Is Pro Golf Facing a Crisis?

In this addition of Ask Alan, our Alan Shipnuck takes reader questions about the golf world.

What DEFCON is pro golf at right now? That the top two tours can’t get over 100K viewers on a Sunday seems disastrous even for football season. Combined with the lackluster ratings for the playoffs, it really does seem like this sport is in a fast downward spiral! @SarrMaclean

I’m going to say DEFCON 2: a raging crisis that is threatening to turn into mutually assured destruction. The PGA Tour has been badly devalued by the loss of so many key protagonists, and the TV ratings you cite reflect that. The Tour’s new benefactors can’t be happy, either, as the first billion dollars of private equity money was shoveled to players without a dollar going toward upgrading the product. After three seasons and countless billions of dollars, LIV still has only a modest audience and now faces numerous big-ticket personnel decisions as the first wave of signees age out and/or need to be put out to pasture.

A deal to (sort of) reunify the sport is not a magic cure-all, as many former fans have realized that they’re okay not watching golf… and Bryson DeChambeau teeing it up at the Byron Nelson is not going to change that. The tour wars couldn’t have come at a worse time because the pro game was already suffering a glaring personality deficit. Greg Norman, Payne Stewart, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh…golf enjoyed a quarter century run of charismatic stars, badasses and transcendent talent. Now the PGA Tour is dominated by low-key nice guys who barely make the needle twitch. LIV has all the antiheroes and spicy personalities but they remain mostly out of sight and out of mind. We’ll see how things shake out in the off-season but DEFCON 1 could be coming.

Is Rory’s inability to win physical or mental? Or metaphysical? @Kevinp613

All of the above. With the Senior Tour in Pebble Beach last week, I sought out Ernie Els, who has many parallels with McIlroy: a massive talent who tasted whirlwind success at a young age and then came to be haunted by various near-misses. Els is friends with McIlroy—he sold his old house in South Florida to Rory—but he doesn’t mince words. “It’s not going to get easier, that’s for sure,” Els said. “Pinehurst, that is going to sting for a long time. Mentally, we’re going to have to see. When that little bit of doubt creeps in, it’s hard to get it out. I’ve been there many times. You beat yourself up.”

Els couldn’t hide his frustration when thinking back on the final holes of this year’s U.S. Open, at which McIlroy blew a 2-stroke lead. “He hit the wrong club at 15,” Els said. “Driver was the wrong play on 18. He could have hit a 2-iron off the tee. And then to hit his pitch too hard and be above the hole, that was a terrible leave.”  

Els has tried to be a confidant and advisor to McIlroy; after the 2022 Open Championship, at which Rory got run over by Cam Smith on the back nine, the Big Easy invited his friend over for dinner to give him a pep talk. “I wanted to help him get his head in the right place,” Els says. But he is vexed by McIlroy’s  reluctance to address some of the holes in his game. “He has to hit softer cut shots with his short irons,” Els say. “I’m sure I’ve said that to him. Get absolute control. There’s a reason Tiger played his best with a little soft cut. When you have that much power, you need to get control of the ball with a little cut spin.”

So there you have it: course management, wedge play, self-belief… there are a lot of explanations as to why McIlroy keeps getting his heart broken.

What would Lydia need to do the rest of the year to beat out Nelly and win the Golf Writers of America player of the year voting? @DREAMWeaver2784

It’s pretty much a dead heat right now. Ko has the two crown jewels of this season, the Open at the Old Course and Olympic gold medal, along with two other LPGA wins. Korda had an incredible run this spring, with six victories including a major championship, but her play ever since has been disappointing and occasionally catastrophic. If I had to vote today I’d go Ko. But there are eight more tournaments on the LPGA schedule; either of these mega-talents can go on a run and create a little daylight in a very spirited POY race.

Billy Horschel should be on every team competition for the next five years. He has more heart than most of the recent captain’s picks. The guy just doesn’t give up. Furyk will win the Prez Cup, but isn’t his mission to strengthen the bench for the Ryder Cup? @david_troyan

It is somewhat amazing that U.S. captains have an army of experts and vice captains to weigh in and yet they consistently fail to recognize the single most important quality for the Cups: the fight in the dawg. Like Keegan Bradley and Kevin Kisner and Lucas Glover, Horschel has been snubbed for an American team when it is plainly obvious he would add a much needed dimension. Your point about the Ryder Cup is well taken. Horschel is exactly the kind of personality who could shine amidst the rowdiness at Bethpage and this Presidents Cup would have been a valuable dress rehearsal. Instead we got safe, uninspired picks of players whose primary qualifications appear to be belonging to the right clique.

What can be done to give the Presidents Cup some juice?  Even with an International win, I don’t think it moves the needle. Please don’t tell me to go f*ck myself. @ricksterps

I would never! But go to your room, you’re in timeout… because there is simply no way to add juice to the Presidents Cup. It is a Tour product so the suits in Ponte Vedra will never allow the stage to be shared by LPGA interlopers, which of course would make the whole thing so much more interesting. And they’ll never embrace a non-traditional format like a worst-balls scramble that would be zany fun. The Presidents Cup just is. It will never have the intensity or history of the Ryder Cup, and it’s foolhardy to pine for that. Just enjoy the Prez Cup as low-level. It could be worse: at least you’re not watching football.

How much of a ricochet shot did the Presidents Cup take with LIV removing key players from the International team? The 2019 PCup seemed to be a sign of great competitions to come, but it’s now ruined with Cam, Niemann, etc. not being able to participate. @Twooters1

It’s definitely a bummer for the Internationals not to have Joaquin Niemann and Cam Smith, who would arguably be their two best players. LIV’s effect on the Cups can’t be overstated. At the last Ryder, the U.S. was weakened by not having Bryson DeChambeau or Dustin Johnson and Europe strengthened by not being forced to give aging warriors Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood, Henrik Stenson or Sergio Garcia a last stand, opening up spots for young studs like Ludvig Aberg and Nicolai Højgaard. If Jon Rahm fails to retain his eligibility for the ‘25 Ryder Cup, it will be a huge blow to Team Europe. So, yes, the International Team at this Presidents Cup has been wounded but that is now part of the cost of doing business in the new golf landscape.

If Rory never wins the Masters does he still become a normal member at ANGC post playing career? @HoselBombs

Highly doubtful, when you consider that even a beloved figure and two-time Masters champ like Ben Crenshaw hasn’t been made a dues-paying member.

Alan, I fear we will never see a Ryder Cup on a links course. It’s just not what the Europeans want to do apparently. Do you think we will ever see a Ryder Cup on a links? @bobbytrunole

The problem with just about every links course is that they are bordered by the sea, wild terrain and often quaint little towns; there is precious little space for the corporate villages, parking and other infrastructure needs of golf’s Super Bowl. The courses in the Open Championship rota have solved these issues to a large degree but they are old, proud clubs disinclined to put up the tens of millions of dollars required to host the modern Ryder Cup. So, I am dubious that we’ll ever get the Cup on a proper links. The good news is that the course’s bona fides are less important in match play, where you’re competing against the other man, not par.

Which major will be the first to invite the top 5 from the LIV points list? @glennmcspadden

Neither the Masters or PGA Championship has to make such a commitment, as they are both invitationals and can already cherrypick the occasional LIV player, as each tournament has already done. Mike Whan, who runs the USGA, fancies himself a maverick and strategic thinker and is clearly more likely to buck tradition than the tweedy gents at the R & A. So the answer is the U.S. Open, but top 5 seems ambitious; I think the top LIV player not otherwise exempt makes sense and is justified. Maybe the top 2. I doubt any major will make a commitment beyond that.

I hate hypotheticals, except this one, which has two parts: What do you think Adam Scott’s career would look like if 1) he was an average putter 2) He was a top 10 putter? @caia437

Three major championship victories, 25 PGA Tour wins. Mickelsonian.

If Keegan automatically qualifies for the ‘25 Ryder cup team, then what do you think the odds are of him both playing and captaining at the same time? @Not311Drummer

100%. First of all, Keegan has made it quite clear how much he is dying to play in another Ryder Cup and why should he penalize himself and not do so if he has earned his way onto the team? Beyond that, the Ryder Cup is an entertainment product. It would be great theater for Bradley to wear both hats, his every twitch chronicled by the NBC, USA, Golf Channel (and Netflix!) cameras. 

Is Tom Brady the Notah Begay of Tony Romos? @FakePoulter

No, he is the Smylie Kaufman of Terry Bradshaws.

Top Photo Caption: Rory McIlroy will have to fight through heartbreak to reach a fifth major. (GETTY IMAGES/Richard Heathcote)

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