Time is right for world tour to halt the decline
It remains the utopian dream that never gets beyond the drawing board. When the idea of a world golf tour surfaced once more last week, the mind wandered back to Greg Norman’s original concept 25 years ago. It was ruthlessly stamped upon back then by the PGA tour. So has the latest incarnation got any more of a chance?
Certainly, it’s hard to argue with the central point that the chaotic global golf schedule does the sport an increasing disservice. Last week was a classic case in point.
on one side of the world we had a tournament in Dubai with the likes of tommy Fleetwood and Bryson DeChambeau. on the other, in California, we had one featuring tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy (right).
It is beyond arrogant, with so many competing interests for people’s time, that golf persists with such dilution of its resources. No wonder the number playing the game is in decline and coverage of the sport worldwide is in retreat.
the latest idea, from a rather mysterious British-based organisation known as the World Golf Group and six years in the making, is for an eight-month season with 18 tournaments worldwide taking place over 54 holes and featuring the top 48 players, with a $10million prize fund each time.
there are all sorts of appealing add- ons, such as a team format and play taking place each day in a five-hour window. the organisers, who claim they can cover start-up costs of $1billion, reckon there’s the chance for players to earn $50m a year, for a lot less work. the plan is to start the Premier Golf League in 2022 or 2023.
‘If you had the chance to start again you wouldn’t create professional golf as it exists today,’ said their well-reasoned bulletin. ‘the League is that chance.’
As McIlroy says, there’s plenty there to ponder. But enough for the top 48 to throw their lot in and lose the right to play in so many tournaments laden with tradition?
I still think the ideal would be for this to prove the tipping point that sees the european and PGA tours finally agreeing to align. For a headline tour along F1 lines of 20 events for the top 80 or so players, predominantly based in America but including visits to Australia, South Africa and the Middle east, with a mid- summer europe swing. there could then be a second-tier tour, with promotion and relegation between the two. In other words, a halfway house between today’s outdated product and the proposed revolution.
one imagines we’re in for some bruising times ahead, as the established tours seek to kill off the competition. european tour chief executive Keith Pelley was predictably dismissive, while his PGA tour counterpart Jay Monahan wasted no time in addressing players competing in California.
But if we eventually see some form of streamlined product, with the game competing against other sports rather than against itself, it really would be for the good of golf.