Augusta’s Masters helps to chip away at golf’s divisions
With fans of the game appearing to lose interest, the 2024 Masters at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia is a welcome boost for the splintered sport
The world’s best male players gathered for the 2024 Masters at Augusta National this week in a welcome boost for the beleaguered sport. It’s the first time since the 2023 Open Championship in July last year that the sport’s biggest names were competing together.
Since the establishment of the breakaway LIV Golf tour in 2022, the men’s professional game has been embroiled in an uncivil war, and it seems fans of the game are losing interest.
LIV Golf is still seen as a glorified exhibition tour with 54-hole events and shotgun starts, whereas the PGA Tour has been watered down with the defection of so many high-profile players to LIV.
Since winning his first green jacket last April, defending Masters champion Jon Rahm has also defected to the LIV Golf tour, which is underpinned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF).
Though Rahm’s defection was a big moment for the sport, it was a ripple compared with the news midway through 2023 that the PGA Tour had agreed to merge with the PIF. That news came as a shock, but it was also supposed to be the end of the standoff. Yet nine months on, the status quo remains and the sport continues in a sort of professional limbo.
The merger has still not been completed despite an original deadline of 31 December 2023 to have heads of agreement in place.
There is no doubt that, in the splintered golf world, the stand-off between the two tours is hurting the game.
Several reports out of the US have noted that regular PGA Tour events have experienced a viewership drop-off of about 20%.
LIV’S viewership numbers are also still tiny compared with other major US sports such as American football and basketball.
Former world number one Rory Mcilroy, who was the most outspoken PGA player against LIV, noted at the Texas Open last week that the chasm in the game is hurting it commercially.
“I know this isn’t a be-all, end-all, but if you look at the TV ratings of the PGA Tour this year, they’re down 20% across the board,” Mcilroy told the media in Texas. “That’s a fifth. That’s big.”
He continued: “I would say the numbers on LIV aren’t great either in terms of the people tuning in. I think with the fighting and everything that’s gone on over the past couple of years, people are just getting really [tired] of it and it’s turning people off men’s professional golf…”
For the Saudis and the PIF, which has a war chest of $700-billion to play with, viewership doesn’t factor as a revenue driver. No amount of broadcast fees could come close to denting their cash reserves.
But the idea of professional sport is to create a product that attracts fans – either live or through screens. And right now, golf is shedding viewers.
Because of its unique broadcasting arrangement with CBS, plus its limited field and place in American folklore, the Masters’ viewership figures won’t accurately gauge the temperature of the ailing sport.
People who might not otherwise watch golf tune in to the Masters because it has become a spring tradition in the US.
“It will be really interesting to see how the major championship numbers fare compared with the other bigger events, because, if the numbers are better and you’ve got all the best players in the world playing, there’s an argument to say, okay, we need to get this thing back together,” said Mcilroy.
“But on the flip side, if the numbers aren’t as good,
it’s an argument to still say we need to put everyone back together because people are losing interest in the game…”
Masters gather
But at the Masters, at least, past champions such as Rahm, Bubba Watson, Phil Mickelson, Sergio García, Dustin Johnson and Patrick Reed, who are all now part of the LIV flock, are welcome on Augusta’s hallowed fairways.
LIV members are still suspended from regular PGA Tour events, but the four majors – the PGA Championship, the US Open, the Open Championship and the Masters – have allowed LIV players to compete since the breakaway league was established.
Having some of the best players essentially locked out of the traditional 72-hole stroke play tournaments staged on the PGA Tour has diminished the sport to a degree.
Missing the likes of Rahm, 2022 Open champion Cameron Smith and the pulling power of Mickelson has undermined PGA Tour events, regardless of how much spin claims the opposite.
This is why the majors have become even more important in the current climate. It’s one of the few times the best players in the world are gathered in one place.
Going for green
Picking a winner this year is an almost impossible task, as it is most years, but 2022 champion Scottie Scheffler is in fine form, having won back-to-back tournaments recently.
Rahm, of course, is certain to be contending, while Mcilroy is in search of a maiden Masters to complete the full set of winning all four majors. But you have to go back almost 10 years, to the Open Championship of 2014 at Hoylake, for Mcilroy’s last major triumph. South Africa’s contingent is as thin as it’s ever been. Erik van Rooyen, winner on the PGA Tour earlier this year, is in the field, as is Charl Schwartzel, courtesy of being a former winner.
The contingent is completed by Christo Lamprecht, a senior at Georgia Tech, who is the top player in the World Amateur Golf Ranking.
I think with the fighting and everything that’s gone on over the past couple of years, people are just getting really [tired] of it and it’s turning people off men’s professional golf