I never understood exactly how you guys wanted them to do it? The PGAT has all the power and all the feeders set up, how can they start with big name golfers and threaten Phil Mickelson or Lee Westwood with losing their card immediately?
Don’t do it at all?
Do a silly season series in the fall?
Right that’s my point. If you want to start a rival league to what was a complacent and lazy league (until it started copying and competing with LIV) you can’t come in with full relegations and a full qualifying system when the points and eligibility are largely controlled by the monopoly you are challenging. The cut throat way in which the PGAT exercised its immense monopolistic power to starve LIV of points and players was effective but bad for golf fans. It’s good for PGA Tour which they have done an insanely good job convincing everyone is golf. The media propaganda push is something North Korea would have been proud of, we got to see exactly how the golf “media” behaves. They behave as totally controlled PGA T employees for vast majority. Because they basically are
Gift article that refutes a ton of LIV talking points with documents.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/11/sports/golf/liv-saudi-pga.html?unlocked_article_code=1.7FA.1uk7.Tubu-0VsimeD&smid=url-share
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I am so tired of just hearing PGA Tour rehearsed propaganda and talking points. I am not just a PGAT fan, I was a golf fan. I don’t root for the PGAT to remain dominant, I don’t care about if LIV makes a profit I just like watching golf
Yes, we are all in here spewing PGA Tour propaganda. Because we have nothing better to do with our time.
The fans have spoken. Nobody liked LIV. The PGA Tour is not paying anyone to say this. I hated it from day 1 and so did most normal people. Let’s move on, you’ll still have plenty of good golf to watch.
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You massively exaggerate your own experience. Just because you don’t like LIV doesn’t mean others didn’t. Or more importantly wouldn’t if it wasn’t the brunt of a full bore attack from all the propaganda sources
That is why the PGA T used all their power to influence fans
I think you massively exaggerate yours.
Have you met anyone outside of the LIV grievance bubble on Twitter that likes LIV? I have not.
You can keep reciting your PGA Tour propaganda theory, but it’s not very interesting because it’s unfalsifiable. Even here you grant that maybe most people don’t like LIV—but that’s just because the propaganda campaign was so good!
In general, the only people I have come across that like LIV are those in areas that are generally not serviced by the PGA Tour. We see that a lot with LIV Adelaide or South Africa, I feel like. Some online Purdue communities I’m in have a lot of more LIV friendly people simply because they have an event in Indy they can go to. (Interestingly, the recent NLU podcast with behind-the-scenes on the BMW Tournament set-up talked about some red tape logistical nightmares they had at Crooked Stick before that might explain why the Tour hasn’t gone back there). There was a woman in my neighborhood wearing a LIV hat (Crushers, maybe? I don’t know) a while back, but for all I know she liked the logo. I didn’t really engage to ask.
I have met zero Americans that are fans of LIV. And I play and watch a ton of golf. I should be their target audience and they have zero appeal to me.
Their TV ratings in the US are miniscule so by any objective measure they are not pulling in much interest here. I can understand how in somewhere like Australia it might be more interesting. But overall it is a bad product that almost nobody cares about. I will happily watch PGA and DP world tour events almost every weekend and LIV can’t get me to tune in.
Right. If you actually like golf there’s no reason to not like LIV. The reasons were essentially made up, but the mandate from above was overwhelming: you can’t like it.
First it was because it was Saudi Arabia and that was somehow pro terror or something absurdly offensive. Then the PGAT took their money. Then it was because they were just playing for money. Then the PGAT copied the money. Then it was because of shorts or something sillier and sillier
There is no reason to dislike it unless you are incepted by PGAT propaganda: that’s why they went desperately all out to push all their influencers and media (which is basically all of golf media because there was no other league) to dislike it for vague ever changing reasons
Because of pure propaganda convincing you. Obviously you have no reason to dislike it, you will make something up but it has changed a bunch over time
Hog, even by your standards those responses were pathetic.
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All i do is flip the TV on and watch golf. That’s not really propaganda, that’s just a golfer with a TV remote.
Do you not find it at least mildly interesting that you come off like an employee of LIV? I mean clearly nobody else but family and friends are interested in the product. The shotgun starts, the cartoonish TV production, the dumb team names (and even the entire team concept itself), etc.
I am glad at least one person enjoyed watching it. I was not one of them. I almost can’t tell if your passionate defense of it is because you are personally part of that tour or just a comedic bit for entertainment and not serious in any way. I mean has anyone else in this years long thread spoken in favor of it?
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The TV production was excellent. I believe well over 2x shots shown compared vs a PGA T event. I can’t tell if you guys actually believe what you are saying because it’s so obviously the opposite of what you are saying that no one could possibly say tv production as a reason for the PGAT. They had like 5x more commercials, constant worthless interviews with CEOs, etc. if you want to watch golf it’s obvious which production was better
Shotgun start obviously something people blew out of proportion to whine about. It doesn’t matter that much except at Augusta or some course everyone knows all the holes. Leaders all play roughly same course anyway Sunday, I would be fine with it being more classic Sunday (which it was)
Team concept was amazing. Took nothing away and added drama and meaningful golf. A huge step forward conceptually. It didn’t work perfectly and they didn’t handle it amazingly but it was a massively + move and idea because if you didn’t like it you could just ignore it
I think as a general rule, when someone gives their opinion in here, let’s take it at face value and not assume they’ve been incepted with PGA Tour propaganda.
The vast majority of golf fans don’t spend any time on the parts of the internet where you’d encounter people shouting about LIV vs. PGAT, and they aren’t reading Golf Digest articles. They are just turning their TV on and watching golf, as @dlavalley3 said. And most of them have decided LIV isn’t for them. That’s just a fact.
In my case, it’s so crazy to hear someone say “how could you possibly not like LIV”. I was literally sick to my stomach for weeks at a time when the LIV poaching was at its peak. To me it was no different than the Saudis offering a billion dollars to every NBA star to go play in a 3-on-3 league. Some would take the money, and would essentially be deciding that money is more important than anything the pinnacle of their sport can offer them, and for diehard fans of the sport that would suck. Why should I care about the NBA title if the players don’t even care about it?
If LIV was successful in their poaching and we had to watch Scottie go play a team event in Singapore, that would be an absolute travesty. You can disagree and say that’s fine, but at least try to understand why some people—who care about golf’s history and traditions and which tournaments have meaning—wouldn’t like that.
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When I say “TV production”, I’m not talking a measurement of shots per hour on the screen. I’m talking the noisy cartoonish screen. It’s like something a meth addict with ADD would like to watch.
I’m glad you enjoy LIV. It’s not for me. I’m also not exaggerating when I say I have never met a golf fan in real life that enjoyed it. You are clearly in the tiniest of minorities of golf fans that enjoy the product, but that shouldn’t detract from your personal enjoyment of it. Just don’t pretend like everyone else is stupid and brainwashed. The only time I actively seek it out is in the final round if I have a significant wager coming down to the wire.
Assuming the PGAT is the pinnacle of the sport is exactly what I am talking about. No one has ever thought that, the Tour itself didn’t even ever promise best against best.
The majors were, are and always will be the pinnacle of the sport to me and I suspect most fans. To me the majors getting
Bullied and controlled by PGAT was a dark stain on golf, it no longer was best vs best but the WGR were used as a political tool for one company
What makes an event have meaning?
The money, according to PGAT ,
As they increased the money of playoffs and events to add more meaning
The color of the screen bothered you? This is what I mean in that people decided to not like LIV and just made up reasons to not like it. If you are a golf fan you want to see golf shots. LIV shows way more golf shots. But you are not really a golf fan but a PGAT fan so had to mentally come up with something to justify it, no matter how laughable it is. I mean obviously what you are saying makes no sense
Of course I mean pinnacle of the sport non-major division. I still think my NBA analogy is good.
Anyways, this is incredibly tiring. I’m done, for good in this thread. Try to have fun watching PGA Tour golf, Hog.