Sometime early in the London afternoon Thursday, British golfer Lee Westwood tapped-in for par, the first recorded score in LIV Golf Tour history. At the same time, more than 4,000 miles across the Atlantic, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan was telling the rest of the world that Westwood, and 16 other players on that London course, were now indefinitely suspended from the world’s preeminent golf tour.
How we got to that point is a road that travels well beyond the boundaries of sports and into the darkest corners of politics, money, human-rights violations and, a word new to many, sportswashing. In short, the Saudi Arabian royal family launched a professional golf tour in an effort to provide positive public relations to a ruling family much in need of a facelift.
The money the LIV Golf Tour had to guarantee to PGA Tour golfers to convince them to bail on the U.S. tour can only be described as insane. The guarantees, reportedly over $100 million in several cases, will relegate this tour to the red numbers financially. But that isn’t the point here. This is about an image overhaul.
The other image in the crosshairs is that of the PGA Tour. Big names like Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau have already jumped ship and many more are rumored to be following. Granted, the PGA Tour isn’t suddenly bereft of big names. Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy have dug-in and become the public face of the PGA Tour’s opposition party. There is, however, an issue for the Tour.
The issue comes in three letters that likely mean nothing to you: P-I-P. The Player Impact Program is the PGA Tour’s clout index that measures things like Google searches and social media presence to determine the Tour players that move the needle the most. The players are then handsomely compensated for the needle movement, an incentive to expand their reach.
You may want to sit down for me to tell you Tiger Woods finished first in the inaugural PIP and took home $8 million. Yes, the PGA Tour devised yet another way to hand Tiger Woods a seven figure check.
You also might have noticed Woods rarely plays now and, when he does, the events are majors, not under the control of the PGA Tour. That’s where the problem for the Tour begins but certainly not where it ends. The LIV Golf Tour and the PGA Tour’s PIP index have an alarming intersection for the PGA Tour. One only needs to scan the list of the golfers behind Tiger to see the issue:
2. Phil Mickelson
3. Rory McIlroy
4. Jordan Spieth
5. Bryson DeChambeau
6. Justin Thomas
7. Dustin Johnson
8. Brooks Koepka
9. Jon Rahm
10. Bubba Watson
Four of the nine golfers behind Tiger have either officially left for the LIV Golf Tour or have appeared in a promotional video for the new tour. There has been heavy speculation about one other name on that list leaving, as well. That could result in five of the top ten biggest needle-movers on the PGA Tour being indefinitely suspended by the PGA Tour plus the man that IS the needle basically playing only the majors. This is a five alarm PGA Tour fire.
That isn’t the only issue for the PGA Tour moving forward. The other issue comes from the fact that the PGA Tour and The LIV Tour aren’t even fighting the same fight. The PGA Tour is dependent on those needle-moving players drawing in TV viewers to the level that CBS, NBC and ESPN are still willing to fork over cash for media rights. The LIV Tour is simply spending a small sliver of their war chest for good PR.
Put simply: if TV ratings fall, media deals shrink and corporate sponsors flee. The only possible result would be smaller PGA Tour payouts in a world where the rich uncle has passed out and left the bar tab open. The net result will be more of the big names being tempted to take the guaranteed money, especially now that some big names have taken the early heat for the move.
The players that have jumped for the money have been shredded by the world sports media, none more than Phil Mickelson, the player face of this move. It seems Mickelson is ok with that. It was impossible to escape the irony that the six time major champion played the first ever LIV Tour round dressed in black with some freshly grown scruff on his face. It looked as if he was showing up for a read-through for the villain in an Austin Powers movie.
By winning the LIV Tour’s first event Saturday, Charl Schwartzel made $4,750,000. That’s more than he made in his previous 74 PGA Tour events combined dating back to 2018. Assuming he was paid the standard 10% for a non-major win, Schwartzel’s caddie made more this week than Justin Rose and Sam Burns, who finished tied for fourth in the PGA Tour’s Canadian Open. Not even the PGA Tour would pretend they can compete with that.
The news is not all dire for the PGA Tour, though. Their product is infinitely better than what the LIV Tour will be for the foreseeable future. The PGA Tour is an established brand and still has tournaments fans recognize at courses they have enjoyed watching for years. Also, the TV production is one that is comfortable and time-tested. I don’t pretend CBS and NBC do everything correctly but they have decades of trial and error to know what the fans like.
Most everything about the LIV Tour production felt contrived and gimmicky. The shotgun start, the team completion, the team logos and the leaderboard graphic, my word, the leaderboard graphic. It would’ve been less confusing had it all been in Aztec hieroglyphics. The current presentation of the PGA Tour and, certainly, the depth of PGA Tour fields will eclipse anything the LIV Tour can initially offer.
Sunday highlighted this perfectly. On the weekend of the LIV Tour launch, Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas – two of the biggest stars the PGA Tour has left – put on a birdie exhibition at the Canadian Open with McIlroy holding on for the win. How often can the PGA Tour depend on that happening? Who knows? One thing is certain, in their current forms, it is far more likely the PGA Tour can give you that type of finish.
The PGA Tour is almost two years into a $7 billion media rights deal with CBS, NBC, and ESPN that runs through 2029. That gives Monahan seven more years to find a way to keep those partners happy while finding a way to promote new stars. The other option is swallowing his pride and letting the LIV Tour players come back, perhaps before the courts do it for him.
The real winner here can be the fan of professional golf. Some, understandably, have an icky feeling about supporting the LIV Tour but even those fans could benefit from the PGA Tour having to redouble efforts to remain the king. For others who will watch both, options aren’t necessarily a bad thing. It is my belief a rising tide lifts all ships. In this case, one is the massive dependable aircraft carrier. The other is the shiny new massive yacht. Both are trying to avoid being the Titanic.
Ryan Brown is a columnist for Barrett Sports Media, and a co-host of the popular sports audio/video show ‘The Next Round’ formerly known as JOX Roundtable, which previously aired on WJOX in Birmingham. You can find him on Twitter @RyanBrownLive and follow his show @NextRoundLive.
