As nice as it would have been to be on Maui last week where Kapalua and its surroundings were showing off in their sun-splashed, whale-watching way, the feeling wasn’t entirely lost whether you were living in the land of lake-effect snow, were enduring the arrival of another atmospheric river or just waiting for your dormant fairways to dry enough to provide a couple of yards of roll on your wind-chilled tee shots.
The start of the PGA Tour season – the 2023 portion of the final wraparound season – offered more than a new beginning. It provided a banyan tree-framed window into the tour’s new world in which elevated events are the sport’s new status symbol.
After spending much of last year lamenting the shredding of professional golf’s fabric, there is a new reality. The PGA Tour is going its way and LIV Golf, which still hasn’t released its 2023 schedule but has released two top executives in the past month, will go its determined way.
This isn’t about what the PGA Tour has lost any more. Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Cam Smith, Bryson DeChambeau, Phil Mickelson, et al., are gone and they aren’t coming back except for the occasional cameo in major championships for which they still qualify.
This is about a season and a new model designed to bring the best players together more often – that’s a phrase that probably burns in Greg Norman’s ears – while paying them extravagantly for the 17 or so weeks they tee it up against one another.
For the players, particularly those sitting near the front of the bus, it can be the best thing to happen since TrackMan. For fans, it means seeing Jon Rahm against Justin Thomas against Rory McIlroy against Collin Morikawa against Scottie Scheffler more often.
What’s wrong with that?
Professional golf is driven by the personalities and by the moments. By getting the buy-in from the top 20 players to compete in 12 of the 13 elevated events, plus the majors, the sport is better.
“That’s what makes the majors so much fun is you look up on a leaderboard and typically you've got a lot of the top (players). … Now instead of having ’em just stuck in four weeks, five weeks, whatever it is, now you’re going to have it spread out throughout the year,” Will Zalatoris said. “I think there’s more implications for each week now, which I think if anything will now make people be incentivized to watch more.”
Professional golf is driven by the personalities and by the moments. By getting the buy-in from the top 20 players to compete in 12 of the 13 elevated events, plus the majors, the sport is better. It may be harder for the Valspar Championship or the Charles Schwab Challenge to get some of the stars to play their events, but it’s not necessarily a case of the haves and the have-nots on the tour schedule.
The American Express event in Palm Springs next week isn’t an elevated event, but it has five of the top seven and eight of the top 15 in the world ranking committed to play. The Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines the following week (also not an elevated event) will have its share of sparkly names as well.
The danger with the tour’s new schedule is the perception that it will become a two-tier operation, not just from the players’ perspective but from the public’s view as well. That’s not the tour’s intention, but with 12 of the 13 elevated events paying at least $20 million, more than double the other non-major events, it’s too soon to know how it plays out.
The top players can opt out of one of the 13 elevated events, an option Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry exercised with the Maui tournament. If they skip more than one elevated event, they lose any potential bonus from the Player Impact Program, which will pay out $100 million to 20 players.
The current PGA Tour schedule features 47 events, leaving 30 without elevated or major-championship status. The top 20 players are required to play at least three of those other tournaments each season. When the calendar season starts in 2024, there will be 38 total events, leaving 21 without elevated stature.
“I think there’s more implications for each week now, which I think if anything will now make people be incentivized to watch more.”
Will Zalatoris
Rahm is a built-in participant at Torrey Pines because of his ties to the area and his fondness for the place as a past champion and as the 2021 U.S. Open winner at the San Diego muni. Spieth is committed to playing the AT&T Byron Nelson and Charles Schwab Challenge events near his home in Dallas. Other top players have their own favorite spots, and many want to play more than 20 weeks a year.
“I think at the end of the day a lot of events aren’t going to change drastically. They may lose one or two people here or there, but I think it’s going to be a great opportunity for a lot of other story lines,” Justin Thomas said.
“These events that are non-elevated … understand that they’re not elevated … but they're still PGA Tour events. They're still going to have the same purses that they have now. They’re going to have opportunities for guys to play their way into Augusta, to play their way into the majors, to play their way into the events, whatever it is, and it is unfortunate for both the events and the way they’re perceived because they’re still great events.”
The Sentry Tournament of Champions (which seems due for a name change now that more than tournament winners are eligible) did what it does so well: provide a glorious glimpse of what’s coming.
It’s a beautifully familiar setting, a spot where the views seem limitless.
Maybe they are.
The PGA Tour is about to find out.
E-MAIL RON
Top: Collin Morikawa enjoys the scenery if not the finish in Maui.
TRACY WILCOX, PGA TOUR VIA GETTY IMAGES