Hello dear reader of ridiculous golf news and notes,

Here is your wholesome bit of golf content for today, starring Viktor Hovland.

Viktor rules. The World Cup rules. Sport rules.

I have always had a low level of guilt about loving sport. It always felt a bit lowbrow and maybe even a silly way to spend one’s time. [gestures at every Normal Sport meme for the last four years]

And while I do think we can become unhealthily obsessive or give too much of our devotion to a team or an athlete, I have also had my mind shifted on this a bit.

I think it goes back to this article by Brett McCracken for me. This part in particular.

What a paragraph, and what a truth (?).

Sport can be silly. It can be an addiction. It can be a lot of things. But both participating and following along also might be the most human thing in the world these days.

Lastly: Dima Maghrib!

Name drops today: Lucas Glover, Kawhi, Serena, Spieth and the Wyndham.

TODAY’S SPONSOR

Today’s newsletter is presented by our friends at OMNI who are — somewhat incredibly — giving away a free four-night stay to one hashtag blessed Normal Sport reader.

I was introduced to the OMNI world a few years ago when my son and I played in their Generation Cup at PGA Frisco. It was an event that disclosed to me the care they put into everything they do, including the experience of staying in a world class resort and playing some of the best golf courses anywhere. Stay and play. (We should charge more for these free marketing ideas).

So how does one win this free four night stay at one of OMNI’s wonderful golf resorts: More details right here as well as how you enter the giveaway.

And now … onto the news.

Some Thoughts on the Future of the PGA Tour

Following the PGA Tour’s announcement last week about what the future of its league is going to look like, I wanted to take a few days to digest everything and formulate some thoughts about it all before writing on it.

Those few days — and one terrific conversation with Joel Beall — are in the rearview, and I have a lot of thoughts about the future of the Tour.

1. I think the strongest piece of a revamped PGA Tour is that you cannot switch back and forth between the challenger track and the championship track. It makes the lens through which fans view these events much less blurry than it was before.

This also consolidates talent into a specific and definitive collection of golf tournaments and creates a true hierarchy for a league in which the Travelers and the Deere were often considered more equivalent than they should have been.

All of this is excellent for fans and honors at least two of Rolapp’s three pillars from last fall (parity, scarcity and simplicity).

Cathedrals

2. There are consequences here, though. My first thought was, What about Scottie playing the Byron Nelson (which surely won’t be a championship event)? (I was going to ask about Spieth playing the Byron Nelson, but he might still get to 🫢).

Beall brought up an even more interesting one: What about national opens that could be included in the future schedule where a player is from that particular country?

This conundrum is also encouraging. Because a solution that has no losers and no downside probably is not a very good solution at all. A true “if you have two QBs, you have none” situation.

I’m encouraged because real change involves difficult choices, and difficult choices always results in people or entities losing out. That is harsh, but it’s not personal. To build something meaningful and sustainable, difficult choices — aka constraints — are necessary, and to lose out on something is sometimes to gain a whole lot more.

(something I need to remember in running a business)

3. I am fascinated to see what the exemptions are for these events. Praise be to the Tour for eliminating all sponsor exemptions. I have been clamoring (screaming from the mountaintops!) about this very thing for years and years, and they finally did it.

Now we can thumb our collective golf nose at tennis and its crooked wild card system! Though I did start making the obvious comp between Serena getting a bid into Wimbledon this year and Tiger (or a future version of Tiger) not being allowed to play the Memorial or anything else in the championship track.

Again, the tradeoff here is one I would make 10 times out of 10, but I’m sure there are people who feel differently.

Regardless, the exemptions categories will be interesting. What will happen with injured players? How many years will a major buy you? Rolapp alluded to “career milestones and accomplishments”, which has me mildly concerned that Patrick Cantlay will be making starts until he’s 55 because he has so many top 10s throughout his career, but I am cautiously optimistic here.

4. I think this begs the question of why I’m cautiously optimistic. There are two reasons.

1. Beall said on our pod toward the end of last week that players respect Rolapp for the ways he has listened to and communicated with them.

2. And also, during his pressers, I get this sense …

To be clear, this is a good thing. He has organized the Tour’s hive of ambiguity more in the last nine months than I think it was organized in the last 19 years.

Rolapp seems like a wise and empathetic authoritarian. That is exactly what the commissioner of a league needs to be. Empathetic to hear all voices. Wise to choose the right ones. And authoritarian to push through what needs to be pushed through.

5. I tweeted out during last Tuesday’s presser that I didn’t think the changes being made were a big deal and did not deserve any pushback whatsoever.

That was mostly a response to both Lucas Glover — in a Golf Channel interview — talking about how players were going to have to deal with some big change and also to Rex Hoggard discussing how some players were upset about the changes.

To be clear, I understand why the 95th ranked player in the world is displeased. He potentially goes from playing for $10M purses to $4M purses pretty quickly.

But I maintain that for the sake of simplicity and sustainability, to not see these changes as a good thing in the long term is to be incredibly shortsighted about the future of the PGA Tour. What I have shifted on a bit is that the actual organizing of all these principles into a coherent model actually is a big deal.

Most of this already existed. Knowers knew that Bay Hill and 3M were not the same. But also they kind of were the same as it relates to FedEx Cup points (700 vs. 500), Masters invites (both winners get one) and years of exemption on the PGA Tour (from everything I can gather, you get the same number of years of exemption for winning Pebble as you do the Wyndham).

Now they are very much not the same, and this separation is a good thing. Also, Spieth said something similar to what I was thinking, which you know I revel in.

Kyle at the Global Home

6. Maverick McNealy pointed this out in an interview on Golf Channel last week, but now players, fans and tournament organizers (mostly) know who is going to be at every event. Joseph LaMagna wrote about this a bit as well. This is a good thing. You don’t have guys wandering around all over the country wondering whether they’re going to be in that week’s tournament. Similarly, when fans buy tickets to the Rocket Mortgage or to Quail Hollow, they (mostly) know who they are going to see. This is one of the many reasons that having two hard-line tracks is great for the Tour and its future.

7. I say “mostly” above because … what are the minimum tournaments players are required to play, and what do minimum requirements even mean anymore?

One obvious flaw in all of this is that Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy are not going to play 23-24 times a year on the PGA Tour. Especially Rory, given his Euro Tour duties. Last year, Scottie played 21 times, including the Ryder Cup, but not including the Hero. I seriously doubt he adds 3-4 more just because the Tour begs him to (if you haven’t noticed, he operates a little differently than most!).

Because players covet the ability to remain independent contractors, there will not be a contractual obligation to play all 23-24 championship track events. However, most players will be incentivized by the need to earn points and stay inside the top 90 so I suspect most players will play all or close to all of them.

The problem is that the ones who won’t do this are the guys who actually draw fans (see below).

This week, Bob Harig reported that this year Rory will likely not meet the 15-tournament threshold required for Tour membership and laid out what that means for him retaining his Tour membership in 2027.

TL;DR Nothing.

Extraordinary circumstances such as … maybe upcoming TV contracts and a desire business need to showcase one of the 10 greatest players of all time regardless of whether he plays 13 or four or 22 events? I think that qualifies.

But it gets at the bigger point: The superduperstars have real leverage over the Tour. This is not a major sticking point, but it feels like it’s in the same category of problem the NBA is facing with load management.

Which reminds me of one of the great tweets of our time.

Also, somewhat ironically, now it is only the top tier of player that might not know their exact schedule. If Scottie scuffles through the Florida swing and doesn’t play well at the Masters, maybe he has to add something he wouldn’t otherwise play.

To be clear here, I don’t disparage him and Rory from probably not playing a full schedule. That is the right move if you care about history and major championships. This is a Tour problem, not a Scottie/Rory problem. And I’m interested to see how the Tour handles it.

I promised myself I would fit all of my thoughts into a concise and condensed newsletter.

[pause]

😂😂😂

So you’ll get Part 2 later this week.

Until then, thank you for reading this ridiculous golf news, be sure and enter the OMNI contest and I do believe that we will win (at least one more game).