In order to help the PGA Tour fend off the threat posed by the up-and-coming LIV Golf Series and its deep pockets, two of the most outspoken critics of the upstart circuit are seeking to set up some events that actually mimic it.
According to reports from the Fire Pit Collective’s Alan Shipnuck and Sports Illustrated’s Bob Harig, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy have floated the idea of a tour-within-a-tour that would include 60 top golfers playing a series of 18 no-cut events on the PGA Tour featuring $20 million purses.
Golfweek reports the proposed miniseries would feature the golfers competing against each other in a non-green grass, stadium environment and that the new string of one-day events will launch in 2024. “We need to get the top players together more often than we do,” McIlroy said after meeting with Woods and more than 20 of the PGA Tour’s top golfers last week.
The suggested series, while exciting, would also create a pretty clear divide between the PGA Tour’s top golfers and the rest of the pack. It’s also hard not to see it as somewhat of a rip-off of what LIV Golf has already been doing. “Of course, this proposed slate of super-events sounds very much like what LIV has already created, with its 48-man, no-cut fields vying for $25 million purses,” Shipnuck writes. “As word has leaked out among the players from both tours about what was discussed at Woods’s confab at the Hotel du Pont, there has been a certain amount of gloating among LIV loyalists that the Tour is stealing its blueprint.”
That may be somewhat of a simplistic way of looking at the proposed solution, which would have to be vetted by PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, but it is somewhat difficult to see it any other way. However, perhaps that’s missing the point. The reason behind the PGA joining LIV in holding small events with big purses would be to beat LIV at its own game — so would it work?
“I’d argue that by stealing some of the things that LIV got right, the PGA Tour is adopting some overdue changes — part of what made it vulnerable in the first place,” writes Golf.com senior writer Dylan Dethier. “I have slightly mixed feelings about the no-cut aspect, because we’ve seen some relatively lifeless WGC events over the years. But the fact that we as golf fans would know when we should be watching would be extremely helpful. And because the Tour has built-in advantages — TV deals, decades of history, Tiger Woods, etc. — it wins most tiebreakers.”
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