LIV Golf - Saudi league headed by Greg Norman

[ETphonehome]

I was just curious what people's thoughts were on the new "LIV Golf Invitational" that Greg Norman is heading up with the financial backing of the Saudis. I don't think competition with leagues is necessarily bad, but other than more money I don't know what would be better about this league. Given that a lot of the top pros have said they wouldn't switch I am wondering about what the quality of the league would be as well.

[BrianZ111]

I'd like to see competition and new ideas but from what I've heard, this doesn't seem substantially different from the PGA Tour. It's 3 round stroke play events (why is one less round better?), it'll be less competitive due to smaller fields (the tour championship is one of my least favorite tournaments of the year because usually someone runs away with it), the team component seems like it'll be an afterthought since it's only part of an individual stroke play competition, and there's no architecturally exciting golf courses on the schedule.

If I were to do something different I'd start with the golf courses. We need to play on more golden age classics and modern courses that are highly regarded for their golf architecture. The argument against this is a lot of them can't support crowds so I would build the business model on TV or streaming advertising and subscriptions and keep the galleries smaller (course dictates gallery size, not galleries we want dictate what courses we can play). You're trying to put out a better product then the PGA Tour, not the same product, so you have to find the solutions that they can't find. I'd change courses in every year's schedule too. While going to the same course every year does work for some tournaments like Augusta, it gets monotonous going to the same courses every year for every tournament.

My next idea is changing equipment rules. I like the idea of bringing the skill back in positioning and curving the ball that wound balls and smaller headed drivers provided. Here's a really crazy idea...maybe not even use the same rules every tournament. You could play equipment that fits the course the best. One week play modern equipment, the next tournament play hickory shafts, next after that back to steel shafts but with with persimmon woods. It sounds crazy but how compelling would it be to watch today's best adapt to changing equipment! I'd tune in for that. The best players will adapt just like they adapt to playing different courses. If you think players aren't willing to do that because they think it might hurt their game in the majors, then why are they currently willing to play courses on tour every week that are not like the majors? Golf is the sport of variety, there's plenty of other sports where the field and equipment never change if you want that.

I'd have a mix of team events vs. individual events and not try to do both at the same time. Match play is much more compelling in team events (see Ryder Cup vs. collegiate golf team events for example). Stableford is another good, under utilized format.

I do think the one idea they got right is to limit the number of tournaments. The majors are currently the only tournaments that are in their own class. The WGC tried to be the next class under the majors with mixed results. I think if there were a class of 8-12 other tournaments besides the majors that counted towards a season end championship and no other tournament did then it could create a second class of tournaments that most of the best players would want to play in. Instead now everybody is being spread thin over 52 weeks doing their own thing. There can still be a tournament every week but for the third class of tournaments expectations and prize funds should be much lower, more like the Korn Ferry Tour + the occasional top player who wants to play type of thing.

Last thing I would do is not restrict membership just because you play in another tour. You're trying to attract the best fields in the world so you need to remove the barriers to entry. The PGA Tour failed to encourage European tour players to play in the US with the FedEx cup playoffs by not allowing them to accumulate FedEx cup points because they aren't "tour members" aka didn't play enough in the US. The European tour is guilty of this when they disallowed Paul Casey from playing the Ryder Cup because he wasn't playing the European tour enough. Instead of letting the big event help grow the tour, they are trying to use the event to force promote the tour and as a result the event suffers and the tour doesn't grow.

[SteveHorn]

Totally against it so long as Saudi Arabia is the money men. If someone else stepped up to take control then my thoughts may be different.

[Galen_Golf4676]

Sergio feels more "welcomed and loved" on the Saudi-funded LIV Tour. Hmmm?

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