Merging the Future of Golf The Bogeyman

Dan O’Neill

As June turned to July, people still were opining about the meaning of the marriage between LIV, DP World Tour and the PGA Tour. But the truth is, until the details are worked out, no one knows.

Initially, anger was expressed by those who claim the moral high ground. PGA Tour stars like Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas, who resisted the fat Public Investment Fund checks from Saudi Arabia, are unwelcoming toward those who did not.

The righteous indignation is understandable, as it appears the likes of Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson, Cameron Smith etc. sold their souls only to come out the other side, richer and no worse for wear. Perhaps that will be the case, perhaps not. We still don’t know.

Story after story has called the new arrangement a “merger,” suggesting a union between equals in the professional golf universe. Is that the case or, buried in the announcement lede, is a loud “Uncle!” being declared?

Under the truce, the LIV, at least as we know it, is almost certain to tap out, while the PGA Tour will continue to conduct tournaments. This wasn’t an arm-wrestling draw between Bluto and Popeye, more like Bluto pinning Olive Oil. The PGA Tour features 47 FedExCup events in 2023. By comparison, the LIV has a second season of 14 events. To suggest they stand eye to eye is to put Val Kilmer’s Batman in the same context with Christian Bale’s version. No comparison.

In the end - if golf’s big deal even goes through - the LIV never hit the hole. The Saudi-back circuit made a splash, no denial. Greg Norman and the gang grabbed TMZ headlines by signing some names, although not enough of them, and none recently.

Regardless of the roster, the LIV product never was part of a serious golf conversation. Koepka’s PGA Championship victory in May likely was the first time you heard those capital letters in a golf-centric sentence. That is, a discussion that included significant shots, scores or outcomes. Otherwise, the only thing provocative about the LIV was the mind-boggling bucks involved.

Example: Name the starting lineup for the “Cleeks?” How about the best player on the “Majestics?” Where did the “RangeGoats” finish in Singapore?

Better yet, can you even say what those names refer to? Thought not.

The names are just a few of the LIV’s four-player “teams,” although Nick Faldo recently put the concept in proper perspective. “Nobody’s really interested,” Faldo told ESPN. “They’re not going to get the sponsorship that they want. They call it a team (event) and it’s not because it’s stroke play. You see your mates on the putting green and say, ‘Play well,’ and you see them in the scorer’s tent and say, ‘What did you shoot?’ That’s it. A team is out there helping, shoulder to shoulder. That’s a true team.”

With its teams, 48-player fields, zero cuts, 54-hole formats, shotgun starts and lack of TV exposure... the LIV is to professional golf what Rogers Hornsby and the 1935 St. Louis

Browns were to major league baseball. The ‘35 Browns drew 80,922 fans - not over a weekend, mind you, over a season! Their per-game average was 1,044, which probably included groundskeepers and concession workers. Frankly, that number seems comparable to the size of LIV galleries. That said, the analogy is a bit unfair because the Browns, for better or worse, played baseball, the same way everyone else played it. The LIV isn’t attempting to play professional golf, it’s trying to re-invent it - and it’s not working.

Right now, the so-called merger between Jay Monahan’s PGA Tour and Yasir al-Rumayyan - who governs the Saudi’s $620 billion PIF - remains little more than an agreement to reach an agreement. The details will be challenging. There remains legal obstacles to climb, federal regulators to satisfy... and the possibility the whole thing falls apart.

And in the end, rest assured, bad feelings or not, it will be about money. The Saudis got the PGA Tour’s attention, but their model was unsustainable. Even silly money is better invested in established brands. The LIV will fade to black, but the Saudis will remain a significant corporate partner in big-league golf.

In the meantime, the devil, and/or delights, will be in the details.