No need to apologize. There are two threads created to avoid this. I wanted to have a thread for tournaments (on all tours) and a separate one for LIV vs PGA discussion, which is this one.
Your comment about LIV being a member guest tourny belongs on this thread as it implies PGA superiority. The comments relating to the tournaments ongoing including this past weekend and the upcoming PGA Championship should be on the “Golf Season 2024” thread so I will move those there.
Rule of thumb is that if you want to comment on LIV vs PGA discussions those go here and comments relating to on course golf go on the other thread. Sometimes there has been some minor crossover, but it was my intention that persons who have no interest in the ongoing debate and great rift in golf can discuss just golf on the other thread without being drawn into that discussion if they aren’t interested.
More shuffling pertaining to those involved in negotiations between the two golf leagues. None of this makes me happy or gives me reason to believe that a resolution is getting any closer pursuant to which we can see the best golfers in the world play against each other 8-10 times a year.
Tiger weighs in as well. He doesn’t say much either way and is being diplomatic, but unfortunately no cause for optimism either.
About a year after the so called agreement between the PGA Tour and LIV, the always wise Mark Brooks comments on what he sees happening. It isn’t good news for golf fans in that he doesn’t see the tours ever coming together competetively. This means that the asterisk majors in full swing this year will continue. Brooks is also heavily critical of the very weak PGA Tour fields in the non signature events, which are almost unwatchable, such as at the Canadian Open which was only saved and watched if you were Canadian. The best fields of course are in the LIV events, but those are just as unwatchable for a different reason.
Of concern to me is his opinion, which I have been worried about becoming a reality, that there will never be an integration of the tours, which of course lowers both of them, especially the PGA. The only solution I can see is the fans demanding it. They have already been starting to do this judging by the horrendous TV numbers.
PGA Tour including the Canadian Open is hugely watchable to me. These are the worlds top pros in both the PGA Tour which actually has meaningful tournaments, and LIV Tour in events that mean nothing to me. I just don’t watch LIV but love watching, at least the final rounds, of PGA Tour. Anyone who says the PGA Tour is unwatchable must think the CFL is unwatchable as the general consensus among most football fans the CFL has 2nd rate players, or lower. And played in stadiums that are for the most part quite inferior to NFL stadiums.
Watching the final round of the Canadian Open was almost magic to me to be honest. But maybe I shouldn’t think it was very excellent golf, my bad on me I guess, but I’ll “my bad of me” in that case. Any PGA Tour event actually knowing that when you win on the PGA Tour, you qualify for the PGA Tour majors and get FedEx Cup points etc. I love watching PGA Tour events even with weak fields because I know these are excellent top-flite players to make the PGA Tour. LIV, sure has fantastic talent as well, I’m sure the European Tour has excellent talent, but PGA Tour all the way for this man.
I guess, as I say, I must be missing something??? But @Jon you tell me, I’m all ears… Oh, does the LIV Tour play just 3 rounds and not 4? Ok, that is junior league stuff if that’s the case regardless of the amount of money players can make from the Saudis. Sure, take the money golfers from the Saudis, I get it, I might do the same, but I don’t have to respect any of your wins golfers on the LIV Saudi Tour. That IS my choice as a golf fan. Like it or lump it.
I did say both were almost unwatchable and I excepted the Canadian Open because it is Canadian. I get it that no one likes to watch LIV, at least in North America. They have a pretty good following in Australia and parts of Asia, probably because they are more of an international tour.
But that doesn’t change the fact that TV audiences are leaving the PGA Tour in droves due to the weakened fileds as the article I linked said. Mark Brooks said that when 62 of the top 70 are missing from a field, that it is much less likley to be watched and much easier to win and the TV numbers bear that out. I think that is obvious.
Arguably LIV has a better top 40 of the two tours (LIV has 48 in their fields) and when there is a non signature PGA event, like this past weekend and several others, with the say 40 missing LIV players and say 22 top missing PGA players who now rarely play in the non signature events. This isn’t really debatable other than quibbling over the exact numbers. There also is no longer an effective world ranking system in place so it is harder and harder to be exact as LIV golfers no longer exist, including best golfer of the last 8 years Brooks Koepka, whom I can’t even guess where he ranks with only 4 tournaments a year being counted towards his ranking. I think DJ is now ranked lower than 300. Head needs to be removed from ass as far as rankings go.
My point remains that it is a mess and both tours suffer immensely, largely it seems to me because some PGA Tour players are mad at themselves for making the wrong choice and insist on having a pissing match and a fake holier than thou position, all the while lapping up the enormous extra dollars the PGA Tour now pays out thanks to LIV.
As always I take the Rodney King position: Why can’t we all just get along?
Golf right now sucks on both tours and it is the fan that suffers, not the players. Their bank accounts are just fine. Even when someone like Rory turns sensible and has an important ally like Rahm over on the dark side that doesn’t appear to be enough to move the needle, at least not yet. You can prefer whatever brand of golf you like of course, but I would like to see the best golfers in the world playing against each other, especially at the majors. A year ago I would have thought there would have been steps taken towards this by now, but it appears that isn’t the case.
The issue as I see from some respects is about history and the PGA Tour has history ie integrity. LIV Tour doesn’t have such history or any such integrity except Saudi oil money.
I have no idea why you are a CFL fan with such players as most Canadians playing in the CFL and many Americans that couldn’t even make an NFL practice roster. These are basically “nobody” college/university players that the NFL doesn’t want, for the most part, not always of course ie. Doug Flutie, Cameron Wake, Nathan Rourke who could/should be the Argo starter and CFL marquee type player compared to screw-up Chad and that’s a very different discussion I will admit and the CFL did and has screwed up with Nathan Rourke and that is on them, the CFL, anyways, etc. You seem to talk out of both sides of your mouth here. I just don’t see much of an argument that you are a true CFL fan and I don’t mean any disrespect, but you do seem to me to be “all over the friggin map” on all of pro sports. Not sure how to “get you” my man, but you do seem to be a “good guy” without question. I simply don’t know what your pro sports “jist” thing is about. Very confused about you to be honest and no disrespect, you “seem” to be a CFL fan but at the sam token you “should” seem to disrespect the CFL due to these players making some decent money and most not even able to be on an NFL practice roster. Something has to give with what your positions are here… ??? Hey, I don’t get you here on this site but as I say, I may be missing something with your logical explanations on you “seeming” to be able to be a CFL fan??? You tell me and I will say and repeat, you are sports fan, and that I like.
I will end it on this. And this is how the CFL is so stupid, they go after players like Chad Kelly and Johnny Manziel but the CFL deadheads, and I migh even include Pinball with this, don’t know how to keep a guy like Nathan Rourke in the league that is never going to be an NFL starter anyways. That is stupid beyond stupid and makes me wonder why I even respect the CFL at all in some respects. Totally DUMB Ambrosie and your owners… TOTALLY STUPID… Robert MacIntyre, for all intents and purposes is a legit “NFL player”. How many CFL players have such designation? Not many, at all. Most CFL players would be lucky to be holding a water bottle at NFL training camps. Guess what, I’ll spend $50 bucks in the nosebleeds at Buffalo in the NFL versus the same price at the 35 yard line for a TiCats game. Just saying, at least in the NFL I’m watching the best rather than nothing but the best in the CFL. I love the CFL but I’ll admit the CFL is amateur time compared with the NFL whereas the PGA, even a low ranking tourney like the Canadian Open, is not amateur time at all compared with the LIV Tour. You win the Canadian Open, you are in The Masters. You win the Grey Cup, that means basically zilch for your chances to be on an NFL starting team to challenge for the Super Bowl. The most prized trophy of professional gridiron football, along the lines of the Green Jacket and the Masters.
“The roots of the modern PGA Tour stretch back to April 10, 1916, when the Professional Golfers’ Association of America (PGA) was formed”
Well you have my explanation and I know you aren’t a fan of the best players playing together and prefer the PGA Tour for whatever reason, although I wouldn’t give it an edge in integrity. Others feel like you as well. We are all entitled to our opinions and what we are discussing has been discussed many time already in some way on this thread and it wasn’t my intent to rehash it and keep going.
I also wasn’t trying to relate this to football, but I don’t feel the same way as you about the CFL doing anything wrong in not being able to keep Rourke, at least for now. He is chasing his dream and also earning more money, as are LIV players. I don’t think you can fault someone for doing either. I don’t see it as a matter of disrespect or otherwise. Yes the NFL is the top league in the world. Like any sport it will attract the best players and pay the most money. I don’t think it is any more complicated than that.
Personally speaking, it seems exactly your intent to rehash this and keep going. And I can relate this to football, the PGA Tour has much more pure major-league type talent for their sport compared with the CFL vs the NFL. Believe me, if the PGA Tour thought that winning the Canadian Open was amateur hour, they would not let the champion of the Canadian Tour automatically vie for the Green Jacket, regardless of the quality of the field. The NFL has zero or little respect for the CFL and they don’t even need to respect the CFL at all except for business competion monopoly aspects, nothing more or nothing less.
Well I know this much when I tuned into the Canadian Open over the weekend on CBS, including on that odd hole with the “hockey rink” surrounding the tees, that it was watchable enough for Jim Nantz to show up again this year.
When Jim Nantz shows up folks, you know it’s for real. You all know he’s a badass, and he’s a fan of the CFL too of course.
I would not recommend you mess around too much with Jim Nantz, or it’ll be more than burnt toast coming to you at breakfast!
@jon look, I think we are the same page, we and others here love both golf and football and many other sports but we all get a bit frustrated with the governance aspects and other political and business aspects of pro sports where there isn’t the consistency needed from one league to another within the same sport for so many reasons, business models being one. It is what it is with the PGA vs LIV and it’s going to take some time to figure this out, that’s all. I suppose patience is needed, just like patience is needed with how the biz of gridiron football will play out with the NFL, CFL and other leagues. Who knows, maybe another WHA will come along and grab a Connor McDavid type like the WHA did with Bobby Hull etc. Who knows, beyond our control really, these sorts of issues.
Good perspectives. I would crave for an Arab-backed pro hockey league (yeah, play in the desert kinda hockey).
Team with 18 forwards, no defensemen and goalies under 5’11" with bigger nets. No cavemen - mostly elegant skaters and speedsters who don’t want to get carved up in today’s barbaric NHL. It would be exciting if nothing else!
Speaking of money - why not get these Arabs involved in our own little CFL fiefdom. Doubling (or even tripling) the salary cap would be but a pittance for these guys. Imagine how many more borderline NFL’rs the CFL could nab under such loosened financial conditions?
Around $20-25 million per year for next 5 years will open things up. For $100 million let Arab have 100% ownership of the Maritime CFL franchise (10th team).
Randy could be installed as puppet commissioner, too!
Yeah well I guess that LIV is another WHA, ABA or AFL. All of those leagues merged with the existing league and the sports were better for it. That’s what I’m hoping for here. Maybe not an outright merger, but recognition that LIV haas tons of world class players and that there needs to be some kind of crossover, at a minimum for the majors. After all the majors historically haven’t used the World Golf Ranking system, which was only invented by the PGA Tour some 30 years ago. Two of them are supposed to be “Open” as well, which now really isn’t the case when numerous spots are decided by the now obsolete ranking system, keeping many worthy golfers out of the field. I always want to see best on best in any sport is all.
I originally posted the article about what Mark Brooks had to say as it’s now been a year since the announced truce. I’m disappointed that more progress hasn’t been made. You may be right that it’s going to take a while yet. Meanwhile golf as a whole suffers.
It seems you haven’t followed the whole thread and I can’t say I blame you. It’s been around for a couple of years now. I will let you know, however that the Saudi argument has been pitchforked long ago, in two ways.
First, the Saudis (and other Arab countries) are involved and invested in many sports and have been for some time. Soccer, Formula 1, tennis and golf included. There wouldn’t even be a European Women’s Tour if the Saudis hadn’t bailed out the old tour financially. The European version of the men’s Fed Ex Cup is called the Race to Dubai, hardly a progressive country. And yes the Saudis provide the CFL with lots of money as well due to their investment in Bell. So you can’t dislike them in golf and ignore them in the CFL. Pick a lane.
Second, although the Saudis are a country filled with misogynistic Aholes, they aren’t nearly as bad as Russia or China. Those countries keep buying Olympics after Olympics and no one says anything. Talk about sports washing! China probably kills more dissidents in a day than the Saudis do in a year. If you are the kind of principled person that is appalled by the Saudis many good arguments have been made that you shouldn’t also buy into anything Chinese. So that means no phone, no television and no car.
The Saudis are bad in a lot of ways but they are already in the CFL and are not nearly as bad as some other countries.
Good points. Although as we know blacks were excluded from The Masters, Lee Elder being the first black allowed to play in The Masters, regardless of talent or golf accomplishments and was reading this which definitely indicates the “exclusiveness” and invitational aspect of this tournament from a historical perspective. From wiki and thank goodness those “good ol’ days” are gone from this event:
“Initially the Augusta National Invitation field was composed of Bobby Jones’ close associates”
Of course the Lee Trevino affair:
" Moreover, he called the golfers playing at Augusta “gutless” as no one rebelled against the strict rules ordained by Robert. The dislike was so severe that in the Masters he did play, he rather chose to use his car as the dressing room than the Augusta National’s room."
And this is an interesting reply to the article linked at the end. @jon don’t get me wrong, The Masters is escaping from it’s racist past but as we know, history never allows anything to be fully “escaped from”, for better or for worse. The course is immaculate but it’s soul is far from immaculate in any sense. This is why I prefer the other majors to The Masters to be honest, in some ways it’s very sad that The Masters is a major, honestly how I feel come to think of it. But this is how it goes, the PGA and the dark history of The Masters are intertwined as intertwined can get seemingly. I might even take a LIV major, well if they have such a thing there, then The Masters :
“The “Masters” must change it name back to the original that Bobby Jones has titled it. The Masters is racist in its meaning and an under the breath joke referring to masters of slave plantations in the Confederacy. Sure the other meaning is the masters of golf that is just bullshit as no other majors are titled as so. I’m just happy Tiger ??? broke the mold in winning there but sad that he didn’t speak ???️ more about its symbolism as a racist environment. Well at least it’s a feather ??? in the cap for us Americans whom actually support and believe in fighting for freedom for everyone USA ???”
From the article is the following, and such history goes for many institutions of the South that otherwise have moved on from a sick past not at all isolated to the American South, mind you.
In fact, the first African American golfer (Lee Elder) was only admitted to play in the tournament in 1975 and the first African American member inducted into the club finally occurred in 1991. Additionally, women were finally introduced and allowed to become members of the club in 2012.
Whatever you take away from the information and viewpoints I’ve composed, know this; The Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters Tournament are more than just golf. They are a representation of many things, including the American Dream – especially to the immigrant families, Redmond and Berckmans. Augusta is an environment of continual change, rebirth, growth and victory. And perhaps, if we’re very lucky, The Masters Tournament will evolve and embrace the changes society desires, and desperately needs.
Anyway, all the aforementioned and overdue changes happened in my lifetime.
As we discussed before the 2024 Masters in these golf threads, we were hopeful that the Masters would buck the PGA trend and just invite more LIV golfers anyway, which the Masters did.
Indeed the old guard at the Masters were a different sort of rebels in that past than they are now, and I like the way they are as rebels now as opposed to the PGA, which dragged its feet on too many matters associated with pro golf before this attempt at a merger.
Plus they even have Mr. Beaver advising now every year and even getting the admiration of Jim Nantz for Mr. Beaver’s world class tactical landscaping crew, Mr. Beaver’s Army.
I find it best to look forward before looking back, difficult as that is quite often, including when assessing the current actions and plans of others, whatever their past.
Head needs to be removed from ass as far as rankings go.