I have a theory regarding the LIV & PGA Tour Drama that might be able to explain some of the inconsistencies that we have been seeing. Hear me out.
The PGA Tour got blindsided by LIV. They probably didn’t expect the endless supply of money that the Saudi’s could provide would ever actually materialize into a genuine golf product, or that Yasir Al-Rumayyan would genuinely spend billions of dollars just to get a membership at Augusta National. Big fail right there, if Monahan had walked a mile in any regular golfers shoes I think he would have realized that anyone of us would have done the exact same thing to get an Augusta Membership if we could.
That being said the PGA Tour has another problem, their biggest events of the year are kind of lackluster. The FedEx cup is great, but playing for money is not very compelling for the viewer. The Players Championship, the unofficial 5th Major (Foreshadowing), is compelling but lets be honest no-one really considers it as big as even the PGA Championship (least compelling major). It is clear in the viewership numbers that what is compelling is playing for pride and or country. Tiger vs Mickelson, The Ryder Cup, The Presidents Cup, The Majors etc. all make for great viewing. This is the true issue for the PGA Tour, there is no amount of ‘Nice-guy’ lore building and character creation that can really make me give a shit about [Insert name here] guy from the PGA Tour. Copy Paste.
How does the PGA Tour, just your average run of the mill Non-Profit, with its 187,000 square-foot state of the art HQ, create a product that is compelling enough to make people want to tune is?
The PGA Tour needs a villain. Batman needs the Joker, Neo needs Agent Smith, SpongeBob needs Squidward.
Without these characters in the narrative, our hero (The PGA Tour) would have no obstacle to overcome, and no advertising revenue or viewership in which to profit millions of dollars.
The villain in this story is of course Yasir Al-Rumayyan and LIV Golf, we all know this trope now. What we don’t realize is that just like in Godzilla vs. Kong, these two unlikely enemies will have to team up to beat the true evil in the story that is the Majors and the Ryder Cup.
I believe that possibly the PGA Tour was blindsided by the Saudi’s, that they scrambled and failed to come up with anything compelling (Signature events) and that Monahan, down in the dumps,
came up with his most brilliant 5d chess move ever. Stall the negotiations, some players leave, no big deal, lose Rahm - we still have Rory and Min-Woo Lee. Build up the tension, let everyone get nervous, golf writers repost reddit posts for clicks, is this the final end of the PGA/Pro golf on TV being good watching?
And then BOOM - In true Monahan fashion he does not speak until he does, and he drops the bomb-shell like a Saudi US coalition venture in Yemen.
PGA Tour and PIF sign a deal and create… LIV vs PGA events.
There would not be more compelling golf on TV than these events, just like Grant Horvat and Garret playing together again, it will be epic. The PGA and LIV will essentially be run by the same people with the same interests, Monahan will consolidate his ever-throttling grip on power in the golf world and the fans will begin the hype for their sides in this massive event.
People on the PGA side will have to tune in or all their months of dick-riding will be in vain. LIV fans will finally have to tune in because they will have something interesting to watch, and each LIV event will actually matter as you might get on the LIV vs PGA Team.
This could be a yearly event or maybe like 2x per year, could be with teams, not really sure.
Thoughts? Is this possibly the greatest 7-head move in all of pro sports senior management team history? Or are the PGA Tour really just dumb and haven’t taken the billions been offered to them?