The Saudi regime is a regime with a questionable human rights record on both their own citizens, neighbouring countries, and journalists. The next sentence does not begin with a “but”, “nonetheless” or “however”. Almost all sports have been washed to some extent. Golf was, is and will be no different. LIV golf is not going away any time soon. While the sport we love is potentially being washed in a mosquito infested pond so some pros can make more money and one pro can finally get his own back on an organisation he has hated for decades. Can we perhaps learn anything from what they’re doing and use it to improve the game of golf? I think there are some things in there that are worthy of further discussion. Over the next few weeks, we’re going to write a few articles about the potential upsides of giving the PGA Tour a bit of a nudge. The PGA Tour is one of the most successful sporting organisations in the world. Change comes slowly. But when change does come, they had better react quickly. LIV has taken baby-steps to change some of the problems with golf tournaments. But how could the PGA Tour react if they wanted to make lasting changes?
Elite Men’s Golf is Too American Centric
The USA is the de-facto home of golf. It has the most players, money and courses. But does it deserve to have 3 of the 4 majors? Does it deserve to have the vast majority of elite pro events? The PGA Tour is totally deserving of its’ status. It gained that status through years of hard work and investment. But is it a black-hole that absorbs anything else that gets close? Almost exactly 50% of the top 100 male golfers are American (and that’s before we consider any bias in our male rankings). It’s time those countries got their fair share. But perhaps the LPGA could also learn and push more women’s golf to their high-worth-nations such as South Korea.
Mixed Events Should be Prime Time
Over 91 thousand people watched Barcelona v Real Madrid in 2022. They were not watching Luka Modrić or Robert Lewandowski, but Alexia Putellas and Caroline Graham Hansen. The debate whether a handicapping system should be used to ensure a (un-level) level playing field will be discussed forever. Golf is in a unique position where men and women can compete directly and all you need to change is the position of the tees. Other sports may experiment with battle of the sexes exhibition matches but golf could be the first sport to integrate women into its’ schedule.
Tournaments Take Too Long
Golf is stuck with 72 hole tournaments. On one hand, four rounds are arguably not enough to give the best players enough time to rise to the top: winning one in ten tournaments will pretty much make you the best player in the world. On the other hand, simply decreasing the number of holes in each tournament effectively diminishes the skill of each player. Sure, big outsiders winning a tournament create fairy-tale stories, but that should be the exception rather than the rule. What golf needs is a way to cut the total time of a tournament, whilst ensuring the cream have the opportunity to rise to the top. The cherry on top would be decreasing the size of the course so each spectator can watch more of the action un-fold. Check back in a few weeks for some of our ideas!
Silly Rules & Traditions
Any time your non-golfing friends say “REALLY?!” to any aspect of golf, step-back and truly think about why it is that way. That could be that wearing shorts is a newsworthy story! Or, that it is within the living memory of a teenager, the club associated to the governing body of the game allowed those pesky women to become members. Sometimes, “just because it’s always been that way” isn’t a good enough response.
