PGA Tour continues its swing towards LIV Golf pattern

By Rahul Banerji

Greg Norman and the LIV Golf brains trust must have been falling off their chairs last week when the PGA Tour unveiled the latest twist in a series of gyrations that are taking it ever closer to the LIV model.

Last Wednesday, the PGA Tour came out with a revamped schedule that Commissioner Jay Monahan said would “transform and set the future direction” for the organization and its members, its website said.

Next year’s schedule will now include eight what have been termed “designated events” that will have restricted fields of 70 to 78 playing for bigger prize money and more ranking points, and no cuts.

Sound familiar?

In a letter to tour members Monahan said, “these smaller, designated event fields will not only deliver substantial, can’t miss tournaments to our fans at important intervals throughout the season, but they will also enhance the quality of full-field events.”

The designated events concept has in a sense already been put into play with the 2023 season containing 12 tournaments that offer enhanced prize money to a field based on ranking points.

And massive increases in prize money.

Monahan and leading PGAT voice Rory McIlroy have sought to bring in the aspirational aspect of the changes but there is no getting away from the fact that the tour looks to be heading towards an exclusionary two-tier system.

Cut and paste

The irony of trying a cut-paste job has clearly been completely lost on the PGAT shouting brigade.

“I love it,” McIlroy said at Bay Hill last week. “Obviously I’ve been a part of it and been in a ton of discussions. I think it makes the tour more competitive.”

Exactly how, is unclear.

For example how does an Akshay Bhatia who has just earned partial PGAT status – or ‘special temporary membership’ – with a brilliant display at the Puerto Rico Open even get to the level required to break into designated events?

And the bottom line is this. How is any of this different from the model LIV Golf has put on the table?

“I’m all about rewarding good play,” McIlroy added ahead of the Arnold Palmer Invitational. “I want to give everyone a fair shake at this.

“Which I think this structure has done. There are ways to play into it. It’s trying to get the top guys versus the hot guys, right? I think that creates a really compelling product.

“But a way that you don’t have to wait an entire year for your good play to then get the opportunity. That opportunity presents itself straight away.

“You play well for two or three weeks, you’re in a designated event. You know then if you keep playing well you stay in them.”

Irony

The problem is that there can only be one winner a week.

More pertinently, when LIV Golf first emerged, exclusion and tradition were the biggest talking points about its existence from the establishment, the PGAT and the DP World (European) Tour in particular.

So much so that the first step these two tours took together was exclusion – banning players, removing them from tour data and histories in the bid to discredit what is well on its way to becoming a parallel establishment.

Only to go on and replicate parts of the LIV Golf model with each iteration. All that is left is to now create a team event, bring in the music and festivities – and Bob’s your uncle.

No wonder Sports Illustrated wryly quoted a tweet in a related report last week, “Imitation is the greatest form of flattery,” said the official LIV Golf Twitter account. “Congratulations PGA Tour. Welcome to the future.”

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