PLAYA DEL CARMEN, MEXICO | Amidst the usual festive vibe and concerts and parties that surround a golf championship, there was a palpable undercurrent of anxiety mixed with a hint of sadness wafting around El Camaleón Golf Club, which meanders through the idyllic mangroves and canals and beach that have made Mayakoba a favorite stop for many players on the PGA Tour for 16 autumns and winters.
Despite homegrown favorites Abraham Ancer and Carlos Ortiz having abandoned it for LIV Golf, the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba welcomed its best field since becoming the first PGA Tour venue outside the U.S. or Canada in 2007, with five of the top 16 players in the world turning up, including No. 2 Scottie Scheffler – the highest-ranked player ever to tee it up here. The field likely would have been even stronger had Justin Thomas not scheduled his wedding last weekend, keeping the groom and groomsmen Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler from returning.
With a dedicated title sponsor signed up to feed the increased $8.2 million purse through 2027 and the first full-capacity crowds since before the pandemic, this should have been an unbridled celebratory week in Mexico’s Riviera Maya.
Instead, there was worry because of the uncertainty over the future of the nine events that have made up the tour’s fall series. The PGA Tour has been kind of winging it with dramatic change announcements this summer in reaction to the competition and threat posed by LIV. First came the announcement in June that the PGA Tour would return to a calendar schedule starting in 2024, with an idea of creating a limited global series of lucrative events for top players in the fall. Two months later came a sudden pivot with four additional elevated events during the regular season, scuttling the global-series concept.
What an event such as the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba may need to count on is the lure of its hospitality and destination bringing top golfers back regardless of what’s at stake. Some of those players are its biggest advocates.
All that’s officially known as of now about the four-month window between the 2023 Tour Championship at East Lake and the 2024 season-opening Sentry Tournament of Champions in Kapalua is that it will fall outside of the FedEx Cup season.
So what is the future of Mayakoba’s event or Davis Love III’s RSM Classic at Sea Island or the CJ Cup or Japan’s Zozo or the Fortinet in Napa?
“The future is, you don’t want any part of these events,” said one player with reluctant candor. “You want to position yourself in the top 50 and play in all the elevated events.”
That may sound harsh, but the sentiment fits with the bottom-line world that elite professional golf is becoming.
“It's my family's favorite spot to visit,” said Tony Finau, who made his seventh Mayakoba start. “It's a great resort, and I enjoy the golf course. I don't think I would have returned as many times as I have if I didn't enjoy playing the place.
“It's a place that I hope I can come back and compete. That's the case for I think a lot of the fall events. I'll be playing (this) week in Houston, another golf course that I enjoy, another city that I like. I think a lot of the top players would agree that some of the fall events are some of our favorites on tour.”
Said Billy Horschel, whose eight starts here go back to its days opposite the WGC Match Play: “I think every player who has come here at least once has left very happy, maybe not with their golf game because the course is really challenging, but every other aspect checks a box off. It's what we look for on tour and what we enjoy coming to on a regular basis.”
Collin Morikawa, who made his Mayakoba debut at the behest of peers, said: “I wanted to add an extra event in the fall and just couldn't figure it out. Then a bunch of people said this place was amazing, not only the golf course but the resort and kind of everything about it.”
The Mayakoba event deserves better than being part of some diminished fall series. It paid its dues as an opposite event to the WGC Match Play during the peak tourist season in February. When the tour went to its wraparound schedule in 2013, Mayakoba was the first to step up and embrace a November week of its own.
Mayakoba has been instrumental in the development of golf in Mexico. It was Mayakoba that created Golf PARa Todos (Golf FORe All), which is Mexico’s version of The First Tee. Initially started in 2007 with clinics that filled the practice range at El Camaleón with eager participants from the Riviera Maya and Cancún region getting their first experience with golf, Golf PARa Todos introduced more than 20,000 Mexicans to the game. Now, Golf PARa Todos focuses on developing young players into lifelong golfers and instilling the same nine core values of The First Tee.
Borja Escalada, the CEO of RLH Properties, which owns Mayakoba, emphasizes the long-standing support that Mayakoba has given the PGA Tour and growing the game internationally.
“There are many changes happening in the world of golf, and that’s obviously something we have to face,” Escalada said. “We are really proud of our partnership with the PGA Tour for the last 16 years, being the first tournament outside the United States and Canada. … It is an amazing opportunity for us to open up a huge window for the world to see what Mexico has to offer. So we will continue to do our best to make this window as big as we can.”
Jim Kavanaugh, the CEO and co-founder of World Wide Technology, acknowledged the elephant of change in the room but remains bullish on its future.
“Competition can be challenging and it can be disruptive, but it can actually make us better,” Kavanaugh said. “I believe this is just part of the evolution of business and the evolution of this sport, and I think it will actually make everyone better. It can create angst in a number of different ways for a lot of different people. But just like competition, the more competition and the stronger the field, it raises your game. I think that’s what the PGA Tour is doing. We’re still very excited about everything we’re doing here and working with our partners.”
The future fate of the Mayakoba tournament and other fall events eventually will be figured out by the PGA Tour as it wrestles with all the changes and the unintended consequences that come with upheaval.
Players may not want to shut down from competition for four months, selecting a couple of chosen starts during the offseason to keep themselves sharp, picking up a few world-ranking points and playing at destinations they enjoy.
“I can't give you a definitive answer right now,” Morikawa said. “I've never shut it down for four months. I can definitely see myself playing in events wherever they are around the world or throughout the country in the U.S. I still love to compete, right? … When you have four months, I think it gives you opportunities to do new things, whether that be playing a couple events or go do other hobbies or go explore certain things in your life. That's what's going to be great. But I still think a lot of guys will want to play because that's just our nature.”
Whatever form fall events take in the new tour’s offseason, it might be hard for Mayakoba to match its 2021 finish, when the top of the leaderboard featured winner Viktor Hovland, Ortiz, Thomas, Scheffler, Joaquín Niemann, Matthew Wolff, Ancer and Sergio García.
“Yeah, it would be sad if we leave this place or this tournament isn't on the schedule in the future,” Horschel said. “I can't speak to if it is or isn't going to be. I know there's a lot of rumors going out there with a lot of other things and I don't know what is truthful and what isn't, but this would be one that I would love to somehow keep on the schedule if we're somehow able to because I think everyone raves about it.”
Top: Despite having a dedicated sponsor signed through 2027, the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba lacks clear sailing on the PGA Tour's fall calendar.
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