LOS ANGELES — Everything is going to be perfect. It has stars. It’s documented. It has one of the most beautiful stages in all of prime time sports. This was supposed to be a big day on the PGA Tour.
Two weeks ago, Wyndham Clark shot a 60 in the third round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am at Pebble Beach to break the course’s all-time record and take the lead. On paper, Sunday on this tour was perfect. It’s the bye week before the Super Bowl, which means it actually has its own sports calendar. This makes the championship an iconic event, meaning one of golf’s most iconic venues has all the best players on tour competing. Suddenly, Clark, the reigning U.S. Open champion and star of golf’s new season of Netflix show “Full Swing,” will play Sunday’s game against one of the most exciting young players in the sport, Ludwig Oberg. duel.
And this never happened.
Instead, extreme weather on Sunday caused flooding disruptions and downed trees across California. The course consumed so much water over the course of five days that the game could not be completed on Monday. Instead of ending with an exciting, star-studded prime-time event with everyone talking about PGA Tour golf, the tournament ended with Clark shooting a 60 on Saturday and a whimper.
It’s been a weird six weeks for this tour. The lead-up to the majors comes during the most exciting part of its calendar, and there is ongoing discussion about whether the PGA Tour season lacks energy.
But it might just wait until the Sunday it’s been waiting for. At the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club — considered by many to be the best non-pro event on tour — the final round is about to get interesting. World No. 7 Patrick Cantlay is two shots ahead. His good friend and No. 5 golfer Xander Schauffele was second, tied with rising star Will Zalatoris, who is out for 2023 due to back surgery. Coupled with the return of four major champions Jason Day and Ryder Cupper Harris English to elite courses, this Sunday could bring that energy.
But, about the juice.
It’s really no one’s fault. It’s not even clear if this is true. But something strange happened. All six games so far have been narrowly won. Literally. They were won by so-called randoms, or “mules,” as some in the golf world like to call them. Chris Kirk. Grayson Murray. Nick Dunlap. Matthew Pavin. Wyndham Clark. Nick Taylor. All six entered the tournament with odds of 100-to-1 or better. Five of the six are outside the top 50 in this week’s official World Golf Ranking. Clark was the only winner inside the top 50 to win without advancing to the final round.
PGA Tour winners and pre-tournament starting prices starting in 2024:
Chris Kirk 100/1 Sentinel
Grayson Murray 300/1 Sony
Nick Dunlap (a) 400/1 American Express
Mathieu Pavin 150/1 Farmer
Wyndham Clark 100/1 AT&T Pebble Hotel
Nick Taylor 100/1 WM Phoenix— Michael Verity (@MichaelVerity) February 12, 2024
Not even bad. Golf is exciting most of the time. A 20-year-old amateur won the tournament and claimed to be the potential future of the sport. Two of them involve touching stories of overcoming adversity. The two have already entered the playoffs! Last week in Phoenix it made national news as a drunken crowd broke through police lines.
But, for better or worse, the sport has become a bottom-line business. As the war between the league and private equity firms rages on, all we hear is ratings, player impact programs and stars arguing over whether those results are a problem.
Recap: Chris Kirk (100-1) wins in a low-scoring match against stars like Sahith Theegala and Jordan Spieth The iconic event “Sentinel”. It wasn’t the greatest match, but Kirk’s victory after taking some time off to deal with alcoholism and depression was a great storyline. A week later the situation was similar again. Grayson Murray (300-1) also had alcohol and mental health issues and even faced penalties from the PGA Tour a few years ago, but with two incredible shots in the clutch, he had an exciting season. Win the playoffs. These aren’t star performers, but most people agree these are a pretty cool finish.
Then, at the American Express, which was by no means a major event expecting much fanfare, 20-year-old defending U.S. Amateur champion Nick Dunlap (400-1) became the first amateur to win the PGA players, thus taking over the golf world. A Tour event since Phil Mickelson 33 years ago. This is gold.
Next up was 31-year-old Frenchman Matthieu Pavon (150-1), who won at Torrey Pines. Then, bad weather at Pebble Beach canceled the exciting final round of the tour, which also led to more people in the golf world watching LIV’s final round in Mexico. At last week’s Waste Management Open in Phoenix, Nick Taylor and 47-year-old Charley Hoffman had a thrilling playoff game known for a rowdy, alcohol-fueled atmosphere. score. Even so, the news was drowned out by news of fans breaking containment and weather delays pushing an exciting Super Bowl game to the first half.
The tour failed to win.
A small group of people turned this into a conversation about LIV Departure, which shows that this trip is no longer a great product. This offseason, the PGA Tour lost a big star in Jon Rahm and another top-20 player in Tyrell Hatton. Losing them stings. no doubt. But it would be misleading to assume that the results of these tournaments are due to the fact that these two games did not exist. Kirk and Clark beat a huge field with most of the best players in the world. Even Sony, American Express, and Phoenix have plenty of top 10 and top 20 players. Those guys just beat them.
This may have more to do with personality factors. Whatever you think of LIV, it’s at least fair to say that it draws on many of the most important figures on the PGA Tour. Few are bigger than Mixon. Brooks Koepka is a star. Bryson DeChambeau is a pariah. Dustin Johnson may not be a huge “personality,” but he is one of the most talked about golfers in more than a decade. Rahm and Hatton are two passionate, emotional and talented players. Cameron Smith is a fishing-loving Aussie with a mullet who is becoming an even bigger star. Everyone has an opinion about Patrick Reed.
Even if you want to criticize the quality of some of these players, the fact is that LIV has some of the most eye-catching golfers.
While it’s no one’s fault, the PGA Tour players who play their best aren’t exactly the winners of their eyeballs. As The Fried Egg’s Garrett Morrison points out, of the six recipients in the top 20 of the PGA Tour’s Player Impact Program, only one was awarded an award that led to the tour’s success. Players who come to business (tickets, sponsorships, media consumption and fan engagement). That man was Clark, who played in a rain-shortened game.
If my data collection is correct (maybe not?):
– No one in the top 10 in 2023 PIP has done better this season than No. 3
– One player in the PIP top 20 (Wyndham Clark) won and it was a rain-shortened event— Garrett Morrison (@garrett_TFE) February 17, 2024
The biggest names on tour right now are Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spies and Tiger Woods. Well, Riviera was only McIlroy’s second event in the United States this year. Spieth is playing good golf but has yet to win. Woods is a 48-year-old legend who averages more surgeries per year than the top ten players. Then, to add fuel to the market share fire, Woods withdrew from the Genesis event he was hosting on Friday because of the flu, and Spieth was disqualified on Friday for submitting an incorrect scorecard. Those are two huge attractions in the equation.
The next wave of young stars like Scotty Scheffler, Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa haven’t lived up to the hype that those names have received, and they haven’t even reached their extraordinary level yet this season.
None of this is really a problem, really. The game was pretty good. Many contain cool storylines. Anyone who acts like this is probably a big problem and they are probably working to make it a big problem. But it’s a thing. Something worth paying attention to.
“Obviously, it’s important,” Schauffele said Saturday, “but I was talking to the CEO of American Express and he was talking about the ratings when Nick (Dunlap) won. People love Cinderella stories. . I’m not sure what the ratings are for Waste Management, but Charlie – obviously, I’m biased because he’s from San Diego – but he’s one of the older guys trying to win here, it’s a younger crowd. That’s it The beauty of the PGA Tour. Anyone can win any week and there are a lot of stories going around.”
That’s enough to make this Sunday somewhat important. Riviera is arguably the best course on Tour all year. Cantlay and Schauffele are both perennial top-10 players, while Zalatoris is someone the golf world covets. But even leaderboard victories come with a caveat.
Cantlay is not a popular player. He ranked just 19th in last year’s PIP rankings, losing points with the crowd at times over accusations of slow play and allegations that he didn’t wear a hat at the 2023 Ryder Cup in protest that players weren’t being paid. event. Schauffele is the fifth-ranked player in the world and one of the most consistent players of his era, but his career has been mostly known for consistency without winning many major tournaments. Basically, even the PGA Tour’s big Sunday is led by some bland stars.
But this is where we need to get away from PIP and popularity. Let’s just talk about golf. The final round is going to be exciting. It’s going to be the best course, with the best players, and it’s something that golf fans should be paying attention to.
We are six weeks into the eight-month season. Shut up and enjoy it.
(Photo by Patrick Cantlay: Harry How/Getty Images)
