There are many of them fans would like to see on the PGA Tour.
The golf saga continues with the rift between the LIV Golf Tour and the PGA Tour, for the last 4 years.
The latest and the most profound change in this unfortunate tear in the professional men’s golf world, has been the Saudi funding for the league has been pulled, leaving the whole concept out in space looking for new funding or folding up and being absorbed in the professional golf landscape.
First of all, professional sports players get paid too much, so fans at a certain point and to a certain measure consider these people spoiled rich folk they can’t relate to.
Sometimes there comes along a golfer that is more relatable, who maybe wasn’t raised with money, doesn’t worship money, prioritizes their faith in Jesus Christ. Those golfers at least have a chance to remain grounded and humble in this type of environment, when money is at crazy levels.
While most golf fans consider the money factor, the main focus is to watch the best players in the world compete against each other at the golf courses we’ve grown to love or are learning about with excitement. We enjoy the history, of the players, the competitions, and the golf course itself, the club where the tournament is played.
Obviously, the LIV Tour could never be what the PGA Tour is, it doesn’t have the history of professional golf on its side. Doesn’t matter if they had more money, they didn’t have any history or tradition.
In a way, I appreciate LIV as a product, it is different than the PGA and other professional golf tours, and I like it for the most part. When the tournaments were shown for free for the first 2 or 3 years, I would watch an entire final round and see the most amazing golf and finishes by golfers that aren’t even big names.
I also don’t like how they poached players from the PGA Tour and provoked them to take hard measures on golfers who left to play on the new tour. Still, the worst part of this split, in my opinion, is how the PGA Tour responded to it.
Let me explain. The PGA Tour and its formal and informal affiliates, like the Golf Channel, made the split worse with their harshness; and now that the league is in trouble, these golf analysts are spewing their vitriolic venom into the golfing world at large — this isn’t lost on many golf fans.
The way the PGA Tour reacted made this worst than it had to be. I think they should recognize this failure and be more accommodating to any return players coming back next year, if the LIV Tour fails or not.
My guess is the LIV Golf Tour will continue without the signing bonuses and large purses. This will be a welcome change, as the best players will be on the best stage of golf, the PGA Tour, and that is what fans want, and not just the few top players the angry golf analysts talk about.
This is the point of this article, to recognize all of the great golfers LIV has that used to play on the PGA Tour, and who many golf fans would like to see.
The golfing world wants to focus on the top 3 or 5, yet there are 40 golfers we want to see play on the PGA Tour again. Some of them are golfers we’ve been introduced to by LIV golf, and now we want to see them play on the PGA Tour against the best.
Aging golf fans in their 40s and 50s want to see the older golfers play in the PGA Tour and majors, to maybe snatch a few wins in their later years. That storyline has been taken from us by LIV poaching players and by the PGA Tour not allowing these golfers to play in their tournaments anymore.
Yes, that is understandable for the PGA Tour to impose its rules on members of their professional golf tour, yet with this type of unprecedented division in men’s pro golf, exceptions needed to be made to coexist and still have the best players playing each other as much as possible.
The goal should be to always have a pathway for the best players in the world to compete in the best tournaments in the world, including regular PGA Tour events, not just the four majors.
For instance, wouldn’t it be great if Lee Westwood won a major in his 50s? That would be a great storyline, and it is possible with how he plays sometimes. Yet, he is stuck over there at LIV, and no longer talked about in the conversation.
There are many others, how about Stenson? How many would like to see this golfer beat some of these youngsters in PGA Tour events?
What about:
Garcia, Watson, Grace, Schwartzel, Oosthuizen, Westwood, Howell III, Casey, Steele, Tringale, Kokrak, Mickelson, McDowell, Poulter, Kaymer, Wolff, Gooch, Munoz, Ancer, Burmester, Uihlein, Johnson, Varner, Lahiri, Kim, Puig, Ortiz, Canter, Pieters, Na, Lee, Smith, Leishman, Jones, and probably some others I can’t remember now.
What about all of those in addition to Dechambeau, Rahm, and Hatton.
There are also many good younger players I didn’t grow up watching, but the older guys are who I’m most interested in watching and paying attention to.
I never heard of Gooch or Burmester before, so LIV introduced me to these excellent golfers, which is great. That is what LIV should be, a second tier professional golf tour like the Korn Ferry Tour, that gives up coming golfers a chance to play and eventually graduate to the PGA Tour.
The PGA Tour should make this their goal if LIV continues in a diminished capacity. Somehow, the top players will be able to leave if it is diminished, yet the PGA should be accommodating to their return, cause they aren’t without fault in this split. Their harshness made it worse, it wasn’t wise.
Let all of these players have a pathway back, yet be pleasant and truly grateful for each one of them, how they’ve helped the PGA Tour through the last couple of decades, even 3 to 4 decades for some. Be grateful and excited to offer them a pathway back to the best professional golf tour in the world.
That is what the fans want to see, our favorite players, the ones we grew up watching, playing against the young players coming up, so they can snag a victory every once in a while and continue to make history, maybe even winning a major. Just think if Tom Kite would have left the PGA Tour when he was 40, never having a chance to win his only major when he was 42 at the 1992 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.
Stop being harsh and humbly serve the game we all love, by being the peacemaker that isn’t working from offense and anger.
Just to note, this sentiment comes from the passive anger being shown by the PGA Tour and their associates, by excluding these golfers from the conversation of coming back, saying their are only a few or handful that are worth talking about. That is a passive aggressive slight that isn’t lost on golf fans, and we don’t appreciate nor think it is intelligent, to leave out these amazing golfers we’ve grown up watching and who have inspired us to play amateur golf and follow professional golf.
Think about it.
The latest and the most profound change in this unfortunate tear in the professional men’s golf world, has been the Saudi funding for the league has been pulled, leaving the whole concept out in space looking for new funding or folding up and being absorbed in the professional golf landscape.
First of all, professional sports players get paid too much, so fans at a certain point and to a certain measure consider these people spoiled rich folk they can’t relate to.
Sometimes there comes along a golfer that is more relatable, who maybe wasn’t raised with money, doesn’t worship money, prioritizes their faith in Jesus Christ. Those golfers at least have a chance to remain grounded and humble in this type of environment, when money is at crazy levels.
While most golf fans consider the money factor, the main focus is to watch the best players in the world compete against each other at the golf courses we’ve grown to love or are learning about with excitement. We enjoy the history, of the players, the competitions, and the golf course itself, the club where the tournament is played.
Obviously, the LIV Tour could never be what the PGA Tour is, it doesn’t have the history of professional golf on its side. Doesn’t matter if they had more money, they didn’t have any history or tradition.
In a way, I appreciate LIV as a product, it is different than the PGA and other professional golf tours, and I like it for the most part. When the tournaments were shown for free for the first 2 or 3 years, I would watch an entire final round and see the most amazing golf and finishes by golfers that aren’t even big names.
I also don’t like how they poached players from the PGA Tour and provoked them to take hard measures on golfers who left to play on the new tour. Still, the worst part of this split, in my opinion, is how the PGA Tour responded to it.
Let me explain. The PGA Tour and its formal and informal affiliates, like the Golf Channel, made the split worse with their harshness; and now that the league is in trouble, these golf analysts are spewing their vitriolic venom into the golfing world at large — this isn’t lost on many golf fans.
The way the PGA Tour reacted made this worst than it had to be. I think they should recognize this failure and be more accommodating to any return players coming back next year, if the LIV Tour fails or not.
My guess is the LIV Golf Tour will continue without the signing bonuses and large purses. This will be a welcome change, as the best players will be on the best stage of golf, the PGA Tour, and that is what fans want, and not just the few top players the angry golf analysts talk about.
This is the point of this article, to recognize all of the great golfers LIV has that used to play on the PGA Tour, and who many golf fans would like to see.
The golfing world wants to focus on the top 3 or 5, yet there are 40 golfers we want to see play on the PGA Tour again. Some of them are golfers we’ve been introduced to by LIV golf, and now we want to see them play on the PGA Tour against the best.
Aging golf fans in their 40s and 50s want to see the older golfers play in the PGA Tour and majors, to maybe snatch a few wins in their later years. That storyline has been taken from us by LIV poaching players and by the PGA Tour not allowing these golfers to play in their tournaments anymore.
Yes, that is understandable for the PGA Tour to impose its rules on members of their professional golf tour, yet with this type of unprecedented division in men’s pro golf, exceptions needed to be made to coexist and still have the best players playing each other as much as possible.
The goal should be to always have a pathway for the best players in the world to compete in the best tournaments in the world, including regular PGA Tour events, not just the four majors.
For instance, wouldn’t it be great if Lee Westwood won a major in his 50s? That would be a great storyline, and it is possible with how he plays sometimes. Yet, he is stuck over there at LIV, and no longer talked about in the conversation.
There are many others, how about Stenson? How many would like to see this golfer beat some of these youngsters in PGA Tour events?
What about:
Garcia, Watson, Grace, Schwartzel, Oosthuizen, Westwood, Howell III, Casey, Steele, Tringale, Kokrak, Mickelson, McDowell, Poulter, Kaymer, Wolff, Gooch, Munoz, Ancer, Burmester, Uihlein, Johnson, Varner, Lahiri, Kim, Puig, Ortiz, Canter, Pieters, Na, Lee, Smith, Leishman, Jones, and probably some others I can’t remember now.
What about all of those in addition to Dechambeau, Rahm, and Hatton.
There are also many good younger players I didn’t grow up watching, but the older guys are who I’m most interested in watching and paying attention to.
I never heard of Gooch or Burmester before, so LIV introduced me to these excellent golfers, which is great. That is what LIV should be, a second tier professional golf tour like the Korn Ferry Tour, that gives up coming golfers a chance to play and eventually graduate to the PGA Tour.
The PGA Tour should make this their goal if LIV continues in a diminished capacity. Somehow, the top players will be able to leave if it is diminished, yet the PGA should be accommodating to their return, cause they aren’t without fault in this split. Their harshness made it worse, it wasn’t wise.
Let all of these players have a pathway back, yet be pleasant and truly grateful for each one of them, how they’ve helped the PGA Tour through the last couple of decades, even 3 to 4 decades for some. Be grateful and excited to offer them a pathway back to the best professional golf tour in the world.
That is what the fans want to see, our favorite players, the ones we grew up watching, playing against the young players coming up, so they can snag a victory every once in a while and continue to make history, maybe even winning a major. Just think if Tom Kite would have left the PGA Tour when he was 40, never having a chance to win his only major when he was 42 at the 1992 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.
Stop being harsh and humbly serve the game we all love, by being the peacemaker that isn’t working from offense and anger.
Just to note, this sentiment comes from the passive anger being shown by the PGA Tour and their associates, by excluding these golfers from the conversation of coming back, saying their are only a few or handful that are worth talking about. That is a passive aggressive slight that isn’t lost on golf fans, and we don’t appreciate nor think it is intelligent, to leave out these amazing golfers we’ve grown up watching and who have inspired us to play amateur golf and follow professional golf.
Think about it.
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