The venerable British author and critic Peter Ackroyd has written about a stunning range of subjects, although not (at least not yet) the global landscape of golf. However, one of his caustic observations should be posted at the entrance to the PGA Tour's world headquarters.
“Isolation is independence,” he wrote. “But it’s also a source of loneliness.”
The Tour has long been content with its own company, taking a strictly protectionist approach to its prospects and operations. Even its strategic alliance with the DP World Tour was forged under duress to prevent the Saudis from buying up their stingy European friends. It also has a tight schedule, which also shows that it's more than just a strong business book. When the PGA Tour is on, members must get permission to play elsewhere, and this year there are only two weeks when the PGA Tour doesn't have anything on the schedule (both this month). By Thanksgiving, only three of the dark weeks will remain, meaning the schedule effectively functions as a year-long stranglehold on the workforce.
But Pontevedra's regionalism had outlived its usefulness.
Currently, the U.S. is golf's only profitable audience at scale, but sales will still be difficult in the fall. The scheduled eight PGA Tour events may produce exciting endings, worthy winners and compelling storylines, but they're not impactful enough. Fans were either distracted by football or despairing that the Republic might summon village idiots to lead, but they weren't consuming golf. The PGA Tour playoffs ended a month ago, and with more than 90 days left in the 2024 season, there is little hope. The DP World Tour produced quality results at County Down and Wentworth, but most events will feature cheap base events before November's Middle East finals, with LIV ending itself with a now-familiar whimper 's season, whose finale awarded Jon Rahm $18 million, or $200 per viewer.
In every direction we find a diluted product, all affected to varying degrees by political divisions and apathy among fans and players. The PGA Tour can use this gloomy period on the calendar to promote the tournament and its influence beyond the FedExCup season, which will (and should) be protected. Q4 needs to be completely rethought, and that requires a long-term and long-range vision (preferably farther than hosting an “international” team event 30 miles from the New York border).
If the FedExCup and Race to Dubai end at the same time, the U.S. and European circuits will work together from September to December to reimagine global products that can drive business growth. Even as events rotate between Europe, the Middle East, South Korea, Japan, South Africa and Australia, the market is clear. A series of six to eight tournaments would be better for the long-term health of golf than the depthless, Balkanized menu offered to fans this time of year.
This concept raises two obvious and disturbing questions: Who pays and who plays?
Lucrative media rights are virtually non-existent outside the U.S. market, and DP World Tour's best efforts show that high-end sponsorships are hard to come by, even more so with today's wallets. Will Strategic Sports Group investors, who just poured a billion and a half into the Tour, one day support global expansion if they don't attract a streaming service willing to pay top dollar for a nascent experiment? Or do they turn to Riyadh? The latter will inevitably mean games in Saudi Arabia, where their absence will be noticed by legions of fans.
Who plays? Top golfers have repeatedly expressed no interest in traveling overseas at the end of the year, something that is sure to shock SSG players who are not used to talent hampering their ability to see a return on their investment. Red Sox pitcher Brayon Bello didn't tell John Henry that he missed all Yankees games because he hated the Bronx traffic. The truth is, not every game needs every star. To wit: The presence of McIlroy, Rahm and Brooks Koepka significantly raises the profile of next week's Dunhill Links event in Scotland. A handful of stars are enough to elevate most events, as long as every top player is featured in a dozen events a year. Eventually, more international travel will become the norm, even for parochial players.
By 2025, none of this will happen because the calendar is locked. Maybe this won't happen at all. But what’s clear is that the golf industry needs to change to extract some real value from this bleak period this year. Protecting the strong U.S. market makes sense, but it also makes sense to push the calendar to expand the business and serve consumers outside the U.S.
“Sometimes the silences, the gaps, tell us more than anything else,” critic Aykroyd wrote. The gap we are in now, the silence in the schedule, should tell those in charge of the sport everything they need to hear.
