Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy chart golf’s new path forward

Tiger Woods is extending his dominance of golf from the course to the boardroom.

Woods attended a players-only meeting last week designed to propose ways for the PGA Tour to meet the growing threat of LIV Golf. The details of that meeting are now leaking out, and the consensus is this: the PGA Tour could be headed for significant change, and Woods is among those leading the charge.

The Tour has spent most of the last few months taking body blow after body blow from LIV. Whether the Tour was too slow to recognize LIV’s threat, or whether LIV was more appealing to players than golf traditionalists expected, the result is the same: LIV is now a clear and present threat to the PGA Tour. And so an institution, and an entire sport, built on resistance to change must now reinvent itself to remain viable.

Both No Laying Up and The Firepit Collective have published details on the players’ meeting, held last week in Delaware before the BMW Championship. The upshot is this: Woods and Rory McIlroy are spearheading a series of proposals that would dramatically realign the PGA Tour to favor top players, creating a new tournament structure that would bring those players together more often for more money.

The PGA Tour’s too-much-and-not-enough problem

As the PGA Tour currently stands, events take place virtually every week of the year. The 2021-22 season concludes this week at the Tour Championship at East Lake … and the 2022-23 season begins two weeks later at the Fortinet Championship. The vast number of tournaments dilutes the talent pool at any individual event. Imagine an NFL season where the Chiefs and Buccaneers only played once every few weeks, while the Jaguars and Texans played every week.

The reported plan proposed by the Woods-McIlroy consortium would include up to 15 limited-field events with increased purses, a tour-within-the-Tour that would offer both financial incentives and guaranteed stability via a no-cut format. If that sounds an awful lot like what LIV’s tournaments are already, that’s because LIV’s format was created to appeal to what players want, and what fans need — the top players, all together.

The PGA Tour schedule would still include dozens of “non-elite” events that would proceed as normal. But just as a victory at a PGA Tour event grants exemption into upcoming majors, strong performance at the “non-elite” events would provide a pathway for lower-tier players to play their way into the limited-field events. In other words, options have narrowed for non-elite players, but opportunities still exist for them to ascend. In addition, the “elite”-level players reportedly agreed to participate in three “non-elite” events each year, to spread the star power around.

Players are making a bit for control

No Laying Up reported that the players in attendance included Scottie Scheffler, Patrick Cantlay, Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele, Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Will Zalatoris, Viktor Hovland, Matt Fitzpatrick, Sam Burns, Jordan Spieth, Tony Finau, Billy Horschel, Cameron Young, Joaquin Niemann, Max Homa, Shane Lowry, Tyrell Hatton, Kevin Kisner, Adam Scott and Rickie Fowler, as well as Woods and McIlroy. Several of those names had been rumored to be considering, or even signing with, LIV Golf, so their presence in the meeting would seem to be confirmation that they are aligning with the PGA Tour going forward.

The Fire Pit Collective reported that the possibility exists that the PGA Tour could renounce its tax-exempt status and transform into a private operation with equity shares available. Such a move would allow players like Woods and McIlroy to offset the opportunity-cost losses incurred by not jumping to LIV with stakes in the new PGA Tour venture.

In both cases, what’s apparent is that the Tour’s players now possess substantial power over the operations of the Tour that they didn’t have even a few weeks ago. Much remains for this proposal, or anything similar, to come to light — the Tour must navigate existing contracts, broadcast deals and sponsor agreements — but it’s clear the players now enjoy unprecedented power.

LIV offers money, Tour offers tradition and stability

The Tour can’t compete with LIV Golf’s Saudi-backed billions in available prize money and guarantees. What the Tour can offer is a combination of tradition — a familiar schedule, known tournaments and guaranteed access to the majors — and stability. The PGA Tour has broadcast agreements in place across multiple networks; LIV Golf is still streaming only on YouTube for now.

The Tour also offers substantial career security in a way that LIV, at present, does not. For mid-tier players, LIV represents a gamble: as competition grows for the 48 spots available in a LIV season, so too does the likelihood that some players will be left with few playing options. A player who jumps from the Tour to LIV forfeits their right to play on the PGA Tour, even if the LIV option doesn’t work out. The Tour, at the moment, has imposed suspensions that run as far as March 2024 for certain former Tour players now with LIV.

The non-green grass proposal

A separate proposal, not connected to the PGA Tour/LIV battle, involves Woods and McIlroy creating a series of one-off “non-green-grass,” technology-driven events. As reported by USA Today, the events would be, in effect, one-day skills competitions – think PGA Tour players competing at Top Golf. The competitions would work around the PGA Tour’s schedule and take place from January through March, starting in 2024. Players could build equity in the venture, which would be independent of, but approved by, the Tour.

PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan is slated to speak Wednesday at the Tour Championship at East Lake. LIV’s next event is slated for early September in Boston.

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Contact Jay Busbee at [email protected] or on Twitter at @jaybusbee.

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