Jay Monahan made it pretty clear on Wednesday up in Cromwell — the PGA Tour is under attack from an evil empire — a monarchy — a suppressive regime willing to do what it can to basically buy the sport of professional golf and use it to try and clean the stink off of their high-price Thobes.
What has transpired sounds like something out of a Star Wars episode where the evil empire is out to force its will on the rest of the galaxy.
In fact, if you try and add it up, guesstimating the huge amount of money that has been thrown at aging players and players sliding down the scale in the world rankings, the Saudis have to be about a billion dollars into this assault on the PGA Tour. There is little to no concern for the game itself, growth of the game and it’s totally lacking in any sort of goodwill.
“I am not naive. If this is an arms race and if the only weapons here are dollar bills, the PGA Tour can’t compete,” Monahan said matter-of-factly. “The PGA Tour, an American institution, can’t compete with a foreign monarchy that is spending billions of dollars in attempt to buy the game of golf.
“We welcome good, healthy competition. The LIV Saudi golf league is not that. It’s an irrational threat; one not concerned with the return on investment or true growth of the game,” Monahan said, pegging the Saudi regime for what it truly is.
He also made the important point that the PGA Tour is a true competitive meritocracy as opposed to what the LIV Series truly is — a 54-hole exhibition with pre-paid players and scripted answers for those who aren’t quick of wit (yeah you D.J. ) or deep thinkers.
“On the PGA Tour, our members compete for the opportunity to add their names to history books, and, yes, significant financial benefits, without having to wrestle with any sort of moral ambiguity,” Monahan said. “Pure competition creates relevancy and context, which is what fans need and expect in order to invest their time in a sport and in a player.
“One of the things that we’ve heard over the last several months from our sponsors is, please tell us what we can do to help. And so the changes that we’re making is coming from a combination of sponsor contribution and our reserves,” Monahan said.
And with that in mind, Monahan unveiled some significant changes.
The three playoff events — St. Jude, BMW and Tour Championship will have purses raised to $20 million per event. Same for the Genesis, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and the Match Play.
The Players will increase from $20 million to $25 million. The season-starting Tournament of Champions will go from $8.2 million to $15 million in the winner’s only event.
As for the playoffs, the top 70 make it to the St. Jude then 50 to the BMW and 30 to the Tour Championship.
Sahith Theegala, an up-and-comer was enthused. “I think it’s cool — good golf takes care of a lot.”
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler had his own take, showing his perfectly happy on the PGA Tour: “I’m compensated plenty for what a I do for a living,” said Scheffler, who has set a PGA Tour season money record — Scottie’s amassed $12,896,849 this season with four victories including his first major at The Masters.
Red-Hot Rory Shoots 62 At The Travelers:
Rory McIlroy’s run of good play continued on Thursday at the Travelers as he blazed his way around TPC River Highlands with an eight-under par 62.
Fresh off the U.S. Open, Rory’s now No. 2 in the world rankings. McIlroy came into this week a bit fatigued after a week at The Country Club and he’s fighting a bug as well. McIlroy flew back to his Jupiter home on Monday and got a bug from daughter Poppie who Rory said “brought something home from daycare last week.”
“I didn’t hit any golf balls Monday and Tuesday,” McIlroy said after his round. “I flew back down to Florida for a day, spent the night in my own bed, flew back up Tuesday, didn’t come to the course, and then yesterday playing the pro-am in the rain wasn’t really great preparation, but I feel — I played well at Brookline. I’m not going to lose it in two days. I knew my game was good.
“It’s like U.S. Open rehab coming here,” he said. “You’re like, ‘Oh, I can actually make some birdies. This is nice.’ I like coming here the week after the U.S. Open. It sort of gives you an opportunity to shoot low scores and get after it, and that’s nice. I think at this point it’s just — energy levels are okay,” he said. “I’ve got three more rounds left until I have a couple of weeks off and prepare for the Open Championship. I’m going to put everything into those three rounds.”
Rory’s low round came in the morning wave then in the afternoon, J.T. Poston birdied his final hole to the day to join McIlroy at eight-under.
Xander Schauffele and Martin Laird were in with 63s while Patrick Cantlay, Charles Howell III and Webb Simpson shot 64s. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler found himself tied for 28th after a 68 while defending champion Harris English turned in a 66.
It wasn’t a birdie-fest for everyone. Jordan Spieth found the water three times during his first round, had two double-bogeys on the back nine and looked to be heading home after Friday after signing for 76.
Two big names didn’t make it to Thursday. Justin Thomas withdrew early in the week after tweaking his back and Will Zalatoris joined him.
3 Comments
baxter cepeda
I stayed up last nite rewatching commissioner Droopys presser.
The main takes:
As the new announcements were being made, reporters asked questions about Brooks leaving. The commissioner had to be told multiple times it’s actually happening. Of course he did his almost cry thing and moved on.
The pga tour fixed it’s ridiculous never ending schedule and returned to a calendar schedule. The top players will have a chance to take off some serious time after the playoffs.
But then again the pga tour is adding extremely lucrative events that will not count like many of its sleepy events. Kinda confusing. Players will still feel a need to players but then those events don’t count. I can see issues arising there.
It’s great the pga tour is responding. This is especially what LIv is good for, as Phil has been trying to say.
The pga tour and Monahan can no longer make cliche promises about the next 10 years growth -although Monahan is still using that lame line- when things are happening now.
The pga tour leader is already extremely late, reactive here. Many whispers in the game about wishing the pga tour was more proactive.
Monahan could have helped his cause if he found these “moneys” earlier. Or changed schedules earlier. So many things could have happened earlier to help. Of of course when you have a monopoly, or a preeminent tour as Monahan likes to call it, why would you bother?
Well because for the past 3 decades the pga tour has had these challengers lurking and past commissioners have done well to stay ahead.
This guy dropped the ball.
And no matter how much Jay is trying to pick up the pieces, it just looks like one of those gifs of toddlers trying to clean up one too many toys at once.
Tom Edrington
I know where you stand and you know where I stand, no more need for debate.
forky76
So Monahan just found $150m lying in a drawer somewhere? Lol
Looks like Phil might have been right all along.
Was there any word in Monahan’s speech about getting rid of the ridiculous fedex cup starting strokes, PIP and Wyndham top 10?
Going back to the calendar season is the best thing I’ve seen so far. This wrap around season totally killed the Australian and Sunshine Tours. They have there big events in the southern summer and have not been able to draw decent names for years. Might be why so many South Africans signed up to LIV. The tour needs to think more internationally. These 3 overseas events are a start, but if I were a betting man, I’d bet they are back on US soil within 2 years, same as what happened to the WGC’s.