The FedEx Cup Playoffs got underway last week and I only watched the 72nd hole. It was enough, I saw all that I needed to see.
Last week LIV Golf Greenbrier went up against the FedEx St Jude Championship and on Sunday evening we had a thrilling finish on the PGA Tour while Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka went head to head on the other side. Yet, it never felt like we were spoilt for choice.
Instead it feels as golf fans, or viewers on television that we are stuck in no man’s land. What a world to live in where many of us have no interest in a Rahm and Koepka showdown – only 16,000 tuned in on YouTube – but on the PGA Tour the cream really rose to the top for the first leg of the FedEx Cup but still felt diluted, devoid of an edge, lacking the personalities where you can become invested in someone coming down the stretch.
An even stranger scenario is that Koepka now leads the LIV Golf League in wins (5) while he didn’t post a top-25 finish in any of the four major championships this year. Just a complete inverse era of Koepka to add to another underwhelming year for men’s golf.
LIV won’t have another event until September 13th making that tour just increasingly difficult to track, which again does not help the golf fan.
In golf’s civil war the PGA Tour have definitely come out on top in terms of quality of fields but while they have won that battle they have been dealt serious wounds in this war.
The worrying downward trend for PGA Tour TV viewership is continuing, US viewing figures for Sunday’s final round were down 30% on last year with just 2.2 million tuning in to NBC last week.
Golf is in need of a personality injection and perhaps this extends further than just the men’s game with Lexi Thompson’s imminent retirement a huge loss for the sport as well.
But on the PGA Tour something needs to change. Although the players are elite athletes and under no obligation to play up for the cameras. Maybe a world where Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele dominate for the next few years is a scary one…
LIV Golf does a lot of things well but it remains a difficult watch when it’s prime asset is visibly unhappy and clearly wants off the Saudi backed tour. That being said, it’s the 54-hole brigade which has gathered the characters of the game.
Bryson DeChambeau, Tyrrell Hatton, Rahm and Koepka are probably the four outstanding characters on LIV Golf.
DeChambeau has made a complete U-turn in terms of his popularity. Once a man who always felt like he was on the periphery. Bryson is ‘The Man.’
Koepka has his own edge and is very much his own man as he carries this alpha male personality around with him while the intense characters of Hatton and Rahm add some spice to proceedings.
I miss the ‘F’ bombs on the PGA Tour, I can’t lie.
The PGA Tour has also been dealt a blow in that Rory McIlroy and Viktor Hovland have been off colour as of late while arguably the most box office entertainer on the tour, Jordan Spieth, is at another crossroads in his mercurial career as he goes under the knife.
Even the most staunch of us Spiethians must know that his ability to turn a quadruple bogey into a par and his often hilarious spats with his caddie Michael Greller pale into insignificance if he can’t get himself back to the top of leaderboards on a regular basis.
As golf fans, nerds, casual viewers etc. We need to be blunt about this. Golf has become another version of tennis. Sure I’ll watch most of Wimbledon and maybe tune into the odd highlight of the Aussie, French and US Opens but am I going to watch the Miami Open? Am I heck!
Since the PGA Tour and LIV split, golf has quickly become about the four major championships, the Masters, US Open, PGA Championship and the Open where the best players in the world are together at the same time, although the potential for the Olympics to stand alongside these events is serious. But that’s for another day (note: they played for minus money and it was probably the best of the lot).
LIV Golf has just two events left before its third season comes to an end in September before a February 2025 return while the PGA Tour will conclude next week.
Winter is coming and I’ll be glad to see the back of those Sunday nights of lying on the couch looking left at the PGA Tour and right at LIV Golf before flicking onto a re-run of Only Fools and Horses before bed.
As the 2024 season comes to an end in the United States, the DP World Tour will come into its own with a wave of big events before the year is out.
But for now, golf, I am ‘stuck in the middle with you.’