Constructive ideas to improve the PGA Tour

[wildcatden]

[smashdn]

Improve for who?

 

We trying to improve it for the players or for the viewers?  The "improvements" for one may not be an improvement for the other.  For example, does guaranteed money make for a more exciting golf tournament for me to watch?

 

Moving the tournaments from those, largely, terd courses, also know as TPC, would likely make for better viewing and certainly be more interesting, but it would be less jingle in the player's and PGAT brass' pockets.

[betarhoalphadelta]

40 minutes ago, smashdn said:

Improve for who?

 

We trying to improve it for the players or for the viewers?  The "improvements" for one may not be an improvement for the other.  For example, does guaranteed money make for a more exciting golf tournament for me to watch?

 

Moving the tournaments from those, largely, terd courses, also know as TPC, would likely make for better viewing and certainly be more interesting, but it would be less jingle in the player's and PGAT brass' pockets.

 

My premise is that as fans of golf, we want to see the best players tee it up against each other. I believe that is limited right now by multiple things.

• The best players skip a lot of less prestigious tournaments, reducing the number of times we see the best teeing up against each other.
• Dilution, i.e. half of the best players leaving the PGA Tour for competing tours also reduces field strength and the number of times we see the best teeing up against each other.

 

I'm not saying that guaranteed money is the answer. After all, any fan of college athletics can look at the old model, where players didn't share in the pie they created with their own value, and realize that it was perhaps not ideal but that at the same time the current new model, NIL, is making things worse. 

 

That said, usually something that is beneficial for viewers will be reflected in ratings, which will be reflected in sponsor purses and the value of broadcast rights, which will benefit players. So they don't *have* to be in contention with each other. 

 

[vandyfan]

1 hour ago, smashdn said:

Moving the tournaments from those, largely, terd courses, also know as TPC, would likely make for better viewing and certainly be more interesting, but it would be less jingle in the player's and PGAT brass' pockets.

 

We will probably get shouted down because of all the hospitality angles required for bigger purses BUT I will stand with you. My favorite random PGA tour tournament from the last few years was the one held at the Concession when they had the Workday there. It had short grass everywhere around the greens and a lot of movement which I think gives the players fits when they are used to having thick rough around all the greens which they have perfected the chunk and run out of. I remember watching some players just ping pong it back and forth off the tight lies and thought it was great. Would love to see more courses like that and less like TPC Sodfarm. 

 

And quail hollow stinks. Just take that away forever.

Edited June 3, 2022 by blackbdmillsaps

[bladehunter]

9 minutes ago, blackbdmillsaps said:

 

We will probably get shouted down because of all the hospitality angles required for bigger purses BUT I will stand with you. My favorite random PGA tour tournament from the last few years was the one held at the Concession when they had the Workday there. It had short grass everywhere around the greens and a lot of movement which I think gives the players fits when they are used to having thick rough around all the greens which they have perfected the chunk and run out of. I remember watching some players just ping pong it back and forth off the tight lies and thought it was great. Would love to see more courses like that and less like TPC Sodfarm. 

 

And quail hollow stinks. Just take that away forever.

Agree 100 % on the short cut around the greens    Quail is good. Just  mow it …..

 

absolutely is easier for good players from thick rough.  Cut it enough to be tight and not shaved. So putting won’t work.  Then you have what I play off of a lot.    I wish I had 4 inch Bermuda greenside.  Easy as pie.  

[Shilgy]

On 6/2/2022 at 9:40 AM, iutodd said:

I think there are two things the tour can work to improve:

 

1.) The top guys need to make more money.

2.) The guys at the bottom need more security.

 

Let's start with number 2:

 

The tour has added one thing that sort of went under the radar this year:

 

https://www.si.com/golf/news/the-pga-tour-will-pay-50k-to-every-pro-who-plays-15-events

 

So if you play 15 events you'll get $50,000.  

 

The tour can't protect everyone.  And it's hard to know what these guys are working with in some ways.  Let's pick a guy near the bottom at random.  How about Ted Potter Jr?  Here are his relevant stats for 2020-2021:

 

25 events, 16 missed cuts, 9 cuts made, 1 top 10.  $356,000 in earnings.  His 182 finish in the Fedex cup earned him no bonus.

 

Did he "make" money?  Like - who knows?  But this year he would get a $50K bump from the tour and that's a fairly significant bump from the $350K he earned.  I do think it's fair to ask what obligation the tour has to the players outside the FedEx 125/guys that don't keep their cards but I will just note that the guy at 126 in 2021 earned $966,000 in winnings and the guy at 150 earned $650,000 (and all those guys got $85K in FedEx payout (deferred)).  And purses increased a lot this year so the guys in the 126-150 slots will make more.

 

As for number 1:

 

The LIV conversation has put this into an interesting light I think.  LIV has 8 events with $255 million in total payouts plus the potential for players to just sign for a giant amount of money.  A point made in the main LIV thread was that the young guys have such massive potential earnings it's hard for them to jump.  The PGA Tour has 47 events with $480 million in purses plus all the retirement stuff plus the bonuses (not sure if the $75 million FedEX bonuses are included in the quoted $480 million number or not) plus endorsements.  It's not clear what kind of endorsements players will keep going to LIV btw.

 

The PGA needs to sell the top players on the idea that they can earn the most money staying on their tour.  They clearly have more purse money up for grabs.  I think the FedEx Cup payouts need changed.  They are too heavily weighted toward the winner.  Here is my idea:

 

What if, instead of the bonuses being pre-set, they instead changed the structure to say: OK, if you WIN the Fed Ex Cup you get a bonus that gets you to a certain "salary" level.  So, as an example, the winner of the FedEx Cup is guaranteed $20 million in salary...So in 2021 Patrick Cantlay earned $7.6 million through the BMW. His bonus for winning would have been $12.4 million.  Second place gets to...say, $15 million.  Rahm would have gotten around $7.2 million.  Third gets to $12.5 million...so silly Kevin Na would have gotten something like $8.3 million because he jumped so high..  4th-10th gets to $10 million.  11-20 gets to $7.5 million.  21-25 gets to $6 million.  26-30 gets to $5 million - with a $1 million minimum guarantee.

 

*If a player has already earned more than that - like say if Scheffler this year has a crappy playoff run after making $11 million in 2022 - they're guaranteed at least $1 million for making it to East Lake.

 

The tour should also expand the Comcast Top 10 to include the Top 30 IMO - and give every player who finishes in the top 30 for the regular season a $1 million bonus.

So Na last year for finishing third would get more than Rahm  did for finishing second in the season finale?  

 

Naaaaahhhhh!😂

Edited June 3, 2022 by Shilgy

[Strategery]

3 hours ago, Shilgy said:

So Na last year for finishing third would get more than Rahm  did for finishing second in the season finale?  

 

Naaaaahhhhh!😂

Ain't nobody gonna tune in to watch Na or buy anything he promotes. Just sayin'.

[mosesgolf]

40 minutes ago, Strategery said:

Ain't nobody gonna tune in to watch Na or buy anything he promotes. Just sayin'.

Now that's WAAC.  🤣

[HappyGilmoresBoots]

13 hours ago, SurfDuffer said:

Clone Tiger Woods.

...do it 100 times.

[Jwin323]

On 6/2/2022 at 5:54 PM, tatertot said:

Have you seen the back 9 of most tournaments? Do we want more pucker?

Pucker is like bacon. We always want more.

[mshills]

On 6/2/2022 at 11:08 PM, me05501 said:

How can anyone watch pro golf all the time and not understand what the FedEx Cup is? It’s been around a long time. 

It is contrived as hell and the format changes more than NASCAR rules. 

[me05501]

18 minutes ago, mshills said:

It is contrived as hell and the format changes more than NASCAR rules. 

I mean, every golf tournament is contrived. They don’t grow on trees. 

[RichieHunt]

I'm skeptical of the idea.  Although I don't know how where the PIP money comes from in terms of where it comes from the Tour's revenue.  For all I know it may be a deal that the Tour has with a company like Google or Yahoo! where the company is specifically paying it out.  

 

The biggest issue I see with the guaranteed money is that the Tour already gives out about 56% of the revenues to the players.  Then they give the highest % of revenues of any pro sports leagues to charities.  That keeps the Tour in good faith with tournaments and communities.  You take that money away and it has a seriously negative effect on the charities and when it's found out that the money is going to the players who already make tons of money...it's bad PR for the players and the Tour in general.

 

As far as the players go, only a very select few each year that are full time players actually lose money.  And I'm talking about the players that may only make about 3 cuts for the entire year.  Those players will have endorsement deals.  The players without endorsement deals are usually the higher earners on Tour because they can afford to not have an equipment deal.  And if you play in the Monday pro-am the player gets the money.  That's collecting about $4K-$8K just by playing on Monday.  Then there's the courtesy cars, the deals that they can get on hotels and other forms of lodging.  A player that makes 'only' $250K in a year is still making money in the end.

 

The people that have it tough are the full-time caddies.  They can very well lose money for the year after paying for all of their expenses.  And often times they are just treated like 3rd class citizens.

 

The players jumping to the LIV Tour is simple...they are doing it because the money they are getting is ridiculous.  They know that it looks bad that they are taking money from the Saudis so in order to feel better about themselves, they bash the Tour.  As far as what the Tour offers to the players given the amount of money generated, it treats its players and has a better retirement pension program than any other professional sports league or Tour out there.  

 

 

 

 

RH

[farmer]

I suspect that the players who sign up for the LIV will be forgotten in a few years.  Phil was near the end of being truly competitive on the BigTour, there will be another DJ, Kevin Na is probably a nice guy, but hardly stirs the drink.

[Shilgy]

Just now, farmer said:

I suspect that the players who sign up for the LIV will be forgotten in a few years.  Phil was near the end of being truly competitive on the BigTour, there will be another DJ, Kevin Na is probably a nice guy, but hardly stirs the drink.

Good point on the defectors….just a very short while ago we had no:

Scheffler

Morikawa

Zalatoris

Hovland

Young

And that’s just from the rankings top 30

 

In a few short years most of the LIV guys would have been virtually gone anyways as new young players replaced them.

 

[iGolf67]

Allow caddies to carry stand bags. They are about 20 pounds lighter, which can make a big difference on hot/humid days. 

[RichieHunt]

The players going on the LIV Tour basically feel the money is too good to pass up on and feel like the Tour doesn't have the right to tell them where they can and cannot play.  But the big thing is that they are betting on the Tour forgiving them if the LIV Tour goes under.  

 

For a guy like Lee Westwood at 49 years old...if he were to continue playing the PGA Tour and then go to the Champions Tour where he may make about $2 million/year playing a full schedule and playing well...playing on the LIV Tour during that time will likely yield him more income.  Plus he still has the pension coming in when he turns 50 years old that the Tour can't touch.  He could play 8 events a year on the LIV Tour and make substantially more money. 

 

The Talor Gooch's of the world are taking a far great risk.  I'm guessing he feels like he has enough money to retire right now if he wanted to.  Go on the LIV Tour for 5 years and make more money in less events and if the LIV Tour collapses, beg for forgiveness.

 

The bigger risk is the idea that they will be able to play in the majors.  In today's climate, you never know what's going to happen.  Augusta National and the USGA could change their mind and decide any LIV Tour player can't play in their event(s).  And in the case of The Masters, there's nothing the player could do about it.  For the USGA and R&A they can file a lawsuit, but the USGA has far more money to spend on lawyers than the player does.  All to play in an event that they are not guaranteed to make money.

 

The PGA Tour isn't the bad guy in all of this.  They don't want to be affiliated with bad publicity.  I appreciate Kevin Na just telling it like it is instead of trying to make the PGA Tour the bad guy so he can feel better about himself taking the money from the Saudis.  Unfortunately I can't say that about other LIV Tour players.

 

 

 

 

RH

[MUNIGRIT]

On 6/3/2022 at 11:19 AM, blackbdmillsaps said:

 

We will probably get shouted down because of all the hospitality angles required for bigger purses BUT I will stand with you. My favorite random PGA tour tournament from the last few years was the one held at the Concession when they had the Workday there. It had short grass everywhere around the greens and a lot of movement which I think gives the players fits when they are used to having thick rough around all the greens which they have perfected the chunk and run out of. I remember watching some players just ping pong it back and forth off the tight lies and thought it was great. Would love to see more courses like that and less like TPC Sodfarm. 

 

And quail hollow stinks. Just take that away forever.

Why does Quail Hollow stink? I'm guessing you listen to NLU and hate Torrey too.

[m d g]

On 6/2/2022 at 10:30 AM, me05501 said:

I don't think guaranteed money is the answer to any of the Tour's issues. The dog-eat-dog aspect of it is what makes the whole thing work from top to bottom. It's a supposed reflection of the supposed U.S. ideal of limitless opportunity for those willing to take the risk of flaming out and getting nothing. 

 

If anything, guaranteed money from sponsorship deals has diluted the competitive fire of many players we can all name who probably would have a few more major trophies on their mantle if they weren't so comfortable. 

 

I'd rather see them double down on the "limitless opportunity" thing. 

 

Maybe the guy who wins each Korn Ferry event should get a sponsors exemption into the next PGA Tour event. This would create some interesting story lines and give more exposure to players who are doing well on the lower tour. 

This whole 'share the wealth' thing sounds a bit commie to me : )

 

Golfers of the world, unite!

 

[Golfer4Life]

1 minute ago, m d g said:

This whole 'share the wealth' thing sounds a bit commie to me : )

 

Golfers of the world, unite!

 

The PGAT is definitely as woke as it can be.

 

When the tour reserves an honorary tee time for a convicted felon, you know something has gone south. 

[OldCuss]

My preference for golf does not include guaranteed money (other than tournament placement winnings) nor increased payouts at PGA events, rather the allocation of slack resources professional events accrue: more funding for charity, junior golf, women's tour, and specialty tournaments (e.g., inter-sex and inter-generational) Viewing competition throughout the lifespan is good for golf, better than only enjoying the performance of those mostly from 25 to 45 years old.

 

Sufficient money is already available for one to have a good life for being good at golf and nothing is owed these individuals for being good other than what they win in competitive events. If that is insufficient for some, find additional employment opportunities.

 

Allow players to play where they like, but leagues ought to have the ability to set a (reasonable) minimum number of tournaments needed for one to maintain membership, for such is important for planning and valuing tournaments.

 

This approach does not appeal to entitlement that some pros perceive nor that of professional golf management, rather it appeals to each group to maintain high levels of performance, otherwise move over for those wishing to do what is needed to maintain a position as a golf professional, either player or leader.

 

My guess is that this approach has zero chance of enactment.

 

Old Cuss

[bbfifas]

How about linking some sort of bonuses to stats?  

 

Like each round the SG putting stat (or SG off tee) pays out a little bonus to the top 5.    Or the longest drive gets $5000 each round.   Or an eagle gets you an extra $5000.   Or most consecutive cuts made streak pays out a bonus pool along with most consecutive holes without 3 putt.  

 

Everything now is stats driven at tournaments with the amount of putts made in feet length and things like that maybe a system around it could be interesting to follow and it will reward people not always winning on score alone.  

[woahnelly]

Put more prize money/attention into the KFT, it should take priority over the Champions Tour. I don't care about a bunch of already rich old dudes clinging on to their past glory. I'd be more interested in seeing guys trying to get back onto the Tour who lost their card or the young up and comers. Maybe casuals would have known about Mito Pereira prior to his run at the PGA.

 

 

[vandyfan]

On 6/4/2022 at 1:35 PM, MUNIGRIT said:

Why does Quail Hollow stink? I'm guessing you listen to NLU and hate Torrey too.

 

I listen to NLU and Shotgun Start. I also make my own opinions. I don't think Torrey stinks but I do wish the canyon came into play more. Quail isn't worse than the standard PGA tour golf courses with thick rough and not much quirk but I just have them in my crosshairs because the President's Cup is being played there and that bums me out. I actually thought TPC Potomac was a significant upgrade in terms of being interesting to watch as a golf tournament vs Quail. 

 

But, I mean, the last President's Cup was at Royal Melbourne. And we answer that with...Quail. GTFO. 

[smashdn]

Is Quail Hollow even a best 100 in the US?

 

I don't know why it took me so long to think of this, and maybe I should post this in the LIV thread, but NASCAR drivers can drive other races. I don't know the particulars but there were drivers who drove in both Sprint Cup and Truck (both NASCAR so like Korn Ferry) but also Indy 500.  Maybe an F1 driver is also in Indy or Kart or whatever is out there. I only have cursory knowledge of racing if that isn't apparent.

[vandyfan]

Match play is fun to watch but they have really ruined the Dell Matchplay with this pool play nonsense. Just go back to the bracket. Pool play is a waste of time. 

 

Top 4 non-exempt KFT players each get to challenge one player in the bottom 1/4th of the pga tour exempt list at the end of the season. I am workshopping this just now in my head and I think it should take place at Sawgrass (right near the global home) and occur at a specific point in time. The challenge would be tour players don't typically respond to set schedules and I could see a tour player faking an injury or some other thing to duck it. Would be cool though to see a match play relegation battle. I am sure in practice it wouldn't be as cool but a guy can dream. Trying to figure out how to incentivize the exempt player to not pretend to be injured. I guess if the player can't compete they get relegated BUT this may get KFT players to deliberately challenge guys who are already hurt. I don't know. Can this work somehow?

[billyspan]

Fewer Champions Tour events...heck they already have 5 majors. Those are not going away.

 

Eliminate the alternate field events

 

Reduce the number of spots in regular tournaments

 

Bring back the Western Open and fully embrace the Canadian Open. Move these to Sept and Oct to space out the calendar.

 

The tour neutered those two events to their detriment.

 

Ultimately, the big losers are the "important" regular tour events: API, Nelson, Memorial...

 

 

[So_Cal]

10 minutes ago, billyspan said:

Fewer Champions Tour events...heck they already have 5 majors. Those are not going away.

 

Eliminate the alternate field events

 

Reduce the number of spots in regular tournaments

 

Bring back the Western Open and fully embrace the Canadian Open. Move these to Sept and Oct to space out the calendar.

 

The tour neutered those two events to their detriment.

 

Ultimately, the big losers are the "important" regular tour events: API, Nelson, Memorial...

 

 

100%.  As someone who watches basically majors only the loss of the Western Open as a major event was a big blow to the tour.   

[ChipStrokes]

On 6/4/2022 at 1:21 PM, iGolf67 said:

Allow caddies to carry stand bags. They are about 20 pounds lighter, which can make a big difference on hot/humid days. 

not as much room for sponsor logos, which is how players make their money. 

[Dr. Block]

6 minutes ago, billyspan said:

Fewer Champions Tour events...heck they already have 5 majors. Those are not going away.

 

Eliminate the alternate field events

 

Reduce the number of spots in regular tournaments

 

Bring back the Western Open and fully embrace the Canadian Open. Move these to Sept and Oct to space out the calendar.

 

The tour neutered those two events to their detriment.

 

Ultimately, the big losers are the "important" regular tour events: API, Nelson, Memorial...

 

 

Thank you for mentioning the Western Open. The Western Open was the third oldest tournament in the history of professional golf behind The Open Championship and The US Open. It deserved a better fate than becoming the BMW Championship.