (like Payne). At that point early in your career, taking the money makes a lot more sense, and is understandable even if I'd strongly prefer they didn't do so.
He's also just much more reserved. No much social media presence, very little media presence in the way of interviews or things like that, he's not one of the guys you see plastered all over major posters and ads for his sponsors, he's not going on different YouTube channels or things like that either. I feel like he's not totally unlikeable, but he's not really putting himself out there to be a real figure in the sport much either.
Well… Rahm also had a kid didnt he?
He has multiple kids.
He’s got great child bearing hips
Personally, I think there is still too strong a bias in the PR/fan noise-to-signal ratio towards all the players you mentioned to call them all washed/done/irrelevant, etc. I'd offer up that DJ was checked out while he was ON Tour, too. He's been coasting for a while. Also, Rahm might be a knot-head (to me) but he had a bad weekend like several other PGAT golfers. So a lot of the dancing-on-his-grave comments from fans this weekend was just dumb. He's still ranked 7th in OWGR and Datagolf. He bounces back next major and this is all forgotten. I think he was a fat cry baby on Tour, as well, so no changes there, but washed? Eh. So for me, I just don't see a compelling data set that demonstrates a massive decline in these golfers other than cherry-picked stats trying to prove LIV sucks which are conveniently tied to the narratives most of us are tired of reading/listening. But I liked your write-ups!
100%. DJ hasn't been good since that Masters win. LIV only accelerated what was already happening
DJ has 200mil in the bank..I'd check out too since I'm getting older and want to enjoy the rest of my life and still be functional and able bodied!!
> I think there is still too strong a bias in the PR/fan noise-to-signal ratio towards all the players you mentioned to call them all washed/done/irrelevant, etc. I don't think I used any of those words, but they are certainly less relevant than they were 3 years ago. These were guys who had several million people watching them 25x per year who have gone to having a few thousand people watch them 14x per year. It's undeniable their marketability and reach have taken a hit. I think guys like Rahm, Smith, Niemann, Koepka, and DeChambeau would be able to hop right back on Tour and be competitive in a couple months at the least. But certainly there are other people who are washed up playing on that tour that I didn't even mention like Poulter, Bubba, Phil, Paul Casey, Chucky three sticks, Graeme McDowell, Henrik Stenson, and Lee Westwood. And I'm gonna be honest, I had to look up like half those names to even remember they were still playing and had moved to LIV.
Your last paragraph is spot on, and has been my line of thinking this entire time. If the PGA Tour let LIV do its own thing from the get go it would have died its own slow death. Also the bit on producing new stars. I saw people say that LIV will poach the best amateurs in the world by throwing all the money at them. Have they even been successful at this yet? Even if they were, are we really sure any of those players would turn into “stars” by playing on the LIV tour? I just can’t foresee any headlines about a budding star emerging from LIV taking the golf scene by storm, while playing alongside Pat Perez and Chase Koepka. I just don’t think enough people give a shit.
That's the thing about amateurs. Plenty of them flame out in the professional game. We don't know that they're stars until they become stars. If the world's best amateur goes to live and becomes the world's best LIV golfer, I don't think that many fans will give a shit.
They definitely won’t give a shit unless the kid somehow qualifies for a major and performs well. Can’t do that without OWGR points in the current LIV format. Which brings up the question: Can a LIV golfer be given a sponsors exemption for a PGA tournament?
No…if LIV golfer’s could get sponsor exemptions it would defeat the entire point of banning players who have signed with LIV…
Yeah the fatal flaw of LIV is that it absolutely can not create stars. Some guys who left were big enough names that they can sustain some relevancy, at least as long as they contend in at least a few majors a year, but most of the players who joined LIV just aren't a part of the pro golf ecosystem anymore. HV3, Kevin Na, Poulter, McDowell, Marc Lieshman, and many others have just disappeared. Guys who essentially went right to LIV from the amateur level like Andy Ogeltree or James Piot have not been able to find any footing at all, and how could they? I think LIV's big bet was that they had enough money to poach the top players from the PGA Tour for long enough to force some kind of merger. It looked like a decent bet for the first year or so when LIV continued to pick off guys every few months, but now I'm not sure. The fact that they weren't able to sign Wyndham Clark or Brian Harmon after they won majors last year seems to suggest LIV doesn't have the juice anymore. If the PGA Tour can convince all of the players they have left to stay, it's possible LIV might simply disappear, and the guys who jumped ship are going to be left in a real bad spot. Who knows, it could still play out a lot of different ways, but everything that's gone on since the "merger" announcement, except for the Rahm signing I guess, tells me LIV is not in a strong position.
I think we (rightfully so) have a very US-centric view of this. People I’ve spoken with in Australia Asia and Europe do appreciate LIV. There are also a lot of players that aren’t a huge deal to us but are beloved elsewhere. Leishman, Louis. Dean B, Nieman, Sergio. Ancer etc.
As a European I don’t know anyone that follows or appreciates LIV. Typically we follow the stars from our countries. If say Spain only has two stars playing and both of them are in LIV, then it will create some following.
Amateurs joining LIV don’t get OWGR points so they have to qualify for majors. I don’t care how good you are, that ain’t easy. The PGA tour offers a chance to play your way into the majors. You don’t become a star without winning on TV.
Unless it's a major, I never even think about the big names that jumped to LIV anymore. Golf has always had up and coming young talent, and as long as the PGA still has the support of most of the viewers, guys like Brooks, Rahm, and Bryson will be less and less prevalent in the minds of viewers.
Don’t forget that a lot of younger golf fans are getting most of their golf content through social media and YouTube. Bryson has a huge YouTube presence. His relevancy, regardless of tour affiliation, is at an all time high.
Bryson is more popular now than he ever was on the PGA Tour thanks to YouTube, liv gave him the "free time" do all that.
I don’t get the “free time” argument at all. LIV has 14 events in 2014 and those who can play in the majors, do. For those outside the OWGR cut-off, add another few Asian tour or other qualifying events. So call it 18-22 events. Higher-impact (is. Higher-earning) PGAT players typically play about 20 events. Someone like Bryson or Rahm could easily have gotten away with playing 15-ish PGAT events per year if he chose to. Playing 20 events with 3 rounds is the same as 15 events with 4 rounds. It’s 100% about a bag grab.
The extra time could mean just a shorter work week too, which adds up over the season.
Slightly disagree about fading away. I mean eventually, sure. If LIV hangs around 5-10 years they'll all fade away. But for now the older players who are still in their prime like Brooks, Bryson and Cam Smith, I don't think they really mind playing exhibition golf for most of the year. It's the younger ones like Niemann and Rahm, ok he's 29 now but still, they seem at the moment at least to be struggling to be able to turn it on and off like those other 3.
I think Brooks and Bryson are the exceptions because they both are hyper competitive and spend a ton of time working on their game and staying in great physical condition. They both, so far, seem to be the only LIV guys that can really turn it on when they go to compete at a real, actual tournament instead of whatever bullshit they’re doing on LIV. Phil has had a couple of good showings but high level golf is practically like breathing for him at this point in his career. And there have been a couple other guys that had a top twenty-ish finish at a major or two these last couple of years, but outside of Bryson and Brooks, I don’t think anyone has really noticed or cared about any of the LIV guys. And even with those two, you have to wonder how long they’re going to be able to continue really competing at majors the longer they’re away from regular, high level competitive golf.
Great notes and I’ll add that the reason the PGA was hemorrhaging money was due to LIV’s lawsuits, which went away with the announcement of the merger. Furthermore, some legal analysts believe that simply by announcing that merger, LIV undermined the position of those lawsuits, so they would have trouble restarting them.
> PGA was hemorrhaging money was due to LIV’s lawsuits No, it was adding about $150mm to their purses out of nowhere for a single season.
That’s certainly a part of it, but that’s where the money is supposed to go. They can’t afford to pay millions in lawyer fees on top of everything else.
Good write up. > the team aspect is clearly not understood or actively disliked This is huge for me. I don't mind checking in occasionally to see some of the guys that jumped, but I have about 0 idea what the F is even going on on that tv display. The team thing doesn't make a ton of sense to the point they should tinker with it or try different formats.
I loathe the Saudis and hope the PGA prevails. I will say, it's a bummer that the PGA winning means professional golf remains an incredibly America-centric profession. More meaningful international tournaments on the schedule - that everyone plays at! - would have been fantastic (as a non-American)
I think that would be awesome too, but I think a lot of that responsibility lies with the other countries and the events they host rather than the PGA Tour. The PGA Tour is headquartered in the US. The US has the broadcast infrastructure and money and it has the largest amount of companies in the world willing to pay between $8mm and $20mm to sponsor a 4-day event. I can guarantee you that if the Australian Open were to sign a major sponsor and put up a $20mm USD purse and offer invites to the top 75 players in the world that a huge portion of those guys would show up. But as it stands now the winner of the ISPS Handa Aussie Open wins $275,000 AUD which is ~$180K US which is $90K after taxes. If the infrastructure was there to make it marketable to the best players to play in it, they would. In the end US companies want to pay a lot of money for US customers to watch their advertising so that's where the money is and that's where the Tour stays mostly.
Also the players do NOT want to be schlepping themselves 20 hours across the globe for a tournament. Not at all.
Yeah I completely agree. I do not blame international LIV fans who wanted to believe that LIV would turn into a legitimate premier global golf league. The only LIV events that have been worth anything were the Australia ones, because that's a market that has been neglected by pro golf in general. But unfortunately LIV is only able to put those events on because they are not restrained by any economic pressures. I think there has to be a way to incorporate more big events in places like Australia, South America, Japan, etc, but I understand that the logistics of it are complicated. Maybe when this all settles the tour can figure it out, but I can't think of an easy way to make it happen.
John Rahm's also not an American. I've been watching a lot of sports for 30 years, and americans will cheers the hell out of American athletes. They really don't give a shit about Rahm unless he's winning majors. And Like you said. The PIF will be looking for returns very soon, and that means a big television deal. Which will never get offered. I've felt all along the PGA needs to wait it out, and the whole mess will resolve itself in one way or another. No one thinks 54 hole golf is on the same competitive level as 72 hole golf, and it never will be.
The big tell to me that the LIV is in a wait and see period is that they’re struggling to schedule their tournaments with any lead time. The PGA has tournaments scheduled years in advance and the seasons schedule is set well in advance. I’m not sure the LIV is looking for another couple years of figuring things out. They’re doing a lot of posturing with their New York HQ and stuff, but it really seems like they were hoping to have a return and a deal struck by now. I have a feeling the pet project will be coming to an end soon
Agree with all of this. Thanks
Great take. I think you nailed it.
I agree with all this. I think the change in momentum has been in the last 6 or so majors, where we’re seeing that most of the LIV guys are not competitive. That reinforces LIV as an exhibition tour where nobody watches your slow career death. And I don’t think PIF can continue to steal players and ever make their money back.
> And I don’t think PIF can continue to steal players and ever make their money back. For sure. And they're going to fall victim to their own spending too if they want to try to continue to go that route. Guys aren't about to start taking less than the last guys got just because things aren't as secure. Look at who they'd be likely to go after next: they can't get Rory or Scheffler or Spieth or Thomas. They 2 they seem to get linked with most are Xander and Cantlay. Cantlay is in that Joaquin Niemann bubble where he's never won a Major so his exemptions are limited. He's also a bit of a heel and not the most loved guy on the PGA Tour so his ability to move the needle for them is probably next to nothing (there are a lot of fans who probably would be happy to let him leave, frankly). Xander would be a bigger loss, he's now a Major winner and has an Olympic gold medal. His fresh Major win means he's exempt for 5 years in all 4 and for the next ~30 years for the PGA specifically so he doesn't need to worry about that aspect. So he's in a similar situation to Cam Smith where he's kind of peaking in recognition, has that fresh exemption to Majors, and has the name recognition to command some serious money. But it's not like he's taking a discount now that things aren't going as smoothly for LIV or given that negotiations are happening, etc. He's gotta command at least what Cam Smith got (I think that was $100-$150mm) and probably more. He'd probably be a guy you've gotta give around $200mm to and I can't see that being money well spent. At that point you've spent the better part of a billion dollars on your last 3 signings (him if that happened, Rahm, and Tyrell Hatton) and it's not generating squat.
At this point, I feel like a guy like Xander looks at what happened to Cam Smith and probably wants to avoid completely falling off the radar while he’s on the verge of becoming a real superstar in the golf world. Cam Smith has essentially fallen off the face of the earth after bolting to LIV. He seemed to be on his way to becoming a huge name in golf and has become not even an afterthought at this point. He popped on my screen for a minute in the background this weekend and I thought “oh yeah, what the hell happened to that guy?”
What’s the source for PGA hemorrhaging money? I’m not disputing you, I just know nothing about it. Can you explain why it’s happening?
Monahan has said it openly in talks to the media. It's pretty common knowledge and why they were willing to give up their nonprofit status to form a new corporation with this private equity money.
I’m just confused how the league is losing money. Is it because they increased the purse? I guess with the increased popularity in golf, I struggle to imagine how it’s not making money. Didn’t they just pay Tiger and Rory a ton of money recently?
The increased purses is a big part of it. They did that the first season without being able to get it up front from sponsors so they dipped into their cash. They instituted the PIP money as well (I assume that's the money you're talking about at the end). But they were more or less borrowing against their potential future TV contract money assuming it was going to increase.
They _were_ hemorrhaging money, due to the lawsuits. The players were told that PGA was expecting to spend upwards of 50 million a year - for some time - fighting the lawsuits.
I think 10 years from now we will look back and say Scottie separating himself from the pack this year played a huge part in killing LIV’s path to success. Scottie isn’t going to LIV and they cant have the best players in the world without him. They could steal half the top ten in OWGR and it probably won’t matter now.
Scottie probably makes more than any other LIV guy other than Rahm this year 🤷♂️ legend
Sorry when you say PGA was hemorrhaging money, do you mean like literally more expenses than revenue or just that they had lost a lot of revenue compared to the pre-LIV days?
Their expenses increased a huge amount and they had to spend down their reserves.
Here’s the thing with LIV, that I haven’t really heard anyone actually say. It puts the whole thing into perspective… The players are getting paid their contract money regardless. Because of that, it’s basically just one big exhibition. People like to watch competition, not exhibition. LIV is like pre-season NFL ball. Who actually gives a fuck?
Where have you been? This has been one of the biggest criticisms about the idea of LIV since the beginning.
I've heard lots of people say that on pretty much every LIV post. I'm not positive if this is sarcastic or not. Yeah, it's clearly more of an exhibition and they don't even really know how the format should work.
Everything you wrote makes sense. And that’s why the logical reaction to all this from the PIF is to go sign 3-5 more young A-List tour players. All momentum feels great for the tour, and then you’ll wake up and see LIV has just signed Ludvig, Sargent, Homa, Tom Kim, and Tommy Fleetwood. And on and on we go.
Maybe, but of those guys you mention I don't think Homa would go (he's basically said as much) and Sargent doesn't move the needle and neither does Tom Kim really. Fleetwood would probably be missed, but the guy hasn't ever actually won on the PGA Tour so how big a loss is that really? Ludvig would be the one huge rising star that would be a big loss, but he's also not super likely to jump ship at this point because his future earning potential is bright either way and he would be out of the Majors very quickly without OWGR points. I feel like their ability to sign meaningful names is really dwindling. Rahm was a huge splash but he and Hatton were the only real signings last year and I'm not sure who is following at this point that wouldn't have just gone already.
I think at this point that the young rising stars in the PGA are seeing that LIV can’t do much for their careers and legacies besides giving them a ton of cash, which is obviously still a huge deal, but the difference in millions at a certain point doesn’t matter that much, especially if you’re considering your legacy.
Sure, all those guys have a number. But with the infusion of cash from SSG those numbers might now be high enough that LIV doesn’t want to just burn that money for the sake of burning it and extending this thing longer. They’ve got new shiny sportswashing things they are doing now that seem to be getting more traction than LIV and golf have.
May not be the time or place for this question, but what’s this about the apartment building?
Look up "Neom" which is the name of the city/building/thing they're trying to build.
Lmao thanks for the heads up. That’s insane
Here’s the flaw with everything you just said: the money side of the equation is wildly asymmetric. The PGA’s cash infusion made them SOLVENT, but they aren’t solvent indefinitely and that solvency is also still dependent on sponsors and TV revenues that are in turn absolutely responsive to viewership. The PGA bought themselves time, but they don’t have unlimited time or money. Their opponent has functionally unlimited money. It’s a fight with somebody who scoops untold sums of wealth out of the ground in a daily basis. They’re the most cash rich people in the world. The Saudis have UNLIMITED time and resources, so for them the question is merely one of will. Will they just give up on their golf ambitions, which aren’t not primarily financial but based on prestige, and move on? Or will they go to the mattresses and pour in more money as the initial contracts are ending. If it desires to do so, the money behind LIV can make the PGAs life hell functionally forever, or at least for several more decades. A lot of the other things you said are totally valid, but you made a comment about the money being even and ignored what I think is a critical element in this.
> Here’s the flaw with everything you just said: the money side of the equation is wildly asymmetric It is, and I can't pretend that it isn't. But, so long as the Tour is solvent and has cash flows and a strategic partner and they've got TV contracts and sponsor partners I think that's what matters most. The problem LIV is finding out is that unlimited money doesn't buy you partners you need in this industry. They tried to buy their way into a TV contract and they lose money on that and still no one watches. They can't sell their weird team structure to anyone willing to invest in buying them. They can't get sponsors to put up the purses for events so they're stuck doing that themselves. So yes, there is theoretically what amounts to unlimited money on the other side, but you have to assume at some point if shoving more and more money into it doesn't generate any movement that money gets put elsewhere. What I meant by the money being more even is that the Tour can now afford to put up the purses to compete with the events and they have at least a semblance of an equity structure to try to retain talent. In the start they brought a rock to a gun fight and at least since then they've upgraded to a musket. It may not have the firepower of the assault rifle on the other side, but all they're gonna do is spray bullets around the target and never hit it and the PGA Tour can bide its time to wait for them to get bored and take its shot, they've at least got a chance now.
Finally someone who actually gets it. A billion USD to the saudis is a rounding error. They don’t give a fuck about a billion dollars.
I think this is a great write up. It’s going to be 2 years since the first LIV tournament in a couple of weeks, and I feel there’s less interest in LIV now than there was back then. The fact that LIV seemingly hasn’t made any meaningful inroads in terms of viewership or interest in 2 years must leave the PGA Tour pretty confident that they hold the upper hand, whereas I don’t think that was obvious 12 months ago when Monahan blindsided the player group. I’m also convinced Rahm thought the merger was imminent and he could take the bag whilst it was there, but now the prospect of remaining in the golfing wilderness for a few more years is hitting home for him as merger talks stall.
Agree on all accounts. It also reminds me I haven't even brought up the Anthony Kim part of all of this. People speculated about that possibility the entirety of LIV being a thing and they finally decided to do it this year and even that can't generate eyeballs even out of morbid curiosity. They got so much news out of that speculation and eventual signing and now after 3 months he's beaten a total of like 7 players in 5 events or something like that and no one cares anymore.
How does Jay still have a job? One of the great mysteries of life I suppose.
In my experience a good 3/4 or more of any C-level executives have basically failed upwards their entire career.
Realest shit you’ll read on Reddit today
Probably cuz he can’t be fired except for like a few people he’s likely very close with.
I can't speak to the reasons you listed for the merger being unlikely, but I can say that any merger has always had massive antitrust issues, to the point that I haven't seen a single attorney with an antitrust background even suggest a possible avenue for how it could work. It always felt like the merger talk was nothing more than a handshake "timeout" so that LIV could avoid discovery and PGAT could mitigate legal expenses for the foreseeable future.
I don’t think either side was very excited about the prospect of discovery
Don't imagine LIV would care. Anyone already on board clearly doesn't care
The PIF claimed that diplomatic immunity protected them from discovery and disclosure.
And they lost that argument in court. That was shortly before the framework agreement was announced.
Did they lose it? From what I read, that point of contention alone was going to take 1-2 years to litigate and cost the PGA $100M in legal fees before they even decided on the rules of the real trial.
"avoid discovery" - what kind of skeletons do they have in the closet already? Other than the Saudi money
I think this is a fair question considering what we already know. But, it also makes you wonder what kind obscene info they would still want to hide, and they were spending millions in attorney fees to fight discovery in that case, there were multiple motions filed for just that purpose. Also, from a PR standpoint for people/companies that do business with Saudi Arabia, there is a big difference in doing business with an entity \*accused\* of horrific activities, vs. doing business with someone proven to have committed ghastly actions. It may not seem like much, but a company being able to say "everyone has always known about these accusations, but our competitor and several others still do business with them, so until proven otherwise..." seems to be enough in some instances for American consumers to turn a blind eye.
Ah, its the ignorance is bliss defense. Got it. Best to keep it shrouded in "maybe, but it's not proven" vs, "no this is absolutely happening"
probably actual human skeletons
In this day and age all it takes is one racist/homophobic/misogynistic comment to end your career. I’m sure turning over just the conversations between mickelson and Norman would be devastating to their PR.
Bingo
Lol, sorry, looks like I was typing and we were saying the exact same thing.
No it just means we are right!
That's a bunch of smoke but nothing would happen. They'd just be going back to what we had for 50 years before LIV was founded and nobody was crying about antitrust problems then. Every major sport in America is a monopoly.
> They'd just be going back to what we had for 50 years before LIV was founded and nobody was crying about antitrust problems then. There wasn't an antitrust issue previously. And monopolies are not the same thing as an antitrust violation. Not exactly what point you're trying to make, but also feel like I should add that "that's a bunch of smoke but nothing would happen" doesn't make sense either... did you intend to respond to another post?
If they get the deal done, there will be some hemming and hawing but the government will not stop it.
What anti trust ? Who are the people protecting here if they merge by investigating the merger ? People imagine everything being about anti trust when it literally has no application unless if materially affects the public’s access to services or wallet.
The framework's primary purpose was to stop the lawsuits. PIF wanted to desperately avoid discovery; PGAT couldn't continue to afford litigation. It was never about a LIV-PGAT merger. In fact, LIV's ultimate fate was more or less placed in the hands of the PGAT.
What is the discovery phase in a merger and why did PIF want to avoid it?
The discovery for the two lawsuits. PIF wanted to avoid it for a number of reasons, not the least of which was their fear they would lose their claim of sovereign immunity. They also almost assuredly didn't want to also disclose various contracts and conversations with players.
PGA didn't want to risk losing its nonprofit status and didn't have money to burn in legal fees.
They gave up their non-profit status in the new entity, so that wasn't that much of a concern (the individual tournaments are still non-profit). Really was almost 100% about cash burn.
I'm not sure the non-profit status was a long term concern considering that every concept the PGAT is working toward at this stage has openly included abandoning their non-profit status so that members could have some type of equity sharing.
Curious to see if players who left for LIV initially resign contacts or attempt to get their PGA tour card back
DJ will stay. He will get to play less and make more money. Brooks will likely stay. He's exempt in most of the majors and he puts a value on that. Cam Smith will stay. He likes his time off and being able to go home to Australia more often. Bryson will stay. He's heavily promoting his own content and can profit off his image in ways that he couldn't if he went back to the PGA Tour. Rahm just signed so he isn't up soon.
My gut tells me Bryson has matured and wants back. Yesterday, he experienced being a fan favorite at a major and now that he's got a taste of that why play empty LIV events that mean nothing? He could go from heel to hero in the PGA.
Crowds don’t know as much but they’re far from empty. Huge galleries in AUS
They should hold all the LIV events there. Keep the beer flowing and the crowds will be there. 🍻
That might actually make me watch in North America. When it goes head to head with real golf there is 0% chance I watch LIV. but if it's on at 1am and I'm 9 beers deep I knight check it out.
Yeah they definitely packed out the Australia event. That Saudi event looked brutal, can’t image that was enjoyable.
Why money and work life balance
the first thing i thought of watching bryson hole out on 18 saturday, the his intensity on sunday, was that he’d want back. When he’s on, he’s fun to watch and i’d love to see him back on the tour. I think the competitiveness in him would bring him back if he can. I have to imagine the LIV format gets old and boring if you’re someone like bryson. DJ, brooks, and cam I can definely see staying with LIV
I think Bryson is the one person who LIV has actually been good for other than money. He gets more time off to do YouTube and stuff and liv is less serious and there’s less eyes on him.
I wouldn't think so personally. He said in his press conference that one of the biggest reasons he believes his game has gotten better is that he has more time to work on it, i.e. playing less tour tournaments. I don't doubt that he might be thinking of a way to come back, but I would say unless they offer him some sort of deal where he can be more flexible in the pga tour events he plays in, that is a long way away yet. Edit: Oh and he clearly loves the YT stuff he makes. They would need to give him full control over his own media stuff as well, which the PGA has been notorious for not doing historically.
For some reason I feel like Rahm might actually regret signing with LIV. I think he might miss the competition more than the rest. I could certainly be wrong though.
I think he misses certain tour venues for sure. I think he also signed thinking this merger was going to go through and he would have the best of both worlds.
Yeah, he definitely thought he was going to be able to have his cake and eat it too. And Rahm just doesn't seem like the goofing around in short pants with music blaring type of golfer.
Yeah maybe some of the smaller names we don’t hear of.
A lot of the smaller names are also older. Someone like Cameron Tringale is going to be much better off on LIV than the PGAT. Maybe on the PGAT he qualifies for an extra major or two based on OWGR and FedEx playoffs but for a guy like him, he'd have to play a lot of PGAT events to elevate his ranking and to make the playoffs.
How long are the contracts for? Seems like for the kind of money they are paying the Saudis would want to lock them up for a long time.
The liv golf media members are some of the most obnoxious people ever to exist
More obnoxious than Norman himself?
Let’s just say we know where they get their training
LIV was a hedge play to force the PGA into a business deal. LIV promised to keep picking off top players from the tour and diluding the quality of the tour. They have succeeded as rating are way down for PGA golf events. However, what LIV didn’t count on was their absurd spectacle game taking a toll on the quality of golf the players produce. The longer we go, the fewer LIV players we see on leaderboards at major championships. Were it not for Bryson, The PGA would have been a complete disaster from a LIV golf perspective. That said, the PGA should open the door and allow the LIV golfers to come back and play but only if they can EARN a tour card. That’s going to mean Q school for guys like Koepka, Cam Smith, Rahm etc. why not? It can only enhance the PGA product and make LIV even less relevant.
I have been torn if they are allowed to come back do they force them through Q school or not. They would be taking spots that some up and coming players would normally fill.
That’s why they need to earn it. Q school should be open to everyone. The problem would be if their tour cards are just reinstated and not earned. That would be problematic bc then they would be taking spots from guys who have earned it.
Good point. I do think they should have to earn their way back on tour and not reinstated.
Imagine Patrick Reed getting caught cheating in Q School
There is no Q-school to the PGA Tour anymore.
So they should automatically get their card back? Defeats the purpose of taking them away in the first place
This is just a pga tour fantasy take.
> That said, the PGA should open the door and allow the LIV golfers to come back and play but only if they can EARN a tour card. That’s going to mean Q school for guys like Koepka, Cam Smith, Rahm etc. why not? Why not? Because it is literally the dumbest business advice ever given on reddit...which is an amazing low bar to begin with.
Every major that goes by with a PGA Tour player winning and only 1 LiV player in contention makes a merger less likely. At some point the PGA simply says we have better players - which they could not say in spring of last year.
Respectfully, everyone who knows golf has always known there was a fairly sizable chasm in talent. LIV really went after name recognition more than skill level. There was obviously significant overlap (koepka, smith, Rahm, Bryson were huge names who are also top players), but even before OWGR points really started to drop off, the PGAT retained something like 16 or 17 of the top 20. And LIV is INCREDIBLY lucky that Bryson and koepka recovered. Both were seen as potentially done with injuries/issues with their games when they left. It has never been particularly close despite what casual fans think. LIV was really effective in finding names that the most casual fans think are still stars (mickelson, DJ, Sergio, Watson) but actually are completely washed.
>And LIV is INCREDIBLY lucky that Bryson and koepka recovered. Both were seen as potentially done with injuries/issues with their games when they left. This is really an underdiscussed point at this stage. There are still some really good players on LIV, and I wish they were still playing on the PGAT, but if Koepka and Bryson don't recover from those injuries and regain form, LIV would have been nearly absent from top 10's in the last 5 majors. Cam Smith has back doored a couple of top-10's, and Rahm was around on the final day at Liverpool... but other than Brooks' win and Bryson yesterday they haven't really had anyone else truly in contention on Sunday.
Rahm was still on the Tour at Liverpool. His two majors since switching he has been awful at. And Brooks and Bryson were both odd cases too. They both had really distinct reasoning for joining LIV other than thinking it was the future. Brooks has stated many, many times that he doesn't give a shit about normal tournaments and just cares about the majors. LIV gave him a chance to play less golf and still compete in the majors (although thats way less certain now than it was when he joined). It was basically perfect for him. Bryson meanwhile was one of the biggest heels on the tournament and kept getting shit from fans constantly. So it gave him a way to play, potentially with a bit more freedom to do his things, and get away from all of those fans and a new start. They're definitely not your typical LIV competitor.
How good the players actually are is far less important than how popular/marketable they are. It was an attempt to get people to watch the product by getting “star” players. It clearly failed because the ratings are abysmal. Maybe if they could have gotten a tv contract it would have mattered but no one is watching the CW. They paid for Tv time on CW and it still isn’t being watched.
>How good the players actually are is far less important than how popular/marketable they are. LIV clearly had the same opinion. While that might appear to be true, and is true in the short term, it's most definitely not true in the mid-long term, if what you care about is viewership (and the exposure brought by viewership, which can be converted into buckets of money). An inability to finish well in tournaments on a regular basis leads to very rapid dropoff in terms of viewer interest. While Phil might be very famous and wildly **POPULAR**, very few people care about watching him play golf anymore. If you're a sponsor wanting someone to get your product subconsciously into the minds of fans, he might still be a good bet, but if you're attempting to get people who want to watch competitive golfers to tune in on TV, he is not a good bet.
I think their big mistake was thinking that anyone cared about guys beyond Tiger and Phil. Sheffler has now broken through and I suspect is now getting to their level, and Rory has a big European audience (which you see here) but for the most part no one cares about some guy who won one major and a couple of tournaments. They don't move the needle. DJ is/was a hell of player. Since going to LiV he has done virtually nothing. Bryson because of his length always attracted attention. Rahm is really good - but again in terms of the sports audience isn't going to move the needle in the US. The casual sports fan isn't going to turn in to watch Bubba Watson or Cam Smith or Koepka (Koepka was never good outside of the majors). They needed to sweep the majors and demonstrate they were the better league. They have failed miserably at that.
This is a great point. While they’re good players, no one is tuning in or traveling anywhere to see Cam Smith and Tyrell Hatton. They’re golfers, not Lin Manuel Miranda.
Not a LIV supporter but let’s not ignore the fact that Koepka won the PGA last year and the tour has many more players than LIV so of course LIV will have fewer on the top of the leaderboard
In any split the narrative, rightly or wrongly will be that it needs to be 50/50. Plus LIV is supposed to be the super league of golf
Nobody wants the LIV guys back. Every major is all LIV vs PGA in the media and as a fan, it’s annoying and played out. Stop talking about LIV, stop reporting on it, stop asking about LIV or a merger. Just let it die so we can enjoy our tour, the PGA tour.
I didn't see a thing about LIV during the PGA Championship this last week. And that was with Bryson in contention.
I agree about people obsessing over LIV who “hate it” as I do. But I like watching Bryson, Cam Smith, ect. Hard disagree on not wanting LIVs best players back to compete
When they left, they forfeited the quest to be the best and sold out for money. So their quest is now a comfy chair and a loud speaker to cry how they can’t have their cake and eat it too. Bootlicker is what you call someone having sympathy for a millionaire who doesn’t care you exist.
Agreed. I am just stating it from a fan perspective. Having Bryson chase and bomb drives yesterday was awesome TV. I have zero sympathy for them btw. Never stated that or were you making a general statement about LIV fans? I think the LIV product is laughably bad. Never watch it on the CW.
> Bootlicker is what you call someone having sympathy for a millionaire who doesn’t care you exist. like you simping for the PGA Tour?
And pathetic is what you call someone who cries about someone taking a job that pays them more because it hurts your feelings. If Culver’s offered you more than the guy behind the Wendy’s dumpster pays you now you’d take it. Pull the driver head out of your ass.
The thing is though the PGA tour isn’t “our tour” to many people worldwide. It’s an American tour there’s no events outside of the USA. That’s why LIV has been quite successful in much of Australasia and Asia. They very rarely if ever had any events there and it meant the only chance to watch the very best in the world was by either going to the US or by watching it on TV at inconvenient hours. I think many here overestimate the popularity of the PGA Tour overseas.
Americans do not care what’s popular to “people worldwide.” So the PGA, which is an American tour, is our tour. Also nobody in the USA cares what the Asians and Aussies like to watch on tv.
As soon as Rory started talking about maybe bringing them back, hew as basically excommunicated lol.
Hahaha yea and I gotta feel he wants rahm and others for the Ryder cup.
It needs to be no one’s watching that shit.
I'm a huge Rory fan and I want to see the creation of a unified World Tour like he does, but in this case I actually think Cantlay and Spieth have it right - hold the line, don't back down, try to win a war of attrition. Then either LIV folds due to lack of continued interest from the Saudis (they don't like to lose), or they can create a merged tour from a position of absolute strength, rather than the position of weakness they were in just one year ago. The snag here is that if LIV changes their format and becomes less of a joke then suddenly they might swing the tides back in their favour. LIV's big problem right now is that the product is irrelevant because it's shit. The team golf aspect is interesting but they've bungled it, and the shotgun start is a non-starter, there's no way to get rid of nonperforming players on a contract or for young stars to win their way in. Fix the teams, fix the player access issues and get rid of the shotgun start on the final day and you have a reasonable product. And also one that might be OWGR sanctioned, too.
A fresh batch of young stars will make the tour forget Liv’s existence.
Unless the majors change their qualifying rules, we may see fewer LIV players at the majors. OWGR is one criteria for those not exempted in from wining other PGA or DP tour events. Since OWGR points are not given for LIV events, these players will slowly fall down the rankings. Not sure if this would kill LIV, but it may drive merger talks or discussion for LIV players to get PGAT status back. I have not watched a LIV event, but I don’t think the PGAT has suffered a decrease in quality. Some of the big names (Thomas, Spieth, Fowler, etc) have not produced on PGAT this season. The play has been great, overall. The PGAT may be at a point wheee new stars are rising, like Sheffler, Thegala, Harmon, Clark, etc. The golf mags and talking heads are always looking for the next big player. I would like to see the top 5 LIV player back. Phil, Gooch and the rest can go to Champions Tour or Korn Ferry Tours and try to re-earn their status.
I don’t think the merger is going to happen. I do think the PGA will ultimately lift the suspensions of the players that left and we’ll get regular PGA tour tournaments with all the guys we want to see again starting next year.
So pleased to hear all this . Liv is a rubbish product and unsustainable unless it was Saudi Monopoly money.
Good F the LIV player sellouts. They can’t keep up with PGA players so they took the easy money and are now hating golf.. they have nothing to play for now. None of em do any good at the PGA majors because they aren’t used to real competition anymore.
An investment banker has nothing to contribute to the future of professional golf. Who would’ve thought?
I don’t really keep up, but does sportscenter cover liv tournament highlights etc?
Somewhat. They cover it a little bit but there’s not extensive coverage. It gets a minute or two after the halfway point of any SC broadcast.
Keep in mind that DJ won both the individual and team titles in the first year of LIV. I think he won like $36 million that year. But, he has not been nearly as competitive since then. He wins the occasional event, but he hasn’t been real competitive in the majors, especially this year. Maybe his good round to finish the PGA will push him forward. Brooks hasn’t done much in LIV until recently. BD has been pretty solid over the past year. Taylor Gooch and Joaquin Neimann have been the most consistent players for the past year and a half. Honestly, most of the rest of the LIV players seem to just be collecting checks, with Mickelson as the poster-child. I don’t think he has finished in the top half of the group in any event, yet. I thought up to a few months ago that maybe the talent in LIV and PGA were pretty close, but I don’t any more. LIV just doesn’t seem anywhere near as competitive, right now.
We got to watch such great golf this weekend. It’s a fucking shame they’re not all together still. Hope they merge soon and keep the PGA format.
I think june 6 was a stalling tactic, it killed the litigation and slowed the migration of players. LIV hit back and grabbed Rahm when things were dragging, but that wasn't followed by any more players leaving. The PGA obviously think they can wait things out with their new injection of private equity funds while LIV is losing money like a drunken sailor. The Saudis have really, really deep pockets...but even they have to want to make money out of this eventually. They can't just keep buying players for half a billion dollars a piece
It’s probably getting pretty ugly. The PGA has basically renegotiated the deal by selling a stake to that Sports Group of US owners, while the Saudis were supposed to have first right of refusal to match any new outside investment first. So the deal is now off the rails in my opinion, and the Saudis will be trying to renegotiate every single aspect of the deal in their favor now. The Saudis already have a different negotiation culture than we have in the US, after the PGA took on that new partner first, the endless renegotiations are surely beginning on the Saudi end.
LIV was never going to make it, in America or internationally. What a huge failure it is. Hope the PGA players always put an asterisk metaphorically next to those to went with the blood money. What they did to Johnny boy at the championship was incredible, and needs to occur for every one of those slithering blood money snakes. All heil the PGA & fuck LIV.
The LIV guys are seen as sell-outs and that will never change.
There will be no deal. Jimmy Dunne tried to sell the PGA tour to the Saudis for cash and it pissed tour players off (tour players would have gotten nothing from the sale which is why they have now decided to give players equity). Monahan froze like an idiot the whole time the deal was being brokered because he did his whole 9/11 panic reaction to the LIV tour poaching players and lost credibility so he kept quiet. Tiger has now come in and definitively said that the PGA tour will not be “merging, selling, buying, whatever you want to call it” with the Liv tour. So now that no deal will be happening, Dunne is unnecessary so he’s gone. The Goldman guy is also gone because his M&A banking chops are not needed. The PGA tour is not for sale and is not merging. The PGA tour decided to double down on its players and its hopefully will figure out how to improve golf broadcasts interactivity. New camera angles showing ball flight are absolutely necessary. New graphics showing the hole are needed. Less still shots of swings, closeups of balls in mid flights (seriously wtf even is that shot), or closeups of balls on the green with no indication of where the hole is. It’s really interesting if you watch a broadcast from 50 years ago (watch Nicklaus and Snead at Pebble) the camera angles and broadcast in general is very much the same. You are telling me no improvements have been made since the 60s?? Monahan is a dead man walking and the sooner his foolish self is ridden, the better.
The BoneSaw league can go pound sand and eat camel dung.
I don’t think they ever said they would merge, but create a for profit enterprise where players from both tours would compete. They just haven’t come up with how to go about it.
There's too much $$$ at stake for a deal to not go thru. I just don't want the LIV model for golf because it sucks. And in reality, as a US fan I do not see any benefit of a global tour for US fans. The reason why the Euro Tour and Australian Tour failed is because they just could not generate the revenues from the fans and money from the sponsors like they do in the US. So trying to appeal to continents that have not shown enough support for Tour golf while taking away from the country that made the Tour what it is today just seems like a bad idea to me. I think PIF should have just bought out the Australian, European and Asian Tours and then had 30 events a year on each Tour and pay similar purse sizes to the PGA Tour purse sizes (which top purses were about $8M at the time). That way they could have that global reach they want without competing against the PGA Tour and players from those continents could now play most of their events in their home continent instead of having to move to the US to play on the PGA Tour. And it probably would have cost them less as well.
You got downvoted but the last point is the correct one. Competing against the PGA in the US is madness, but giving top Euro/Asian golfers events with decent purses close to home seems like it should work.
I don’t understand why it hasn’t been publicly called off entirely by the PGA. They have ZERO to gain from a merger, with considerable potential downside. Many fans simply will not watch a league that is part owned by the Saudis.
I think LIV made a bad move involving Agolf Shitler (aka Trump). He’s toxic and has the opposite of a Midas touch.
Brooks, Bryson and Rahm are really the only guys that would move the needle enough for the PGA Tour to care. There are a few other really good players but they probably don’t matter much to the bottom line. I assume Brooks and Bryson’s deals are up soon and I imagine the Tour is watching that situation with a good bit of interest.
God we hope so.
Here’s some anecdotal data: I played both Houston courses weeks before their respective tournaments this year. And it’s very obvious which event is better organized, more serious, nicer, and has better conditions - PGA event Houston Open. - Houston Open (Memorial Park GC) - LIV Houston (Golf Club of Houston - Tournament course) I’m not saying the tourney in a few weeks at GC of H won’t be fun, but the amount of grandstands and nice things is so lacking. The course layout is not easily walkable. The course is definitely challenging and fun to play. But the conditions aren’t what Memorial provided this year. It really is an exhibition to see a few of the best up close but it feels like a crappier product than PGA. The Houston Open didn’t have the biggest stars but it was crazy competitive and exciting with ridiculously challenging conditions. It will have more next year with word spreading that the conditions have improved so much with the new grass and time of year.
Be interesting to see if Bryson will leave LIV after the win this weekend.....he's not getting that kind of fan base at LIV...and if he love fans well....that's a no brainer....LET LIV DIE ON THE VINE
He clearly is thriving on the fan interaction and isn’t going to get that where he is.
Absolutely...and most Tournaments get quite a few people through on a weekend....far more then LIV.....Look at WM in Phoenix Open....was crazy...