2022 PGA Tour Thread

[chedder]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

LPGA and PGA Tour Champions both play a lot of 54 hole events.

LPGA has three 54 hole tournaments in the whole schedule. Champions tour are old guys. They can use carts too.

[Ducay]

They group the leaders in LIV just as they do in PGA, so all things being equal, you'd have the same leaders being shown on 18 as you would in PGA. Only difference would be is if someone mounts a comeback from farther back, they would still be playing at the same time as the leaders vs. being done a long time ago in PGA. Which is a benefit of shotgun for the viewers.

I really liked the Shotgun start. The reason it doesn't work for PGA is field size is too big, even after cuts you'd have too many players. LIV being sub-54 makes it work, and work well.

You can like aspects of LIV without having to like everything about it. Besides the shotgun start, I really liked their livestream and on screen display (minus the F1 style 3-letter abbreviations for players, no idea who anyone was outside of the big 3-4 players from tour).

I suspect LIV will fail after next season, it is too expensive given virtually no revenues right now. But for now, competition is good, and more golf is good.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

You, and the others who are dead set against LIV, are entitled to your moral superiority/opinion/crusade.

You sure like to dismiss everyone's else's valid takes with comments like faux outrage, moral superiority, pga stooge....

It's a pointless tour that only exists because someone is willing to throw away money for whatever motives that have nothing to do with sport. You can't argue that isn't true, and you can't argue that the money is at least coming from a unscrupulous source.

The shotgun start does nothing for me. Can you explain why it is attractive at all? The only benefit I guess is to be able to see Phil in the main tv slot while he is shooting high 70s and don't have to just watch the 120th ranked players play for the win. If that's what you are into fine, but being able to watch aging stars play uninspired golf does nothing for me.

I don't care for big, loud score bugs either.

I don't know that you can back up that pga tour coverage is spending any time showing old Tiger highlights. Maybe the Players will show a few of his iconic Player's shots, but the regular events really don't have much if any. You can pretty much watch every single shot of every player in contention and every big name on the various platforms that cover PGA events. The same can't be said for a liv event where they have only one feed and everyone playing at once. There is objective way to call it vastly superior when it is clearly inferior.

What are the benefits that you expect this competition to bring to the PGA? Big appearance fees? Shotgun start (not even feasible for full field events)? Big, garish scoreboards? Teams with childish names? Giant paydays coming from questionable benefactors that don't care about throwing money away?

Golf and sports in general are best when you get to see the best play the best as often as possible. A breakaway, invite-only small field tour takes away from that.

[DoubleK]

Ok, ok you are right.

LIV golf is awful.

Sorry I had a different opinion, but you sure set me straight.

[Weitz]

Do you guys even watch the PGA?

It’s basically unwatchable outside of the majors.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Golf in general is not exactly appointment viewing outside of majors and the big tour events (plus Ryder Cup, no one cares about Presidents Cup). Which is going to be another huge problem for LIV. Yeah shotguns might be appealing if they contained a bunch of great golfers, but a field of eight top 100 guys and a bunch of scrubs and amateurs could be finished in 20 minutes of TV time and I won't be watching. So LIV's fundamental problem remains: it is uncompelling to watch mediocre golfers playing just for money, no matter what the format is.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Weitz

Do you guys even watch the PGA?

It’s basically unwatchable outside of the majors.

I watch weekly. With the Flames season over, and my baseball team (Nats) terrible, it is really my only sports viewing for the rest of summer. What's unwatchable about it? The Canadian Open was great TV.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Weitz

Do you guys even watch the PGA?

It’s basically unwatchable outside of the majors.

I love kicking back and watching golf on TV. I rarely get to do it because of my own golf rounds playing right through the Saturday/Sunday broadcasts quite often. And if I'm not golfing I'm usually too busy during the day.

Man, if golf was an evening live broadcast more often I'd sit back all the time and watch a couple of hours. Love the Hawaii tourneys, sitting back with some beer after dinner, watching the best golfers in the world hit shots.

[jayswin]

The Canadian Open is the first one I've made a point of watching a full day (Sunday) in a long time and was just thoroughly entertained. Loved the whole day.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Weitz

Do you guys even watch the PGA?

It’s basically unwatchable outside of the majors.

If you think tournaments like the Memorial are unwatchable, no idea why you'd get excited about Charl Schwartzel edging Hennie Du Plessis in a 54 hole exhibition.

[jayswin]

^^^^^

I don't think Weitz was one of the posters saying they liked watching the LIV tourney. I believe his comment was independent of that discussion and just directed at why people watch golf at all.

[Weitz]

I won’t be watching the LIV just like I don’t watch the pga.

I am interested in the drama this weekend at the us open though and with the wife away will likely watch a lot.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Weitz

I won’t be watching the LIV just like I don’t watch the pga.

I am interested in the drama this weekend at the us open though and with the wife away will likely watch a lot.

And actual golfing looks pretty iffy in Calgary this weekend.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Weitz

I won’t be watching the LIV just like I don’t watch the pga.

I am interested in the drama this weekend at the us open though and with the wife away will likely watch a lot.

Gotcha. I wouldn't call regular PGA events must watch TV either, especially some of the birdie fests in the desert. But if I have some spare time, I will catch some of the final round of a generic Tour event.

Unlike DoubleK, I find the TV product fairly watchable. I like Faldo (but not as much as Johnny Miller before) and Azinger too.

I don't get the complaint over too many Tiger highlights. And to each their own, but I don't see the massive appeal in the DP Tour coverage. It's guys hitting golf shots which you can find anywhere IMO.

[GirlySports]

Sure but what sport other than NFL is not appointment watching/ For golf to have 4 weekends + Ryder Cup and maybe Tour Championship/Players pretty much to themselves in the calendar year is better than almost all sports. Better than tennis grand slams I think, mostly due to timezone.

Excellent NBA Finals right now, meh. Stanley Cup start tonight, meh. Even if great, that's 2 weeks. World Series is pretty much dying.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Sure but what sport other than NFL is not appointment watching/ For golf to have 4 weekends + Ryder Cup and maybe Tour Championship/Players pretty much to themselves in the calendar year is better than almost all sports. Better than tennis grand slams I think, mostly due to timezone.

Excellent NBA Finals right now, meh. Stanley Cup start tonight, meh. Even if great, that's 2 weeks. World Series is pretty much dying.

Excluding the NFL, the other team sports all mostly have regional audiences for regular season, with national tv games being a bit of a bonus.

The PGA having a national audience makes it a decent product for network tv. It gets steady, growing ratings, and has a good demo for advertisers and is doing fine.

As long as the top 10 or at least most of them stay on the PGA tour, then the liv isn't much of a threat. If all the top 10 all left, then the PGA may not even be viable.

If liv did get all the big names, how long are they sustainable? It's not hard to imagine the liv killing the PGA tour and then running out of money and leaving the players with nothing.

It sounds like Rory, JT, Spieth, Rahm, Cantlay, and Scheffler have all dug their heals in, in support of the pga tour and that's probably good enough for now to keep the tour healthy.

Hovland is now rumored to go and would be the first top 10. Cam Smith is a bit of a wild card and seems to be leveraging this to lobby for a pga event in Australia. Morikawa and Koepka seem to be in deflecting mode which makes me think they could be considering leaving.

[Strange Brew]

It’s funny in most sports players resent owners and want more control. LIV is offering the reverse.

[transplant99]

Mike Whan CEO of the USGA hints that future majors may exclude any LIV participants.

"I could foresee a day," Whan said. "Do I know what that day looks like? No, I don't. To be honest with you, what we're talking about [LIV Golf] was different two years ago, and it was different two months ago than it is today. We've been doing this for 127 years, so I think [the USGA] needs to take a long-term view of this and see where these things go. So we're not going to be a knee-jerk reaction to kind of what we do."

"Listen, I'm saddened by what's happening in the professional game," Whan said. "Mostly as a fan because I like watching the best players in the world come together and play, and this is going to fracture that. I've heard that this is good for the game. At least from my outside view right now, it looks like it's good for a few folks playing the game, but I'm struggling with how this is good for the game."

https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id...ture-uncertain

[SuperMatt18]

When I read that to me it doesn't read like the USGA is hinting that they would keep LIV members out of the US Open.

Almost feels like the opposite.

Majors could play a really interesting role here where they become the only tournaments each year where PGA and LIV members are head to head.

Actually feels to me like that could make the majors even more popular and make them even more profitable.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

When I read that to me it doesn't read like the USGA is hinting that they would keep LIV members out of the US Open.

Almost feels like the opposite.

Majors could play a really interesting role here where they become the only tournaments each year where PGA and LIV members are head to head.

Actually feels to me like that could make the majors even more popular and make them even more profitable.

They'll invent a PGA vs LIV competition team competition.