Could this actually be good for game of golf?

GOLF, as we’ve known it, is different today than it was yesterday. It’s different because of the noise that the new LIV Golf tour has been making and the trickle-down effect that’s begun to take course as a result.

This is a good thing. There are, after all, no rules that say status quo is always the best thing.

There are many layers to peel back here.

The LIV Golf series, fronted by CEO Greg Norman, is hardly a perfect product. But it is shining some intriguing light on some potential improvements in golf — for the golf fan and for the players.

The PGA Tour has done a lot of great things for both its players and the game. It’s a terrific, compelling product. But that doesn’t mean things can’t become better for all involved — the top players who draw the sponsors to the tour to be better compensated and the fans to see an improved, more evolved product that includes a team concept and shorter, more fast-moving events.

Perhaps this is a Pollyanna take, but why can’t they all just get along?

Why can’t LIV Golf conduct its series of events for the outlandish money it’s paying and coexist with the PGA Tour and DP World (European) Tours?

Every governing body in the sport drones on about how it wants to “grow the game.’’

Yet, if the PGA Tour starts banning players for playing in the LIV series and/or the Masters bans players from Augusta, the PGA of America bans players from competing in the PGA Championship and on Ryder Cup teams and the R&A bans players from playing in its Open Championship, how is that good for the game?

How is that “growing the game?’’

It’s not.

The bottom line here is, of course, the bottom line, which is money.

The PGA Tour is protecting its fiefdom. It’s not threatening to ban players who play in LIV events out of moral outrage regarding where the Saudi money is coming from and the country’s horrible human rights records. The PGA Tour is threatening sanctions because it’s protecting its product.

And, if any of the other organizing bodies follow suit, they’ll be doing it for the same reasons: money.

Money, of course, is precisely why the players are playing in the LIV events. Yet in many circles, while the players are being excoriated for chasing the money the PGA Tour takes no such hits.

Those who are throwing stones at the players for chasing the money should ask themselves what they might do if offered guaranteed money that tripled their income for half the work.

At the root of the Phil Mickelson battle with the PGA Tour has always been the top players not being compensated commensurate with their value to the Tour. Tiger Woods was one of the first to push back on this years ago, pointing out that the PGA Tour was utilizing his likeness in all forms of promoting its product and he wasn’t seeing a dime from it.

It’s a complicated and somewhat uncomfortable argument to make for players like Mickelson, Woods, Dustin Johnson and the PGA Tour stars who are making money most of us could never fathom.

But think about this: Woods has made just short of $121 million in prize money in his career and Kyrie Irving made $100 million in