re: It’s Official: LIV and Phil nuked professional golf

The worst part to me is the overlap in Tier 1 and Tier 2 events on 8 weekends. I could get behind the proposal if they staggered it so we have 1 tournament every weekend and something like the fall series was great imo. But 8 myrtle beach classics doesn't sounds great

hiding under the 501C rules of the IRS made the Tour rich now they are for profit its a whole new ball game and in 5 yrs they can hid under Bankruptcy protection. Hope those guys who have built up a pension in the PGA system get their money out asap!

I definitely think they’re way more focused on tv appeal than in-person appeal compared to the tour of old. Agree with you there. And agree that probably a thought process behind creating the separate tiers is you can package and bundle to different stakeholders, which is right out of the NFL’s playbook.

On cuts, it’s going to be top 65 and ties. Basically they’re just going back to normal tour event structure. Also that doesn’t affect how much money you pay out. If a purse is $20m you pay all $20m, the existence of a cut just determines how spread out the payments are. People who make the cut just get a bigger share.


Compared to the pre-LIV tour, I think it’s a fair counter to say that you preferred that set up. That was basically Rory’s point. What is proposed has some advantages over that system, mainly that it operates more like a traditional sport. The same 120 guys will play every event in a regular season that will determined seeding and eligibility for a post season. Post season will be head to head knockout round competition to find an actual winner.


I do think 120 man fields playing 15 events with full cuts is better than the 80 man 8 event Signature model currently operating. And sponsor issues aside, I’d be more interested in a lower tier event at a fun venue where I fully know what the stakes are and guys are fighting for guaranteed promotion. I mean relegation/promotion is a huge engagement draw in soccer in Europe.

It looks like the cut is going to be top 65 and ties. LINK

I think you are definitely right that some sponsors will leave. Traveler's already left. It's why Sentry is taking over for them in San Diego. I am sure there will be more.

I have connections with 2 tournaments that are definitely not on the top tier of the PGA. Neither company is too worried about their time on network TV. Their tournaments weren't huge TV draws as it is. Neither tournament got great fields with the signature model that was in use. It was more about giving their clients the ability to go a cool destination and play pro-ams with some great golfers. Both were having a hard time dealing with trying to justify their purses going from the $5 million dollar range to the $10 million dollar range. They were never going to be "Championship" or "Signature" level events. But a $4 million dollar purse will be much more palatable from a marketing budget standpoint.

One interesting wrinkle is there are 7 weeks where the "Challenger" tour gets the week to themselves. I could see those going to tournaments like Valspar, Zurich and John Deere who have long relationships with the Tour and where they would get network TV time. The other weeks will basically be opposite field events. The purses for the "challenger" tour will basically be the same as the opposite field events (and DP world tour events) are right now. Having over 20 of those events would give a ton of opportunities to the guys who are 130-300th in the world to make a good living. Way better than current KFT events which average around $1 million dollar purses.

G League and Triple A teams can’t move up to the MLB and NBA if they perform well and MLB teams and NBA teams don’t go down there if they suck.

A better comp is obviously European soccer promotion/relegation or mid-major college sports, which do get enough eyeballs to survive.

A lot will depend on marketing and execution and how well they can tie the two tiers together as far as overall narrative in the eyes of viewers.

I can definitely see that schedule getting reduced, or the purses being smaller for some of them for sure. Who knows. And I’m not sure the PGA will care if that’s the case, the money will be made for them on the higher tour

It does look like the Tour Championship will be held at venues like Seminole and Cypress Point which would be awesome. I could see a Bandon, Cabot and Sand Valley working their way in there as well. Dream Golf would probably love to be part of the Tour Championship model.

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G League and Triple A teams can’t move up to the MLB and NBA if they perform well and MLB teams and NBA teams don’t go down there if they suck.

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Good G league and AAA players move up if they are good, and bad NBA and MLB players move down if they suck.

Virtually no one watches G League or MiLB.

Comparing a gofer who was previously ranked 120+ moving up to the "real" tour to a team moving up into the top soccer league is so not comparable it's not funny.

I’m not saying people will care as much. But comparing it to G League and Triple A is completely missing the point.

What they are going for is promotion and relegation as an intrinsically interesting concept. Which works in European soccer. Will it translate it to golf? I don’t know it’s a fair doubt to have.

But as someone else said you’re going to have big names drop down into that tier. Spieth, Fowler, Brooks, Rose, Day Scott. All guys who have had seasons in the past 5-8 years where they would have dropped down into the lower tier. Are you saying there wouldn’t be huge interest in seeing those guys try to make it back up? A bunch of Jackson Koivun’s and Mason Howell’s battling it out to make the upper tier?

Not to mention it’s an obvious dumping spot for the LIV guys. Rahm/Niemann/Hatton there trying to redeem themselves?

It could work.

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In golf the players are the equivalent of a “team” in other sports. That’s the whole thing LIV never grasped about the team model.

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Except not at all. You aren’t going to have 100s of thousands of rapid Spieth fans willing to watch him play regardless