While we’re a year away from the as yet-unnamed Netflix show tracking the lives of PGA Tour golfers, a few notes, observations and a dissenting view from Ireland:
The millennial jubilation over this show’s potential appears based in large part on a key detail from Dylan Dethier’s Golf.com story: a lack of PGA Tour editorial control. Which does make one wonder if there has been any Global Home introspection over just how much joy this gave the only demographic they care about until Gen Z is about to become the obsession?
Last week as the names agreeing to appear in the PGA Tour’s Netflix were promoted heavily, I Tweeted that World No. 1 amateur Keita Nakajima’s participation must mean he’s taking advantage of looser USGA/R&A amateur status rules. The answer is no. I heard from a few people directly associated with the project that no player, as far as they know, is going to be compensated for their participation. (Rickie Fowler’s production company is involved so presumably he will see financial reward for his participation.) Given Netflix’s annual spend on content creation—$17 billion in 2021—it’s a bit surprising there nothing, you know, for the effort.
Malachy Clerkin of the Irish Times penned a column wondering if the folks at Netflix have “ever met a PGA Tour golfer”, his very nice way of suggesting the sport doesn’t lend itself to producing charisma. A much more diplomatic case is made than say, Walter Simpson’s belief that the more “fatuously vacant the mind is, the better for play. It has been observed that absolute idiots play the steadiest.”
When you’re up close to golfers going about their business, you realise they are exactly as dull as you think they are. That’s not to denigrate them, it’s just the nature of the game. The whole point of golf is to be calm, to expunge all exterior thought, to glide through your round with a plain visage and head that is empty of everything that doesn’t apply to the next shot. Dustin Johnson has earned close $100m in prize money. Now you know how.
Dull and staid is the Valhalla of golf. The very thing that attracts millions of us to the game is the chance to be still, to be at peace, to be at a remove from the ever-going world.
