I’ve watched five men’s golf tournaments this year from start to finish. Four were Majors, and the other was the Olympics, but despite golf options galore every other weekend on TV, the PGA and DP World Tours have mostly passed me by. And after twenty years courting both, the mad thing is, I now feel nothing for either. Not even a bit.
It’s been a year since I left Ireland for pastures new and while watching golf was never going to be high on the backpacking agenda, part of me thought the distance would make the heart grow fonder. That removing PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan from my life would make me forget the hypocrisy of the proposed PIF deal he’s trying desperately to push through. That muting Twitter would spare me the petty squabbles of golf’s fading personalities, and that the separation from out of touch stars picketing for more prize money might distract me from the toxic dollar wars enough to warrant giving it all another go.
Spoiler alert. It hasn’t, not even a little, and news of the PGA Tour’s uninspiring 2025 schedule did nothing more than reinforce my belief that the suits aren’t interested in mending bridges with fed-up fans wholly forgotten during golf’s great decline over the past two seasons. They’re merely out to make the rich even richer with more paralysingly dull no-cut, limited-field events in store next season; the great gameshow of the PGA Tour where jeopardy is removed to ensure prizes for everyone in the audience.
Now I’ve nothing against the players, or the Late Late Show. I don’t begrudge the lucky swingers cashing in on golf’s money games. The likes of Seamus Power who put years of struggles in the rear-view mirror and earned his way to the big time. But by his own admission the West Waterford man would likely regard his one top-10 finish this season as an average enough return for his talent. On the mini-tours he’d be struggling to break bread. On the PGA Tour he’s made two and a half million dollars.
Meanwhile Scottie Scheffler’s made 30 million, not including off-course earnings; not enough to secure Jon Rahm’s family’s future, or pay off Phil Mickelson’s gambling debts, but decent money all the same.
Indeed there’s never been a better time to be a PGA Tour pro but I’d argue that there’s never been a worse time to be a fan. After years of monopolising the market without so much as a brain fart of creativity, the emergence of LIV Golf has highlighted a tour policy devoid of evolution, giving rise to a professional landscape where three weakened tours wreak havoc on golf’s reputation by insisting money is the answer to their problems, pushing regular punters away in their droves.
Even the much-hallowed Masters saw viewing figures tumble by 20% this year. Which makes the “new” 2025 schedule, the ongoing ‘will they/won’t they’ PIF/PGA Tour deal rumours, and the constant childish bickering from both sides of golf’s dividing line all the more embarrassing. Abject messaging that spills from the top of both tours bereft of leadership, and with no end in sight.
Never has a sport shot itself in the foot as much as men’s pro golf over the past two years. It’s become a farcical soap-opera lacking self-awareness and made the sport, outside of the Majors (or at least three of them), neither likeable nor watchable. Greed and greed alone has spoiled a game I once loved and it’s hard to see this generation, particularly under its current leaders, clawing back any semblance of integrity, let alone popularity, no matter what deals materialise down the road.
The sad thing is, at this point I don’t even care.