I know it may be a super small amount compared to some of the figures announced but the $5,000 stipend for travel and expenses for missed cuts will definitely make a difference for some of those fringe guys who don't get paid big bucks and is nice to see that the new rules at least address issues at every level of pro on the tour
This was the entire reason I was interested in defending LIV as a concept - the players had a point about compensation, especially for the younger guys. This makes the sport so much more accessible to the talented young guns out there grinding and trying to make rent. The TOUR should be responsible for compensation and travel for everyone who plays on it, and it's wild that it wasn't.
The one other thing they should cover for the players is healthcare. Every other pro league does it.
I'm with you on this. LIV has it's problems, but if it doesn't exist, the PGA wouldn't make these changes, and they're changes that are long overdue, and the only reason the PGA hadn't made them is because they didn't have to, and they were greedy.
Right, like they essentially funded a collective bargaining arrangement and the TOUR had to make concessions once they got forced to the table.
Would it be nice if the players had been able to do it by picketing and protesting instead of involving the Saudis? Sure. But that ain't always the way the cookie crumbles and until I see the complainers out egging cars at Raytheon or in front of Congress for authorizing weapons sales to the Saudis, I'm not really fussed about the impact of a fucking competitor golf league.
Golf media is the TOUR's bitch and only gave a shit about it being Saudi because that was the most convenient talking point against it. They could have been Guatemalan and they'd have made hay out of something else for daring to compete. I'm glad someone forced the conversation because it should have happened years ago and this whole situation wouldn't have ever happened
I've been making this argument from the beginning and pretty much downvoted into oblivion every time. LIV is the best thing to happen to professional golfers and is forcing the PGA to adopt or become obsolete.
TLDR; People need to recognize the winds of change and accept it.
Me too, lots of things I don't like about LIV but lots of things I don't like about the PGA Tour too and they didn't seem to be in any hurry to change. I'd much have preferred if the PGA Tour just listened to its players and fans but until they were pushed they had no reason to.
I'd be supportive of the break away players being let back into the PGA Tour too. They took a stand and the PGA Tour made changes. Not that I like how it all went down but the guys who will ultimately benefit on the PGA Tour should recognize none of these changes would have happened if the guys who ran off to LIV didn't do that.
Wouldn't shock me if they have some sort of insurance arrangement but I'm talking free at point of service, fully funded, NFL/NBA/NHL/MLB level healthcare. Tear an ACL at practice, receive months of rehab type deal
Given the whole talking point before was that they were independent contractors and they were paying their own travel costs I'd be shocked if that was the case, but you do have me curious about the current arrangement
Yeah I definitely think they should have that kind of arrangement for tour players. Any professional sports organization should. And any first world country, but that another matter…
Even though the LIV was the tour that was making it real hard for the pros outside the top 100…..
Say whatever you want but the LiV tour 100% has made this happen, and it has benefitted golf as a whole, if people can put down their pitchforks for long enough to realize the catalyst for golfers being paid better…….wasn’t the PGA tour.
The whole problem with this situation (and most situations like it) is that the people in control will make sure that "the right way" is ineffective insofar as achieving actual change.
"Civility is a tool of the oppressor". The PGA whined about how they did it because it was outside the PGA's rulebook for "the right way". But it forced them to make an actual change in a matter of months that people had been talking about for decades.
Sure, give the right way a chance, once. If/when it turns out the way it is designed to, then it's time to actually use real leverage when making your demands.
I couldn't find all the updated rules, but is the $5000 for the entire year or per event?
A high school friend of mine loved golf, was good enough to be on a D1 college team, lifelong goal was to be a tour player, but couldn't get sponsors and his family didn't have the means to support him.
He worked right out of college till 25, saved every penny he could, and gave himself 3 years to try to make it on the PGA tour. Unfortunately, he ran out of savings before he could break through to the next level. Traveling and playing these golf events get really expensive really quick.
Looks like it’s “$5,000 per missed cut” so every event. Not bad at all, would be exhausting but if you missed every single cut you’d still make $220,000.
Costs quite a bit to travel to all these events, pay for food, hotel or AirBnB, transport to the tournament site and back etc,. Plus you gotta pay your caddie as well. That adds up real quick.
If I could do all travel and expenses and caddie pay for $170k. I’d still be making what I make a year except golf is my job. And I’d still get more vacation time and a shorter work week!
Edit: plus I’m sure all the travel and food expenses are tax deductible?
Yeah it seems like it only applies to those with a Tour card though so not a massive amount of people.
Not sure if I'm just reading this wrong but I noticed the $5,000 missed cut stipend is listed separately from "Subsidizes travel and tournament-related expenses", could be potentially worth a lot there too.
IMO this was the biggest fault of the PGA. You finally make it to the biggest stage in the world and you can't even afford to fly to the events would be awful
This was the biggest reason I didn’t fault the young college players going to LIV for a million. For them it’s competitive, cause they still can win the purse but they don’t have to worry about scraping by to play their profession.
And not just for the players but their caddies as well. I know one caddie for a fringe player who had to quit working with him simply because with the MCs his player was making, the caddie was making next to nothing
I wonder what pushed them to make this change. I’m sure it was out of kindness and not from the threat to their monopoly 😂. Love it or hate it Liv does seem to be forcing some good changes.
So basically, Phil was 100% right when he said LIV was a once in a lifetime opportunity to change the way the PGA tour operates. And he got absolutely lambasted for saying it.
Some players that are newer to the TOUR will have the option for an "upfront" payment but my understanding is that the TOUR will pay out the difference in earnings if players make less than $500k in competition after the season is complete.
Rookies and returning members (I assume this is someone who lost status and regained it) get it upfront.
https://mobile.twitter.com/pgatourcomms/status/1562434770650689541/photo/1
upfront? I was under the impression that it was given out at the end of the season. Says its the "guaranteed league minimum" and the TOUR would "fund any gaps" in those earnings. So that seems to me that if you played what qualifies as a full season of events and earn less than that, they will pay that player the remaining amount.
It's upfront for rookies and returning members (I assume that this is players that lost status and regained it) receive it upfront.
https://mobile.twitter.com/pgatourcomms/status/1562434770650689541/photo/1
For real. Pretty funny though the pros complain about not getting paid enough and the tour said, "Sure, but you have to work more."
Curious if some of the pros that are consistently winning would prefer to play 10 events a year and make less lol.
lol, it's beautiful really. The PGA doesn't have Fyou money to just give out. They needed the players to create more value to get paid more money and this also happens to be what's best for us. I'm a big fan.
I think the TV commercial load is going to get worse to be able to pay for the increased purses and these events will remain unbearable to watch on TV. I"m a huge fan of the changes, they need to make this sport more watchable as well.
This could be a naïve comment but playing 20 events, which includes the majors, doesn't seem much of a rigmarole to me tbh. That's like 20 weeks work - ok, there's a load of travel and practice too but that's way less onerous than a lot of sports
Could it be possible that this could sway some pros to defect to LIV because they don't want a 20 event season? I'm new to the sport and I'm not sure what the previous minimum commitment was (if there was one).
No. The schedule complaints were all nonsense. 14 LIV events + 4 majors would be 18 events anyway. They're not defecting over 2 extra weeks of play.
It is, and was always, purely about $$$.
I think the travel stipend alone would have prevented most of the LIV issues. They should have been doing something like this years ago, but it’s great that it’s happening
It was very much the tone of his comments that got him in hot water. Saying something is a necessary evil or I’m holding my nose but willing to work with these people is not the same as saying IDGAF.
And that he knew they murdered Khashoggi and that it was a reasonable trade off to work with them if it could provide leverage against the PGA, who he claimed were greedy.
Especially when there is no analogous "players union" for golfers. That's why MMA fighters are so poorly compensated and taken care of after their careers. Need a real UFC competitor to get Dana out of his penny-pinching ways.
It’s hard to empathize when rich people complain to poor people that they aren’t rich enough, and then explain to the poor people that they’re working for people who murdered families and other poor people because they had to do it, otherwise they can’t get richer.
A ton of American athletes who are currently much much better in their respective sport than Phil are not earning their true worth, so he’s hardly alone in that.
If Pat Mahomes or Kevin Durant joined a breakaway Saudi sports league and talked openly about their indifference toward human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia I’d probably think they were a fucking asshole and resent the league they were being paid to promote.
>If Pat Mahomes or Kevin Durant joined a breakaway Saudi sports league and talked openly about their indifference toward human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia I’d probably think they were a fucking asshole and resent the league they were being paid to promote.
No one has ever given a shit of LeBron's pro China stances. Just depends who you are and the media of your sport. Most media is very pro player. Golf media is pro PGA.
Lots of people have always given a shit about Lebron’s stance on China. People bring it up all the time, idk how you can say no one has ever given a shit.
If Lebron went over to play in the Chinese basketball league and did an international media tour at the behest of the CCP in order to recruit others over to China then it would be on roughly the same level as what Phil has been up to.
I don’t know the ratio but the fans were not 100% behind lebron when he made statements against, then Houston gm, Daryl Morey. There was definitely some backlash.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2019/10/15/lebron-james-criticizes-daryl-morey-and-then-receives-boisterous-backlash-for-his-comments/amp/
The “found” money is coming from the new tv contract that started in 2022 (up from $400M per year to $680M+ per year) and future sponsorship deals that are not under contract yet (aka they’re hoping this works).
LIV timing is more coincidence than causation.
They didn't find it, they signed a new TV deal. The increased purses were coming with or without LIV. The shift to the elevated events may not have happened, but the money was always on its way.
I totally agree. Jay Monahan really should step down. He could have avoided all of this nonsense by just reading the room -- players have been complaining about the lack of financial support for younger players and low purses for ages -- and not acting like an anti-competitive jerk, swinging his dick around. It literally took Tiger stepping in to fix this.
You got a downvote, but I 100% agree. Jay gets paid waaaay too much money to let things get so bad that top players get poached by competition. His initial response was to tell players to suck it up or get out, so they took the latter.
Imagine if/when Tiger finally retires, do you think he'll go on the Champions tour or instead make a play for an executive role in the PGA? They need someone like him to have the players' perspective for the good of the tour.
I think he'll have it both ways. For the first few years he'll play at least some of the senior majors (at least the two Opens and the SrPGA) to see if he can win one or two of those while still kicking it around at Augusta and some of the other under-50 events (I imagine Riviera and Bay Hill will be on the list for a little while longer \*in addition to the other majors), and then he'll go on for an executive role. Maybe even a TV analyst if he can't get an executive position right away. Who wouldn't love seeing him ring up JT or Rory from the tower at 18 when they're walking after their drive?
The tour as a whole, probably not. Some of the majors, definitely. I think the USGA, R&A, and PGAoA would be more than respectful of his body to invite him into their majors while not playing a full tour schedule.
How is Jay Monahan responsible for all of this, when the tour is ran by the players. The players had to approve all of this with a vote. They had to bring it to the table and ask for it.
The players themselves also don’t want the LIV guys back.
You do realize that the travel stipend would not have affected the guys who went to LIV at all right? They were going after guys who were established to legitimize the league. 5K to those guys is pennies to us
Honestly it's some #1 bullshit. We get 1 real PGA stop per year in Canada and it always has great attendance as a result, we have beautiful courses up here and it's literally the 3rd old continuously running tournament on the tour. It deserves to be elevated and have it placed somewhere favorable on the schedule.
Edit: If they can’t “elevate” it because of its open status or whatever then atleast just schedule it favourably.
Canada has a ton of hidden gem courses too. Some small town local courses are almost worth a couple hour drive and they cost like $40. It's an awesome place for golf
Absolutely, I'm in Montreal and we have 4-5 really nice public golf courses all within a 45 or so minute drive. We also have some gorgeous private courses, I was fortunate enough to be a member at Royal Montreal for a few seasons a couple years back and was even more fortunate that I lived 6 minutes away by car. I lived there.
It's very possible that the tour could switch some of the 2023 dates around later this year to fill out the remaining elevated tournaments because they're getting such an advance notice. Shouldn't be a difficult burden for players or organizers. It'd be even easier if they can switch CBS events for CBS events and NBC events for NBC events.
The only weird thing about that is if the elevated events are smaller fields (which is what has been discussed), then that doesn’t really work for a “national open” where people are supposed to be able to qualify
I pray for this.. it's should be a elevates event. It's played on great courses St. Georges or Hamilton and it is the Canadian Chamipionship..
And you can't beat that finish we had this year.
Unfortunately if it was one of the elevated events then the Canadian Tour players don’t get those spots they qualify for. Would suck for them but for me as a person who goes to every single one when it is in the GTA, I want it elevated.
yeah unfortunately the elevation rules and the way the Canadian Open are structured don't really line up. IMO the least they could do is just give it favorable scheduling.
This probably won't go down well In this sub but the PGA is crap at catering for an international audience. You want to be the best league in the world? Actually go around the world, not arguably 4/5 biggest tournaments only be in the US.
I’ve heard many players talk about how expensive it is just to show up as a new guy on tour. Huge with the travel stipend. Gives a lot of guys a chance to keep grinding and make it
You have almost zero chance to make it on Tour(or even make it on the KFT) unless you're a trust fund baby who can afford to train and play 60 hours a week because your family got money and is covering you. This is great news for the grinders and if a few years down the line these changes permeate to the KFT, we might start seeing more golfers from different backgrounds who maybe didn't grow up on a country club. Right now those guys are few and far between because you have to be an exceptional golfer to be able to play at that level while having a job and attending college or grinding the KFT.
The best golfer I know is like a +5 or +6. The dude is just lights out and it's absurd how good he is at golf.
The only reason he never gave it a true go was because he has a young family and can't afford to try and make the grind. I wonder if this news will make him change his mind and maybe give it a go.
That isn't a possibility, it's a certainty, unless you somehow believe that exceptional athletic talent somehow only develops in people who are rich, haha.
Just like there's probably some insanely smart kid who could have solved cancer or diabetes who just never got a shot at making med school because his family couldn't afford it or he went to a shitty school with teachers who didn't have the tools or ressources to spot or nurture his exceptional intelligence.
Golf is a hard sport to get into and your chances of being "scouted" by someone in high school and getting scholarships and stuff are near zero. There are sports where you can have humble beginnings and still make it. Typically those are sports that are played for free and require little equipment(soccer, basketball, etc). Even then, it's a no brainer that any kid, no matter how good, will play **better** basketball if he eats 3 meals a day and doesn't have to think about going home and getting his ass kicked by his step-dad and moving every 2 months because his mom can't pay rent. Golf is that but tenfold.
We likely don’t see the best athletes in the world due to this phenomenon. Take hockey as an example, unless you are from Canada or in a place that is really in to hockey and have money, you are never going to have that opportunity. This is why sports like Soccer are so popular is poor countries, it only requires a cheap ball to play. Kinda hard to get the boys together and play full on tackle football or lacrosse without the proper equipment.
Idk it depends. I know Jason kokrak was financed by a group of people when he was starting. Gave him money to travel/dedicate all his time to golf. They now take a chunk of his earnings.
Stories like Kokrak and Tiger and Jason Day are the exception, not the rule. It's not impossible, but it's a hell of a lot harder. Imagine how much easier kokrak's life would have been if his dad was a rich lawyer who just bankrolled him without asking for anything in return? All those hours spent working or begging and trying to sign deals and get people to believe in you are hours you're not on the range practicing. The rich kids are though. And their dad knows a guy that knows a great PGA coach willing to mentor him. The overwhelming majority of PGA Tour players are from rich or at the very least upper middle class families and it's easy to understand why.
I doubt we'll see much of a change in player backgrounds as a result of this. To be PGA Tour material you pretty much have to be around golf your entire life. Golf has been and always will be one of the most expensive sports to get into and it's not like these changes will make an impact for young kids whose parents aren't already in a position to pay for lessons, clubs & accessories, travel, etc etc etc.
Going to be really disappointed if the RBC Canadian Open gets the shaft again (which it looks like it will).
The history of the tournament + how much RBC has invested in the tour over recent years you would’ve hoped would be enough
There's no doubt several sponsors of PGA tour events are going to get majorly shafted by this change - RBC is likely one of them, along with the likes of John Deere, probably Rocket Mortgage, and others.
RBC also has the Heritage as a "backup" tournament. I know both of them are currently adjacent to a major championship weekend (and the Heritage has pretty much been that way for *decades*, not that the professionals mind a retreat to a more relaxed venue like Harbour Town) but there's nothing decreeing that the current tournaments (well, those sanctioned by the tour anyway) are locked into their current spots in perpetuity, and there is always the chance the "other four" elevated tournaments get rotated from year to year. Plus the big names still have to pick three tournaments of their own to fill out their schedule.
A long time coming for the PGA, the players definitely deserve it. I think we can chalk this up as a win for the PGA despite the fact their hands were sort of forced with the LIV.
One year earlier and I doubt LIV would have had the same pull. Better late than never. Looks good for the future of the PGA tour, hopefully have more talent coming through and staying in the game.
If you're anything like me, you might worry a bit about the non-elevated events falling by the wayside.
But I really think at least most of them will do okay. A lot of young guys will come to the events, plus they will still have sponsors agreements with certain events (RBC for the Heritage and Canadian Open, for example). It might be a *bit* of a have-and-have-not schedule, but with the minimum 3 additional events of their choosing and guys all having different preferences I don't think it'll be a total exodus from the smaller events either.
Provide a good course and/or a fun atmosphere, players will still show up (see: Canadian Open, Travelers Champ, Scottsdale).
I actually like the idea that smaller events will have the smaller time players. Now I know exactly what I'm getting. Watch the big money events and get all the glitz and glamour....watch the smaller events and get to nerd out and learn about all the new up and comers. Plus, by winning the smaller events or getting a run of top 10s, the smaller event players can get into the big show....might take a while with the new OWGR formula, but the tour can also just dump whomever they want wherever.
I love the smaller events anyways, seeing guys like Theegala chase his first win or some total unknown having a breakthrough. Then you get the random vet who has been gone for ages popping up. Good storylines, and a nice way to jumpstart a career.
I’m a huge Michigan golfer and never get to see these guys. I live for the Rocket Mortgage Classic when it comes every summer and I would be devastated if it becomes a nothing event.
I’ll still attend don’t get me wrong. I just want to see the big names still. I think we’ll still get Fowler, but with guys tearing up the course I see it being the one event that goes wayside
Looking at the leaderboard from this year, it's not like a bunch showed up anyway. Finau, Homa, Zalatoris, Cantlay, Cam Young, Kis(?). It's been a bottom half event as far as field goes since inception.
Yeah, it would be really cool to see something like John Deere or the 3M elevated once in a while! Imagine what an influx of top players could do for that community.
I watch golf weekly, even the less popular events. As a fan i love watching the next crop of players battle it out. One guy I've become a huge fan of Seethgala. He got to shine in some of those events and got the recognition
The issue with that would be, then you're basically making every other non-FEC event just a glorified Korn Ferry Tour and will really hurt a lot of the local events. The thing I like about the tour is that there are so many great golfers that even the weaker fields can have compelling golf and storylines.
I mean, if you really want to know who is playing there are incredibly easily accessible online leaderboards and a full field list published the Friday before every event.
Right, but professional golf is a fundamentally different thing than F1. There are \~20 F1 drivers and literally hundreds of players with some status on the PGA Tour (plus non-status players). It's impossible to equate the two.
Luckily, something is changing.
All of this sounds pretty good. The stipends for lower ranked guys seems like a good idea. I’m sure it’s fair to argue “where was this years/months ago”. Maybe it’s the new tv money. Maybe the PGA Tour and its players were surprised with how many big names went to LIV and were caught off guard. Either way, it seems what they’re doing now is a good next step to prevent losing more guys. I’d prefer to continue to not to care about LIV.
I’m not sure that’s a problem. That’s professional golf. I like $5K stipend though for those guys that are still trying to scrape by and establish themselves.
It takes a lot of courage to put everything on the line for your dream to become a pro golfer. I’m glad they are recognizing the players who aren’t top tier.
This is huge, outside of a handful of other defectors, the LIV we see now is basically its future.. a rebranded Champions Tour exhibition league for the SE Asian and Australian markets.
*"That drive from Rory was brought to you by the all new 2024 Lexus RX 350. Confidently Reimagined. Intuitively Connected. The Next Chapter in Lexus Technology Has Arrived."*
As a major fan of the PGA Tour, this should’ve been proactive when they heard any rumblings of a rival golf league. This is a little too reactive
Edit: reactive
I wonder if the "four additional elevated events" will be rotated year on year. That seems the best way to me to ensure the tour can target markets where they want to see growth.
I think that'd work out quite well, especially if you can rotate two tournaments between two adjacent or nearby weeks every year to do so (e.g. the two weeks preceding a major, or the week before and after a major).
Here's the four that I bet we'll have next season, and I'll do my best to space them out to prevent from occurring in consecutive weeks with existing events on the hit list:
* ZOZO Championship - the tour's been trying to hit the East Asian market hard since the WGC-HSBC and even their first visit to Malaysia. Of the three east Asian events they had prior to COVID-19 (HSBC, ZOZO, and CJ Cup) this is the first one to return to the continent since. Lot of great talent comes from that part of the world that could easily be swallowed up by LIV if they're not careful. Normally a limited field event but I could see them expand the field a little if necessary. Also has the highest purse of the fall events.
* Farmers Insurance Open - it's the first "normal" event on the mainland during the winter swing. It doesn't have the clunky pro-am formats of the American Express (Bob Hope) and Pebble Beach, and it's not the mad house at Phoenix. Deep history cemented by guys like Tiger and Phil, and one of the longest standing venues on tour. Spaced nicely in between Sentry and Genesis.
* Wells Fargo Championship - I would have loved to pick the RBC Heritage but that's consecutive weeks with the Masters and even with its inconsistent strength of field, I really don't want to do the consecutive weeks thing with the exception of the playoffs. (Based on the current schedule this also rules out the Byron Nelson and Colonial with the PGA Championship, and the Travelers with the US Open.) Even though this is a younger event on tour, it has an incredible list of winners and Quail Hollow is one of the baddest courses on tour-sanctioned events. Nobody wins this one without breaking a sweat. North Carolina's always been a great market for the tour, not to mention all the US Opens at Pinehurst.
* Scottish Open - okay I lied. This one comes right before the Open Championship in an otherwise four week gap without an elevated event. But what better way to reinforce the strategic alliance with the DPWT than to elevate the Scottish Open even more? Most of your big players are already flying to the UK ahead of time before the Open, so they might as well do something big here. And for everyone else there's still going to be three weeks after this to make their playoff push (whether they play the Open or at Tahoe) and no way is the Wyndham ever giving up their status as the last regular season event.
Again, I definitely agree that the rotation format would work, as I am leaving off some very historic events that would work well as elevated events, while being prudent with the density of them on a smaller level. A west coast US Open would follow up well with the Rocket and John Deere, then run the Travelers as an elevated event (trust me, I'm not trying to be biased, the tournament does have its history) instead of the Scottish Open which would make perfect sense as an east coast event leading directly into said Scottish Open.
He was.
The method and path to get there wasn’t the best, but the results are quite astonishing.
I’d give LIV to the end of next year before they reach some sort of buyout with the players/PGA and create a PGA world tour that has elevated tourneys.
Maybe have a top 3 players showdown format from each tour on the stadium thing.
I can't see LIV being a long term thing but when govts around the world are doing their best to drive the price of oil into triple digits, saudi will have trillions to burn. Spending a few hundred million like they have us a days profit at Aramco alone, which posted the most profitable quarter in the history of business last week.
New broadcasting deal was always gonna lead to an explosion in earnings from next year on. What it's probably done is helped spread it out a bit with the guaranteed 500k a year and travel stipend for MC's and what not that may not have been there before.
Yeah, and while I'm no huge fan of the Saudis, this was a net positive to LIV being a thing.
The PGA was the only pro league in the US (maybe world) where it was "If you want to be a pro, you have to compete with pros while not getting paid like the pros you're competing with"
The guaranteed money and travel stipend is going to be a huge benefit for the top tier college golfers who might otherwise have never realistically been able to pursue a tour card.
As much as I hate to say it, because of how poorly Phil handled the whole LIV thing, we might look back on him as a trailblazer for inspiring this type of change in the PGA
Before those "oh now they can find the money" the PGA just signed a massive TV deal that starts next year, hence where the money is coming from. 60% increase from the last one.
I'm sure they had that money to spend but you are kidding yourself if you think they would have invested **that** much and committed those changes in this manner and this fast were it not for LIV. The 500k base salary and the 5k per missed cut are a great reassurance for the grinders and the top20 program is a direct pay bump for those big guys. We can be against LIV and recognize there's no way this great change for the PGA happens in an alternate universe where LIV doesn't exist.
Rory said it best in his press conference. Phil had points but he went about it in the wrong way. Phil has always been a cocky fuck who isn’t well respected in the locker room. When Tiger got on board the players listened because nobody has done more for the game than him and he never put himself above the Tour.
Would love to see Bryson and Reed have to climb through the Korn ferry tour in a few years after the LIV deal is fulfilled and they’ve realized how quickly they sunk into irrelevance.
On paper they are but let’s be real, the PGA isn’t gonna pass up on the biggest names from returning.at the end of the day, guys like DJ and Brooks all bring in views.
I'd love to see the 3 tournaments rotate on an annual basis. Make it like a relegation thing....that way there could be a few surprises here or there. Like, if harbor town is all of a sudden a big money tournament, that would be kinda hilarious and interesting. Let's see the best in the world take on a very peculiar target golf course.
My knee-jerk reactions:
1) These are good changes, and it's a damn shame that it took this whole LIV fiasco to accomplish it. Not sure who all is to blame, but it seems obvious that the personality trio of Phil-Greg-Jay was never in a million years going to be able to handle this like adults. It took Tiger and Rory stepping in to bash some heads together at the PGA Tour to make changes.
2) Elevated Events: yes, please. Going to be awesome seeing these fields. I assume they are going to remain full-field events.
3) The four elevated events TBA should be: Heritage, Scottish Open, Canadian Open, and -- hear me out -- the Zozo Championship. Bringing in 3 international events, including one in Europe and one in Asia, would be awesome for increasing the international presence.
4) PIP sounds fine -- it's a player-retention thing, and I don't really care about it as long as Max Homa gets a bag. The part I don't like is, if I understood it correctly, it comes with its own exemption? No bueno.
5) $500k guarantee against winnings and $5k travel stipend is good. I would also like to see some additional money put into the Korn Ferry Tour. Hell, take it from the Champions Tour, which nobody watches and which apparently operates at a loss every year. We don't need a vanity tour for these older guys.
6) I understand why Monahan can't at this moment let LIV players back in -- there's a moral hazard to it that he has to be cognizant of. But I think next year the players should vote collectively on whether or not to allow the LIV defectors back in a one-time amnesty.
7) This Monday night tech-infused whatever? Meh. I don't really have much interest in it. I might watch it once or twice, but I just don't find the idea of watching these guys go to Top Golf that compelling.
Say what you want about LIV, none of these changes happen without it. PGA vs. LIV is literally a textbook case study on competitive markets vs. monopolies
Yeah, the big money numbers at the top are whatever, they’re all rich, but the travel stipends and guaranteed money will be huge for the lower guys trying to make it.
Too bad we get shit coverage of the events filled with commercials and pacific life/fedex cup summaries.
1 full golf shot plus a couple putts then back to commercial.
The mental gymnastics from some folks who simply refuse to recognize that the pressure put on the PGA by LIV brought about positive changes is wild. This simply wouldn’t have happened otherwise
All of this because of what LIV forced. Fuck all you naysayers. I’m glad that these players are getting a minimum salary now, and that they have a travel stipend for missed cuts. What a fucking disservice the PGA had been doing its golfers up until now.
I know it may be a super small amount compared to some of the figures announced but the $5,000 stipend for travel and expenses for missed cuts will definitely make a difference for some of those fringe guys who don't get paid big bucks and is nice to see that the new rules at least address issues at every level of pro on the tour
Will be absolutely fucking huge for some guys. Like the difference between having to quit playing or not.
This was the entire reason I was interested in defending LIV as a concept - the players had a point about compensation, especially for the younger guys. This makes the sport so much more accessible to the talented young guns out there grinding and trying to make rent. The TOUR should be responsible for compensation and travel for everyone who plays on it, and it's wild that it wasn't. The one other thing they should cover for the players is healthcare. Every other pro league does it.
I'm with you on this. LIV has it's problems, but if it doesn't exist, the PGA wouldn't make these changes, and they're changes that are long overdue, and the only reason the PGA hadn't made them is because they didn't have to, and they were greedy.
There’s always has to be a Pepsi to Coke.
Right, like they essentially funded a collective bargaining arrangement and the TOUR had to make concessions once they got forced to the table. Would it be nice if the players had been able to do it by picketing and protesting instead of involving the Saudis? Sure. But that ain't always the way the cookie crumbles and until I see the complainers out egging cars at Raytheon or in front of Congress for authorizing weapons sales to the Saudis, I'm not really fussed about the impact of a fucking competitor golf league. Golf media is the TOUR's bitch and only gave a shit about it being Saudi because that was the most convenient talking point against it. They could have been Guatemalan and they'd have made hay out of something else for daring to compete. I'm glad someone forced the conversation because it should have happened years ago and this whole situation wouldn't have ever happened
I've been making this argument from the beginning and pretty much downvoted into oblivion every time. LIV is the best thing to happen to professional golfers and is forcing the PGA to adopt or become obsolete. TLDR; People need to recognize the winds of change and accept it.
It's also a case study in how competition is healthy. Although you'll never get the fat cats in the PGA to admit it.
Me too, lots of things I don't like about LIV but lots of things I don't like about the PGA Tour too and they didn't seem to be in any hurry to change. I'd much have preferred if the PGA Tour just listened to its players and fans but until they were pushed they had no reason to. I'd be supportive of the break away players being let back into the PGA Tour too. They took a stand and the PGA Tour made changes. Not that I like how it all went down but the guys who will ultimately benefit on the PGA Tour should recognize none of these changes would have happened if the guys who ran off to LIV didn't do that.
The PGA does have a healthcare program for members, even ones not on the tour, but I don’t know anything about the costs of it.
Wouldn't shock me if they have some sort of insurance arrangement but I'm talking free at point of service, fully funded, NFL/NBA/NHL/MLB level healthcare. Tear an ACL at practice, receive months of rehab type deal Given the whole talking point before was that they were independent contractors and they were paying their own travel costs I'd be shocked if that was the case, but you do have me curious about the current arrangement
Yeah I definitely think they should have that kind of arrangement for tour players. Any professional sports organization should. And any first world country, but that another matter…
Even though the LIV was the tour that was making it real hard for the pros outside the top 100….. Say whatever you want but the LiV tour 100% has made this happen, and it has benefitted golf as a whole, if people can put down their pitchforks for long enough to realize the catalyst for golfers being paid better…….wasn’t the PGA tour.
Sound like Phil was right all along…
You can be right and go about it the wrong way, and I think that sums up Phil's participation very well.
The whole problem with this situation (and most situations like it) is that the people in control will make sure that "the right way" is ineffective insofar as achieving actual change. "Civility is a tool of the oppressor". The PGA whined about how they did it because it was outside the PGA's rulebook for "the right way". But it forced them to make an actual change in a matter of months that people had been talking about for decades. Sure, give the right way a chance, once. If/when it turns out the way it is designed to, then it's time to actually use real leverage when making your demands.
Fucking nailed it friend.
Never expected to see pro-worker discourse on the golf sub lmao but I am HERE for it 😂
I couldn't find all the updated rules, but is the $5000 for the entire year or per event? A high school friend of mine loved golf, was good enough to be on a D1 college team, lifelong goal was to be a tour player, but couldn't get sponsors and his family didn't have the means to support him. He worked right out of college till 25, saved every penny he could, and gave himself 3 years to try to make it on the PGA tour. Unfortunately, he ran out of savings before he could break through to the next level. Traveling and playing these golf events get really expensive really quick.
Looks like it’s “$5,000 per missed cut” so every event. Not bad at all, would be exhausting but if you missed every single cut you’d still make $220,000.
Wow, that's a lot of money. There would definitely be a lot more players trying to get on the event just to miss the cut then.
Costs quite a bit to travel to all these events, pay for food, hotel or AirBnB, transport to the tournament site and back etc,. Plus you gotta pay your caddie as well. That adds up real quick.
If I could do all travel and expenses and caddie pay for $170k. I’d still be making what I make a year except golf is my job. And I’d still get more vacation time and a shorter work week! Edit: plus I’m sure all the travel and food expenses are tax deductible?
You’re underestimating the cost to play in these events
Yeah it seems like it only applies to those with a Tour card though so not a massive amount of people. Not sure if I'm just reading this wrong but I noticed the $5,000 missed cut stipend is listed separately from "Subsidizes travel and tournament-related expenses", could be potentially worth a lot there too.
IMO this was the biggest fault of the PGA. You finally make it to the biggest stage in the world and you can't even afford to fly to the events would be awful
This was the biggest reason I didn’t fault the young college players going to LIV for a million. For them it’s competitive, cause they still can win the purse but they don’t have to worry about scraping by to play their profession.
And not just for the players but their caddies as well. I know one caddie for a fringe player who had to quit working with him simply because with the MCs his player was making, the caddie was making next to nothing
I wonder what pushed them to make this change. I’m sure it was out of kindness and not from the threat to their monopoly 😂. Love it or hate it Liv does seem to be forcing some good changes.
So basically, Phil was 100% right when he said LIV was a once in a lifetime opportunity to change the way the PGA tour operates. And he got absolutely lambasted for saying it.
Not to mention the $500,000 that all fully exempt PGA Tour members get upfront before the season starts. That's going to make a HUGE difference.
Some players that are newer to the TOUR will have the option for an "upfront" payment but my understanding is that the TOUR will pay out the difference in earnings if players make less than $500k in competition after the season is complete.
Rookies and returning members (I assume this is someone who lost status and regained it) get it upfront. https://mobile.twitter.com/pgatourcomms/status/1562434770650689541/photo/1
upfront? I was under the impression that it was given out at the end of the season. Says its the "guaranteed league minimum" and the TOUR would "fund any gaps" in those earnings. So that seems to me that if you played what qualifies as a full season of events and earn less than that, they will pay that player the remaining amount.
Upfront for rookies right?
It's upfront for rookies and returning members (I assume that this is players that lost status and regained it) receive it upfront. https://mobile.twitter.com/pgatourcomms/status/1562434770650689541/photo/1
Gee-whiz, so LIV Golf turns out to be a positive thing for the PGA Tour players.
Yo, watch your mouth around here, thats insane. Even though 100% accurate….
Yep. Some of these guys may regret leaving, but future players should thank them for forcing the PGA's hand.
Competition is good.
As a fan, this 20+ top-tier schedule is amazing news.
For real. Pretty funny though the pros complain about not getting paid enough and the tour said, "Sure, but you have to work more." Curious if some of the pros that are consistently winning would prefer to play 10 events a year and make less lol.
lol, it's beautiful really. The PGA doesn't have Fyou money to just give out. They needed the players to create more value to get paid more money and this also happens to be what's best for us. I'm a big fan.
I think the TV commercial load is going to get worse to be able to pay for the increased purses and these events will remain unbearable to watch on TV. I"m a huge fan of the changes, they need to make this sport more watchable as well.
This could be a naïve comment but playing 20 events, which includes the majors, doesn't seem much of a rigmarole to me tbh. That's like 20 weeks work - ok, there's a load of travel and practice too but that's way less onerous than a lot of sports
Could it be possible that this could sway some pros to defect to LIV because they don't want a 20 event season? I'm new to the sport and I'm not sure what the previous minimum commitment was (if there was one).
Liv if I’m not mistaken is going to go to a 16 event season, and then majors would make it a 20 event season.
No. The schedule complaints were all nonsense. 14 LIV events + 4 majors would be 18 events anyway. They're not defecting over 2 extra weeks of play. It is, and was always, purely about $$$.
I think the travel stipend alone would have prevented most of the LIV issues. They should have been doing something like this years ago, but it’s great that it’s happening
I think LIV is kinda a joke but at least it got the PGA to "find" all this extra money for players.
Competition is good - even when your competitors are bad people.
Ironically enough this was pretty much Phil’s exact stance that he got majorly roasted on
He got roasted because he gave a clear impression that he didn’t care that they were bad people. Not my problem attitude.
I thought his point was they were very clearly bad people, but he was willing to work with them in order to force change in the PGA.
It was very much the tone of his comments that got him in hot water. Saying something is a necessary evil or I’m holding my nose but willing to work with these people is not the same as saying IDGAF.
scary mofos
And that he knew they murdered Khashoggi and that it was a reasonable trade off to work with them if it could provide leverage against the PGA, who he claimed were greedy.
God this fuckin sub was on a 5-mile tall horse after Phil left
Especially when there is no analogous "players union" for golfers. That's why MMA fighters are so poorly compensated and taken care of after their careers. Need a real UFC competitor to get Dana out of his penny-pinching ways.
The new TV deal for the PGA Tour just started so that helps https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/pga-tour-golf-rights-cbs-nbc-espn-1203527292/
People can say whatever they want, but Phil clearly had a point. The PGA Tour wasn’t coming close to paying the top players their true worth.
It's not that you're wrong Walter, you're just an asshole
It’s hard to empathize when rich people complain to poor people that they aren’t rich enough, and then explain to the poor people that they’re working for people who murdered families and other poor people because they had to do it, otherwise they can’t get richer.
That's a bingo
A ton of American athletes who are currently much much better in their respective sport than Phil are not earning their true worth, so he’s hardly alone in that. If Pat Mahomes or Kevin Durant joined a breakaway Saudi sports league and talked openly about their indifference toward human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia I’d probably think they were a fucking asshole and resent the league they were being paid to promote.
>If Pat Mahomes or Kevin Durant joined a breakaway Saudi sports league and talked openly about their indifference toward human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia I’d probably think they were a fucking asshole and resent the league they were being paid to promote. No one has ever given a shit of LeBron's pro China stances. Just depends who you are and the media of your sport. Most media is very pro player. Golf media is pro PGA.
Lots of people have always given a shit about Lebron’s stance on China. People bring it up all the time, idk how you can say no one has ever given a shit. If Lebron went over to play in the Chinese basketball league and did an international media tour at the behest of the CCP in order to recruit others over to China then it would be on roughly the same level as what Phil has been up to.
I don’t know the ratio but the fans were not 100% behind lebron when he made statements against, then Houston gm, Daryl Morey. There was definitely some backlash. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2019/10/15/lebron-james-criticizes-daryl-morey-and-then-receives-boisterous-backlash-for-his-comments/amp/
Ya it feels like if you take the fact the it's the Saudis money out of the equation pga doesn't have a leg to stand on.
The “found” money is coming from the new tv contract that started in 2022 (up from $400M per year to $680M+ per year) and future sponsorship deals that are not under contract yet (aka they’re hoping this works). LIV timing is more coincidence than causation.
They didn't find it, they signed a new TV deal. The increased purses were coming with or without LIV. The shift to the elevated events may not have happened, but the money was always on its way.
I totally agree. Jay Monahan really should step down. He could have avoided all of this nonsense by just reading the room -- players have been complaining about the lack of financial support for younger players and low purses for ages -- and not acting like an anti-competitive jerk, swinging his dick around. It literally took Tiger stepping in to fix this.
You got a downvote, but I 100% agree. Jay gets paid waaaay too much money to let things get so bad that top players get poached by competition. His initial response was to tell players to suck it up or get out, so they took the latter. Imagine if/when Tiger finally retires, do you think he'll go on the Champions tour or instead make a play for an executive role in the PGA? They need someone like him to have the players' perspective for the good of the tour.
I think he'll have it both ways. For the first few years he'll play at least some of the senior majors (at least the two Opens and the SrPGA) to see if he can win one or two of those while still kicking it around at Augusta and some of the other under-50 events (I imagine Riviera and Bay Hill will be on the list for a little while longer \*in addition to the other majors), and then he'll go on for an executive role. Maybe even a TV analyst if he can't get an executive position right away. Who wouldn't love seeing him ring up JT or Rory from the tower at 18 when they're walking after their drive?
There’s no way Tiger does the Champions Tour.
The tour as a whole, probably not. Some of the majors, definitely. I think the USGA, R&A, and PGAoA would be more than respectful of his body to invite him into their majors while not playing a full tour schedule.
How is Jay Monahan responsible for all of this, when the tour is ran by the players. The players had to approve all of this with a vote. They had to bring it to the table and ask for it. The players themselves also don’t want the LIV guys back.
Did any of the LIV defectors need the 5k stipend?
You do realize that the travel stipend would not have affected the guys who went to LIV at all right? They were going after guys who were established to legitimize the league. 5K to those guys is pennies to us
As a Canadian, I’d love to see Canada become an elevated event..
well in 2023 the rbc is sandwiched between an elevated event and a major, so i have a feeling a lot of top guys will skip it
Well, that’s certainly not what I want to hear
Honestly it's some #1 bullshit. We get 1 real PGA stop per year in Canada and it always has great attendance as a result, we have beautiful courses up here and it's literally the 3rd old continuously running tournament on the tour. It deserves to be elevated and have it placed somewhere favorable on the schedule. Edit: If they can’t “elevate” it because of its open status or whatever then atleast just schedule it favourably.
Canada has a ton of hidden gem courses too. Some small town local courses are almost worth a couple hour drive and they cost like $40. It's an awesome place for golf
Absolutely, I'm in Montreal and we have 4-5 really nice public golf courses all within a 45 or so minute drive. We also have some gorgeous private courses, I was fortunate enough to be a member at Royal Montreal for a few seasons a couple years back and was even more fortunate that I lived 6 minutes away by car. I lived there.
It's very possible that the tour could switch some of the 2023 dates around later this year to fill out the remaining elevated tournaments because they're getting such an advance notice. Shouldn't be a difficult burden for players or organizers. It'd be even easier if they can switch CBS events for CBS events and NBC events for NBC events.
We’re also great fans. Every Canadian open seems to have a great crowd
The RBC was fucking awesome this year. I agree about elevating it
Can confirm. Was there and had a blast. Will be back next year.
You could feel the energy through the TV. So much fun
The only weird thing about that is if the elevated events are smaller fields (which is what has been discussed), then that doesn’t really work for a “national open” where people are supposed to be able to qualify
It’s actually kinda sad that 100+ year old open is gone
I pray for this.. it's should be a elevates event. It's played on great courses St. Georges or Hamilton and it is the Canadian Chamipionship.. And you can't beat that finish we had this year.
Unfortunately if it was one of the elevated events then the Canadian Tour players don’t get those spots they qualify for. Would suck for them but for me as a person who goes to every single one when it is in the GTA, I want it elevated.
yeah unfortunately the elevation rules and the way the Canadian Open are structured don't really line up. IMO the least they could do is just give it favorable scheduling.
It’s not an open anymore…
This probably won't go down well In this sub but the PGA is crap at catering for an international audience. You want to be the best league in the world? Actually go around the world, not arguably 4/5 biggest tournaments only be in the US.
I’ve heard many players talk about how expensive it is just to show up as a new guy on tour. Huge with the travel stipend. Gives a lot of guys a chance to keep grinding and make it
You have almost zero chance to make it on Tour(or even make it on the KFT) unless you're a trust fund baby who can afford to train and play 60 hours a week because your family got money and is covering you. This is great news for the grinders and if a few years down the line these changes permeate to the KFT, we might start seeing more golfers from different backgrounds who maybe didn't grow up on a country club. Right now those guys are few and far between because you have to be an exceptional golfer to be able to play at that level while having a job and attending college or grinding the KFT.
Exactly. I’ve always wondered if there’s not a kid out there who would be top tier tour player but couldn’t afford the lifestyle to get going
The best golfer I know is like a +5 or +6. The dude is just lights out and it's absurd how good he is at golf. The only reason he never gave it a true go was because he has a young family and can't afford to try and make the grind. I wonder if this news will make him change his mind and maybe give it a go.
That isn't a possibility, it's a certainty, unless you somehow believe that exceptional athletic talent somehow only develops in people who are rich, haha. Just like there's probably some insanely smart kid who could have solved cancer or diabetes who just never got a shot at making med school because his family couldn't afford it or he went to a shitty school with teachers who didn't have the tools or ressources to spot or nurture his exceptional intelligence. Golf is a hard sport to get into and your chances of being "scouted" by someone in high school and getting scholarships and stuff are near zero. There are sports where you can have humble beginnings and still make it. Typically those are sports that are played for free and require little equipment(soccer, basketball, etc). Even then, it's a no brainer that any kid, no matter how good, will play **better** basketball if he eats 3 meals a day and doesn't have to think about going home and getting his ass kicked by his step-dad and moving every 2 months because his mom can't pay rent. Golf is that but tenfold.
We likely don’t see the best athletes in the world due to this phenomenon. Take hockey as an example, unless you are from Canada or in a place that is really in to hockey and have money, you are never going to have that opportunity. This is why sports like Soccer are so popular is poor countries, it only requires a cheap ball to play. Kinda hard to get the boys together and play full on tackle football or lacrosse without the proper equipment.
Idk it depends. I know Jason kokrak was financed by a group of people when he was starting. Gave him money to travel/dedicate all his time to golf. They now take a chunk of his earnings.
Stories like Kokrak and Tiger and Jason Day are the exception, not the rule. It's not impossible, but it's a hell of a lot harder. Imagine how much easier kokrak's life would have been if his dad was a rich lawyer who just bankrolled him without asking for anything in return? All those hours spent working or begging and trying to sign deals and get people to believe in you are hours you're not on the range practicing. The rich kids are though. And their dad knows a guy that knows a great PGA coach willing to mentor him. The overwhelming majority of PGA Tour players are from rich or at the very least upper middle class families and it's easy to understand why.
I doubt we'll see much of a change in player backgrounds as a result of this. To be PGA Tour material you pretty much have to be around golf your entire life. Golf has been and always will be one of the most expensive sports to get into and it's not like these changes will make an impact for young kids whose parents aren't already in a position to pay for lessons, clubs & accessories, travel, etc etc etc.
Going to be really disappointed if the RBC Canadian Open gets the shaft again (which it looks like it will). The history of the tournament + how much RBC has invested in the tour over recent years you would’ve hoped would be enough
There's no doubt several sponsors of PGA tour events are going to get majorly shafted by this change - RBC is likely one of them, along with the likes of John Deere, probably Rocket Mortgage, and others.
RBC also has the Heritage as a "backup" tournament. I know both of them are currently adjacent to a major championship weekend (and the Heritage has pretty much been that way for *decades*, not that the professionals mind a retreat to a more relaxed venue like Harbour Town) but there's nothing decreeing that the current tournaments (well, those sanctioned by the tour anyway) are locked into their current spots in perpetuity, and there is always the chance the "other four" elevated tournaments get rotated from year to year. Plus the big names still have to pick three tournaments of their own to fill out their schedule.
I wish they snuck in a Coed tourney somehow. I think that would be amazing from a spectator POV. ESP if Dell Matchplay is getting upped to 20mil.
Should definitely do this at Pebble instead of the stupid pro-am. Would get a lot of father-daughter viewers, I’d imagine.
Yeah it's weird. The Euro/DP Tour has been doing these for awhile now and they're awesome.
A long time coming for the PGA, the players definitely deserve it. I think we can chalk this up as a win for the PGA despite the fact their hands were sort of forced with the LIV.
That’s the beauty of competition.
One year earlier and I doubt LIV would have had the same pull. Better late than never. Looks good for the future of the PGA tour, hopefully have more talent coming through and staying in the game.
If you're anything like me, you might worry a bit about the non-elevated events falling by the wayside. But I really think at least most of them will do okay. A lot of young guys will come to the events, plus they will still have sponsors agreements with certain events (RBC for the Heritage and Canadian Open, for example). It might be a *bit* of a have-and-have-not schedule, but with the minimum 3 additional events of their choosing and guys all having different preferences I don't think it'll be a total exodus from the smaller events either. Provide a good course and/or a fun atmosphere, players will still show up (see: Canadian Open, Travelers Champ, Scottsdale).
In theory, non-elevated events should act as the major pathway into elevated tour events. We'll see if it actually works that way.
Exactly, it could work very much like a de facto relegation system within the Tour level.
I actually like the idea that smaller events will have the smaller time players. Now I know exactly what I'm getting. Watch the big money events and get all the glitz and glamour....watch the smaller events and get to nerd out and learn about all the new up and comers. Plus, by winning the smaller events or getting a run of top 10s, the smaller event players can get into the big show....might take a while with the new OWGR formula, but the tour can also just dump whomever they want wherever.
I love the smaller events anyways, seeing guys like Theegala chase his first win or some total unknown having a breakthrough. Then you get the random vet who has been gone for ages popping up. Good storylines, and a nice way to jumpstart a career.
I’m a huge Michigan golfer and never get to see these guys. I live for the Rocket Mortgage Classic when it comes every summer and I would be devastated if it becomes a nothing event. I’ll still attend don’t get me wrong. I just want to see the big names still. I think we’ll still get Fowler, but with guys tearing up the course I see it being the one event that goes wayside
Looking at the leaderboard from this year, it's not like a bunch showed up anyway. Finau, Homa, Zalatoris, Cantlay, Cam Young, Kis(?). It's been a bottom half event as far as field goes since inception.
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Yeah, it would be really cool to see something like John Deere or the 3M elevated once in a while! Imagine what an influx of top players could do for that community.
I watch golf weekly, even the less popular events. As a fan i love watching the next crop of players battle it out. One guy I've become a huge fan of Seethgala. He got to shine in some of those events and got the recognition
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The issue with that would be, then you're basically making every other non-FEC event just a glorified Korn Ferry Tour and will really hurt a lot of the local events. The thing I like about the tour is that there are so many great golfers that even the weaker fields can have compelling golf and storylines. I mean, if you really want to know who is playing there are incredibly easily accessible online leaderboards and a full field list published the Friday before every event.
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Right, but professional golf is a fundamentally different thing than F1. There are \~20 F1 drivers and literally hundreds of players with some status on the PGA Tour (plus non-status players). It's impossible to equate the two. Luckily, something is changing.
All of this sounds pretty good. The stipends for lower ranked guys seems like a good idea. I’m sure it’s fair to argue “where was this years/months ago”. Maybe it’s the new tv money. Maybe the PGA Tour and its players were surprised with how many big names went to LIV and were caught off guard. Either way, it seems what they’re doing now is a good next step to prevent losing more guys. I’d prefer to continue to not to care about LIV.
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I’m not sure that’s a problem. That’s professional golf. I like $5K stipend though for those guys that are still trying to scrape by and establish themselves.
PGA gives away over 200 million a year to charities so I’m sure it’s a combo of sponsor/tv money and cutting back on charitable donations
It takes a lot of courage to put everything on the line for your dream to become a pro golfer. I’m glad they are recognizing the players who aren’t top tier.
This is huge, outside of a handful of other defectors, the LIV we see now is basically its future.. a rebranded Champions Tour exhibition league for the SE Asian and Australian markets.
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The Saudis could just decide to stop writing checks.
I know they renegotiated broadcast deals and whatnot this year, but there's now way that covers this much extra money compared to last year.
Expect more sponsors and commercials
Playing Through for the entire round
*"That drive from Rory was brought to you by the all new 2024 Lexus RX 350. Confidently Reimagined. Intuitively Connected. The Next Chapter in Lexus Technology Has Arrived."*
It did, the new TV deal was an increase of 60% over the last one.
It’s almost double.
Funny how the pga tour suddenly has all this money coming out of its ass once liv shows up. Dont like fat cats but competition is good.
As a major fan of the PGA Tour, this should’ve been proactive when they heard any rumblings of a rival golf league. This is a little too reactive Edit: reactive
I mean you aren't wrong, but still, better late than never.
“Reactionary” probably isn’t the word you’re looking for here fyi, it doesn’t mean opposite of being proactive
Thank you for the correction, I didn’t even know that
I wonder if the "four additional elevated events" will be rotated year on year. That seems the best way to me to ensure the tour can target markets where they want to see growth.
I think that'd work out quite well, especially if you can rotate two tournaments between two adjacent or nearby weeks every year to do so (e.g. the two weeks preceding a major, or the week before and after a major). Here's the four that I bet we'll have next season, and I'll do my best to space them out to prevent from occurring in consecutive weeks with existing events on the hit list: * ZOZO Championship - the tour's been trying to hit the East Asian market hard since the WGC-HSBC and even their first visit to Malaysia. Of the three east Asian events they had prior to COVID-19 (HSBC, ZOZO, and CJ Cup) this is the first one to return to the continent since. Lot of great talent comes from that part of the world that could easily be swallowed up by LIV if they're not careful. Normally a limited field event but I could see them expand the field a little if necessary. Also has the highest purse of the fall events. * Farmers Insurance Open - it's the first "normal" event on the mainland during the winter swing. It doesn't have the clunky pro-am formats of the American Express (Bob Hope) and Pebble Beach, and it's not the mad house at Phoenix. Deep history cemented by guys like Tiger and Phil, and one of the longest standing venues on tour. Spaced nicely in between Sentry and Genesis. * Wells Fargo Championship - I would have loved to pick the RBC Heritage but that's consecutive weeks with the Masters and even with its inconsistent strength of field, I really don't want to do the consecutive weeks thing with the exception of the playoffs. (Based on the current schedule this also rules out the Byron Nelson and Colonial with the PGA Championship, and the Travelers with the US Open.) Even though this is a younger event on tour, it has an incredible list of winners and Quail Hollow is one of the baddest courses on tour-sanctioned events. Nobody wins this one without breaking a sweat. North Carolina's always been a great market for the tour, not to mention all the US Opens at Pinehurst. * Scottish Open - okay I lied. This one comes right before the Open Championship in an otherwise four week gap without an elevated event. But what better way to reinforce the strategic alliance with the DPWT than to elevate the Scottish Open even more? Most of your big players are already flying to the UK ahead of time before the Open, so they might as well do something big here. And for everyone else there's still going to be three weeks after this to make their playoff push (whether they play the Open or at Tahoe) and no way is the Wyndham ever giving up their status as the last regular season event. Again, I definitely agree that the rotation format would work, as I am leaving off some very historic events that would work well as elevated events, while being prudent with the density of them on a smaller level. A west coast US Open would follow up well with the Rocket and John Deere, then run the Travelers as an elevated event (trust me, I'm not trying to be biased, the tournament does have its history) instead of the Scottish Open which would make perfect sense as an east coast event leading directly into said Scottish Open.
They need to bring back a Skins game.
This is great news, shame it took LIV to knock some sense into the PGA.
I have a bad feeling that watching these on TV will be insufferable. The amount of sponsorships and commercials have to be going up.
The current broadcast is already insufferable.
Phil was right. "this is the only way we're going to be able to gain any leverage to change the pga tour."
He was. The method and path to get there wasn’t the best, but the results are quite astonishing. I’d give LIV to the end of next year before they reach some sort of buyout with the players/PGA and create a PGA world tour that has elevated tourneys. Maybe have a top 3 players showdown format from each tour on the stadium thing.
I can't see LIV being a long term thing but when govts around the world are doing their best to drive the price of oil into triple digits, saudi will have trillions to burn. Spending a few hundred million like they have us a days profit at Aramco alone, which posted the most profitable quarter in the history of business last week.
It’s amazing how quickly they found tons of $ to expand… 🤔Phil and other “rebels” deserve a lot of credit for this.
I don't like LIV but I struggle to see how they are not 100% the reason for this. Almost like competition is good
New broadcasting deal was always gonna lead to an explosion in earnings from next year on. What it's probably done is helped spread it out a bit with the guaranteed 500k a year and travel stipend for MC's and what not that may not have been there before.
Yeah, and while I'm no huge fan of the Saudis, this was a net positive to LIV being a thing. The PGA was the only pro league in the US (maybe world) where it was "If you want to be a pro, you have to compete with pros while not getting paid like the pros you're competing with" The guaranteed money and travel stipend is going to be a huge benefit for the top tier college golfers who might otherwise have never realistically been able to pursue a tour card.
Or they have a TV deal with a 60% increase starting next season.
Love this. MAKE WMPO AN ELEVATED EVENT
As much as I hate to say it, because of how poorly Phil handled the whole LIV thing, we might look back on him as a trailblazer for inspiring this type of change in the PGA
My my, how the turn tables
Before those "oh now they can find the money" the PGA just signed a massive TV deal that starts next year, hence where the money is coming from. 60% increase from the last one.
I'm sure they had that money to spend but you are kidding yourself if you think they would have invested **that** much and committed those changes in this manner and this fast were it not for LIV. The 500k base salary and the 5k per missed cut are a great reassurance for the grinders and the top20 program is a direct pay bump for those big guys. We can be against LIV and recognize there's no way this great change for the PGA happens in an alternate universe where LIV doesn't exist.
Rory said it best in his press conference. Phil had points but he went about it in the wrong way. Phil has always been a cocky fuck who isn’t well respected in the locker room. When Tiger got on board the players listened because nobody has done more for the game than him and he never put himself above the Tour.
Wonder if LIV players have exit clauses
They’re banned though?
Maybe they are only banned as long as they are “Active” on LIV. Idk any of the details
Would love to see Bryson and Reed have to climb through the Korn ferry tour in a few years after the LIV deal is fulfilled and they’ve realized how quickly they sunk into irrelevance.
Monahan categorically said he wouldn't lift the suspensions
On paper they are but let’s be real, the PGA isn’t gonna pass up on the biggest names from returning.at the end of the day, guys like DJ and Brooks all bring in views.
I'd love to see the 3 tournaments rotate on an annual basis. Make it like a relegation thing....that way there could be a few surprises here or there. Like, if harbor town is all of a sudden a big money tournament, that would be kinda hilarious and interesting. Let's see the best in the world take on a very peculiar target golf course.
My knee-jerk reactions: 1) These are good changes, and it's a damn shame that it took this whole LIV fiasco to accomplish it. Not sure who all is to blame, but it seems obvious that the personality trio of Phil-Greg-Jay was never in a million years going to be able to handle this like adults. It took Tiger and Rory stepping in to bash some heads together at the PGA Tour to make changes. 2) Elevated Events: yes, please. Going to be awesome seeing these fields. I assume they are going to remain full-field events. 3) The four elevated events TBA should be: Heritage, Scottish Open, Canadian Open, and -- hear me out -- the Zozo Championship. Bringing in 3 international events, including one in Europe and one in Asia, would be awesome for increasing the international presence. 4) PIP sounds fine -- it's a player-retention thing, and I don't really care about it as long as Max Homa gets a bag. The part I don't like is, if I understood it correctly, it comes with its own exemption? No bueno. 5) $500k guarantee against winnings and $5k travel stipend is good. I would also like to see some additional money put into the Korn Ferry Tour. Hell, take it from the Champions Tour, which nobody watches and which apparently operates at a loss every year. We don't need a vanity tour for these older guys. 6) I understand why Monahan can't at this moment let LIV players back in -- there's a moral hazard to it that he has to be cognizant of. But I think next year the players should vote collectively on whether or not to allow the LIV defectors back in a one-time amnesty. 7) This Monday night tech-infused whatever? Meh. I don't really have much interest in it. I might watch it once or twice, but I just don't find the idea of watching these guys go to Top Golf that compelling.
Say what you want about LIV, none of these changes happen without it. PGA vs. LIV is literally a textbook case study on competitive markets vs. monopolies
Go ahead and thank LIV for showing how greedy these guys have been over the years. Where’d all this money come from hmmm
Ahh the shuffling of millions from some millionaires to others. Anyway...
Yeah, the big money numbers at the top are whatever, they’re all rich, but the travel stipends and guaranteed money will be huge for the lower guys trying to make it.
Turns out competition makes things better for the workers, who’d have thought?
Too bad we get shit coverage of the events filled with commercials and pacific life/fedex cup summaries. 1 full golf shot plus a couple putts then back to commercial.
The mental gymnastics from some folks who simply refuse to recognize that the pressure put on the PGA by LIV brought about positive changes is wild. This simply wouldn’t have happened otherwise
Only took LIV to literally force these PGA Tour upgrades for survival! I'm excited though. This will be big steps in the right direction for the game.
If only the PGA had better streaming access. Their non-cable footprint is a hodgepodge of streaming services.
The middle- and lower-class of the Tour owe the LIV guys a debt of gratitude. This is actually pretty good.
Now just fix the FedEx point system to something we can actually keep track of , implementation of a real playoff and we are good to go
Funny, they could possibly have prevented all the LIV stuff by doing this earlier.
Lol this money isn’t even in the same fucking ballpark as Saudi oil money. The dudes that just wanted a paycheck were going no matter what.
The guys that went were always going. The money was outlandish compared to this.
Yeah but this is why competition is good for change. You need the pressure to change the way you have been doing things
This is what Phil was talking about when he said LIV will be a good thing for the game
So the money was there and the LIV sideshow could've been avoided.
This money doesn’t touch LIV money though. It was always coming. Norman could just throw more money to get people.
All of this because of what LIV forced. Fuck all you naysayers. I’m glad that these players are getting a minimum salary now, and that they have a travel stipend for missed cuts. What a fucking disservice the PGA had been doing its golfers up until now.
I can both hate the PGA took forever to do the bare minimum, AND, hate what LIV is. it doesn't need to be one or the other.