At 50th TPC, golf finds itself divided
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Rory McIlroy is more confident about where the PGA Tour is headed under Jay Monahan’s guidance than he is in the direction of Signature Events.
McIlroy gave Monahan, the beleaguered PGA Tour commissioner, an endorsement after his Jupiter neighbor, Xander Schauffele, was far more critical of the job being done by the most powerful man in golf.
Schauffele did not sugarcoat his feelings when asked whether he believes Monahan is the man to lead the tour through these tumultuous times.
“Trust is something that’s pretty tender, so words are words, and I would say in my book he’s got a long way to go to gain the trust of the membership,” Schauffele said.
McIlroy, though, touted Monahan’s record of leading the tour through COVID, the strategic alliance with the DP World Tour and the deal with the Strategic Sports Group.
“If you actually step back and look at the bigger picture, I think the PGA Tour is in a far stronger position than when Jay took over,” he said.
Golden Bear’s win now golden
North Palm Beach’s Jack Nicklaus won the first Players Championship 50 years ago at Atlanta Country Club. So we have the golden anniversary of the Golden Bear’s win, and the tournament. While nothing will take away the significance of raising the Players Championship trophy, golf’s current state is overshadowing what should be a week of celebration.
The focus this week has not been on Jack’s 67 in that final that finished on Labor Day because of weather 50 years ago, a victory that earned Nicklaus $50,000, or $4.45 million less than this year’s winner will make. Not on Tiger Woods’ iconic putt on No. 17 in 2001.
Instead, it’s on who is not here, equity grants, the trust tour members have in their leader and the ongoing negotiations with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund that finances LIV Golf.
“Fans are fatigued of what’s going on in the game and I think we need to try to reengage the fan and reengage them in a way that the focus is on the play and not on talking about equity and all the rest of it,” McIlroy said. “That’s why I said, the sooner that this is resolved, I think it’s going to be better for the game and better for everyone, the fans and the players.”
The winner of this week’s event will outlast a 144-player field (the way the traditionalists like it) and take home $4.5 million. Unlike those signature events, which many have issues with, including eight with either no cut or a limited cut.
Four signature events have been played this season and the reviews are not as positive as they were a year ago.
“They really worked last year,” McIlroy
said. “If you look at the leaderboards, you look at the ratings, I felt like they really, really worked in 2023. For whatever reason, they’re not quite capturing the imagination this year compared to last year.”
Something many fear can be said about golf in general. No one has been more in the spotlight in the past year than McIlroy, who a year ago spoke about attempting to devote more time to golf and less on the political and economic aspects of the game.
When asked Wednesday if he had moments when he wished for “the train to slow down” when it comes to his schedule outside the ropes, Rory went the other direction.
“I want the train to speed up so we can get this thing over and done with,” he said.
Scheffler blames LIV golfers
Of course, “this thing” is the negotiations with the PIF, which will set golf’s course for the future. Monahan, typically, said little about that during his state of the game address Tuesday. He revealed only that he met recently with PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, and that the deal with Strategic Sports Group, a consortium of professional sports team owners that includes an initial investment of $1.5 billion, does not impact negotiations with the PIF.
“While we have several key issues that we still need to work through, we have a shared vision to quiet the noise and unlock golf’s worldwide potential,” Monahan said. “It’s going to take time … I see a positive outcome for the PGA Tour and the sport as a whole. Most importantly, I see a positive outcome for our great fans.”
The fans are not the only ones suffering while the game is fractured. The Players’ field does not include last year’s Masters and PGA Championship winners. And not having LIV’s Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka is just the start.
Six of the top 80 in the Official World Golf Ranking are LIV golfers who are ineligible for The Players: Rahm, Koepka, Tyrrell Hatton, Adrian Meronk, Cameron Smith and Joaquin Niemann. And that does not include Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia and Phil Mickelson.
“I don’t think it helps the tournament,” Schauffele said. “I think you would like to have those players playing, in an ideal world, but I feel like we’re sort of beating a dead horse.
“Everyone kind of knew what was going to happen when they made a decision, and this was probably the highest probability chance of the outcome, which is to have people on different tours at the time.”
The man who tops that world ranking list, Scottie Scheffler, puts the blame for the state of the game squarely on the shoulders of one group of players.
“If the fans are upset, then look at the guys that left,” Scheffler said of those who defected for LIV. “We had a tour, we were all together, and the people that left are no longer here. At the end of the day, that’s where the splintering comes from.”