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A few years from now, when we look back on the 2024 golf season, we’ll likely point to Bryson DeChambeau’s 72nd-hole victory over Rory McIlroy at the U.S. Open as the defining moment of the year. Perhaps we’ll consider Scottie Scheffler’s tearful gratitude on the podium at the Olympics as the most moving victory of the year. Or maybe we’ll note Xander Schauffele’s breakthrough victories in the PGA and Open Championships as the strongest performances of 2024. Who can say?
You know what we won’t consider a highlight of the season? Scheffler won the $25 million share of a $100 million FedEx Cup purse at the Tour Championship, or Jon Rahm won an $18 million bonus as LIV 2024 individual champion on the weekend. last at LIV Golf Chicago. Congratulations, guys. You’ve won another eight-figure check. This is great news for you, your family, your agent, your accountant. And the fans – those who are still watching – shrug their shoulders.
Golf is not built on salaries, but on moments – moments when the best in the world compete to win titles and championships. Money is an incentive for the players, not the fans… and fans are responding by giving up the professional game in ever greater numbers.
Money is also what seems to divide the sport, resulting in a game in which the sum of the parts is far less than the whole would be. The PGA Tour season ended a few weeks ago with the Tour Championship, LIV’s season ends this weekend with its team championship – and the sport appears no closer to unification than it does was at the start of the year.
The PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, LIV Golf’s backer, announced a surprise “framework agreement” in June 2023. The expectation – realistic or not – was that LIV Golf and the PGA Tour meets in one form or another within the next two years.
This did not happen. We’ve heard a lot of “optimism” that “negotiations are progressing,” from the likes of Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth, but little real progress. Indeed, the most visible external sign of the progress of the negotiations was the resignation of one of the key figures in the conclusion of the agreement. When Jimmy Dunne resigned from the board in May, citing “no significant progress,” it stood in stark contrast to the nothing-to-see-here, all-good declarations from players and Tour officials involved in the negotiations.
It’s easy – perhaps too easy – to view grades as an indicator of the health of the sport. Ratings declined across the board for virtually every tournament, on both tours. Fewer than 100,000 people watched Rahm’s individual victory last weekend, a figure so incredibly low that it suggests that if people don’t tune into LIV now after three years, they never will.
But the ratings are only as bad as the tournaments they measure; better tournaments will reverse these numbers quickly. The biggest concern is that the PGA Tour is losing major sponsors, like Wells Fargo and Honda. Strategic Sports Group’s massive billion-dollar-plus investment won’t be enough to replace outgoing sponsors; golf is currently engaged in an unsustainable arms race.
Earlier this week, McIlroy suggested that the Justice Department’s potential interest in a LIV-PGA Tour merger was delaying negotiations, which is certainly a valid concern. He also pointed out that there might be some voices – some loud voices – who are not enthusiastic about the idea of reunification.
“I would say maybe half the players in LIV want the deal to go through; half probably don’t,” McIlroy said. “I would say it’s probably similar on the PGA Tour. Because like anything, everyone is looking out for themselves and their best interests. You know, it would benefit some people that ‘a deal doesn’t get done, but it would obviously benefit some people if a deal gets done.
He highlighted the difficulty actors present when representing both their interests as actors and their interests in the business, pointing out that these can often be in conflict with each other – this is that is, what is good for the company may not be good for an individual.
“I think the tours want this to happen,” McIlroy said. “Investors certainly want this to happen because they can see the benefits themselves. But right now it’s the DOJ and the players’ differing opinions.”
There are signs of hope, but they come from outside the negotiating room. The PGA Championship codified Thursday what its de facto has been training for the past two years, allowing LIV players to participate in its events if they qualify. More importantly, McIlroy and Scheffler will play DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka in a made-for-TV event later this year, a sign as obvious as any. a few players want to make a deal.
Are we, to use some cringe golf clichés, within sight of the clubhouse? Or are we at the turning point? Or are we still in the equivalent of a Thursday afternoon tournament, where everything remains uncertain and the conclusion is far away?
Regardless, the game continues – on different paths – and there is little external urgency to make a deal. Maybe appearances are deceiving, and maybe poker’s continued silence is a good negotiating tactic, but it certainly gives the impression that golf’s powerful players are putting in – and cashing massive checks – while the sport burns.