It’s the pressure that makes the PGA Tour better than LIV Golf

PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan has surely endured many sleepless nights in 2022.

While the launch of a rival golf tour had been rumored for years — first in the form of the Premier Golf League (which never arrived) and then from a Saudi Arabia operation fronted by Greg Norman (which did) — there were few who believed such a circuit could truly threaten the stronghold built largely by Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus and taken to new heights by Tiger Woods.

That belief was reaffirmed after Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau publicly pledged their loyalty to the PGA Tour in February. Their statements came after Phil Mickelson was harshly criticized and essentially ostracized from golf for his comments disparaging both the PGA Tour and the Saudis with whom he was conspiring. Rory McIlroy confidently declared what we came to know as LIV Golf “dead in the water” shortly thereafter.

How things changed.

Just four months later, on the same week as the RBC Canadian Open, LIV officially began playing with Mickelson, Johnson and DeChambeau on guaranteed contracts reportedly worth hundreds of millions of petrol dollars. Other familiar names, like Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed, Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter, Charl Schwartzel and Louis Oosthuizen, joined them, thus launching the most salacious and spiteful summer in the history of the professional game.

Monahan’s defense was three-pronged. First, he permanently suspended those who defected for Saudi’s riches, which led to a lawsuit and will lead to more. Second, he happily lets the likes of McIlroy, Tiger Woods, Justin Thomas and Jon Rahm preach the PGA Tour’s pros and LIV Golf’s cons. And third, he increased tournament purses and player bonuses substantially.

What the PGA Tour cannot do, should not do and does not need to do, however, is reinvent itself.

The biggest advantage the PGA Tour still has over LIV Golf — aside from better players — is the legitimacy, legacy and competitiveness of its tournaments. LIV’s social media managers and their harem of Twitter bots can post all the trophy-hoisting photos they want, but most golf fans are seeing the 54-hole, no-cut events for what they are: a money grab. Hence its paltry audience.

Although they won’t admit it, many players who left for LIV did so because they know the margin between succeeding and not in the big leagues is incredibly thin. That was their right. Frankly, though, few of them are missed. Whatever star power the PGA Tour lost with the departures of Johnson, DeChambeau and Reed has already been filled by the likes of Max Homa and Tom Kim. The PGA Tour’s talent pool remains incredibly deep, with a feeder system that will ensure that remains the case.

This is not to say there is no room in pro golf for creativity. It’s why the PGA Tour partnered with Woods and McIlroy on TGL, a “tech-infused league” featuring teams of three competing in a virtual challenge within a stadium and aired live on Monday nights. That’s fine, but it’s vital that the tour doesn’t let such stuff infiltrate regular events. Pro golf is still at its most entertaining when the stakes are such that winning is life-changing and losing is heartbreaking.

One of the great moments of last season was Luke List, at 37, capturing his first PGA Tour event in a playoff over Will Zalatoris. It occurred at the Farmers Insurance Open in his 206th career start. When Zalatoris couldn’t match his birdie on the first extra hole, List immediately turned to see his family running onto the green to embrace him. To their daughter, Ryann, List’s tearful wife, Chloe, said, “He won a trophy!” List later revealed Ryann had been asking for one for years. Granting her wish was priceless for the journeyman.

Eight months later, Zalatoris got the monkey off his back by surviving a wild playoff with Sepp Straka in Memphis. Zalatoris was demonstrably excited because he’d proved critics who said his putting stroke couldn’t hold up in such rarefied air wrong. As one of golf’s best young talents, he was already rich. But he wasn’t a PGA Tour winner. That mattered to him more.

LIV Golf has some great players, yes, and it was particularly tough to see Open champion Cameron Smith sign with that loop given how much his star is soaring. But while the shots played on that circuit may be every bit as good as we see week to week on the PGA Tour, they are not played under the same searing pressure. Pressure that’s increased with the number of players who qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs slashed to 70 from 125.

That makes LIV exhibition golf and no amount of Saudi money can change that. As they deal with this threat, Jay Monahan and company would be wise to remember that.

Jason Logan is the editor of SCOREGolf magazine, which is co-owned by Torstar, Star’s parent company. He is based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @jasonSCOREGolf

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