Let’s take a moment here, two weeks into the new year, for a quick inventory of all that has happened in golf since 2024 arrived. It has been busier than Aaron Rodgers’ mind.
Let’s start with Jason Day’s pants.
If the baggy style catches on, it could lead to a worldwide fabric shortage. I’m all for getting away from the crotch-crushing pants favored by many players these days, but Day’s new look – getting exactly the attention “lifestyle brand” Malbon is probably looking for – could mean Hal Sutton’s tent-sized shirts might make a comeback.
On the positive side, hot dogs at the turn could be back in style again.
Since we’re on the subject of golf clothing, Tiger Woods and Nike have parted ways after 27 swoosh-sweet years together. It had been rumored for a while, but making it official still felt, well, official.
Some things just seem as if they’re going to last forever, such as Nick Saban at Alabama. Tiger and Nike were that way. The swoosh logo was like Tiger’s second shadow, and they were good for each other.
Alas, they’ll always have Beaverton.
He’s also better with the needle than some acupuncturists. Without trying to hurry him away from tournament golf, having Kisner as a regular voice on telecasts would be a very good and entertaining thing.
At the Sentry tournament, Kevin Kisner made his debut in the analyst’s chair for NBC Sports, and he accomplished the most important thing for anyone in that position: He made you want to hear what he had to say.
There are plenty of talking heads on television who can spew words, but Kisner demonstrated the knack for being informative, analytical and funny. The best ones make a difficult thing seem easy and natural, and Kisner did both of those.
While the aforementioned Saban and Bill Belichick shook the bedrock of American sports by stepping away from their respective football coaching duties on consecutive days – Saban already has said he plans to play 18 holes every day, while Belichick seems destined to keep coaching somewhere – golf had a similar situation.
First, Martin Slumbers, the CEO of the R&A, announced this will be his final year occupying one of the most powerful seats in golf, only to be followed by the news that DP World Tour boss Keith Pelley, he of the eye-catching eyewear – is leaving to return home to Canada to run a sports-and-entertainment giant in his native Toronto.
The Saban-Belichick news was both more sudden and more shocking (though it should not be a surprise that two men in their early 70s are changing career paths), but the departure of Slumbers and Pelley at such a turbulent time in golf sent a shudder through the game.
It’s fair to assume both are going for their own reasons, heading toward something they want more than running away from what’s happening in golf these days. Between COVID and LIV’s disruption, their leadership tenures could be measured in dog years.
Both are good men who have done good things and whose successors (the DP World Tour made the right move in promoting Guy Kinnings to succeed Pelley, effective in April) will inherit a landscape that could look decidedly different several months from now.
Golf is a game in which change typically comes slowly. It took only a decade or longer to get the ball rollback in place, and it won’t go into effect for four more years. But LIV’s arrival reset the landscape, and change these days feels almost more normal than normal does.
The biggest changes are still to come. The PGA Tour is likely to finalize its agreement with the Signature Sports Group as its private-equity partner in the next few weeks while negotiations with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund are continuing on a month-to-month basis.
One of these months, the negotiations will end and there will be a working agreement or there won’t be. The question of whether PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan continues beyond that time puts another potential change in the air.
Had Mother Nature not intruded and destroyed its indoor golf stadium, we’d be watching the first season of the TGL, the made-for-TV team competition built around many of the tour’s biggest stars. It sounds contrived and has the potential to fall flat but as the Netflix “Full Swing” series showed last year, fans like seeing the players in different settings, and this one has both star and marketing power behind it.
A year ago, traditionalists feared rules changes would ruin baseball. Instead, they made it better.
Golf can get better, and change is part of that.
The charm of the game remains. Seeing and hearing Chris Kirk and Gary Woodland tell their personal stories during the past two weeks reaches past the birdies and bogeys and touches hearts.
Whether it’s new faces, new logos, new voices or even new pants, change is here, and it feels as if it’s just beginning.
E-MAIL RON
Top: Jason Day's roomy Malbon trousers aren't the only thing fostering upheaval in the golf world to start 2024.
michael reaves, getty images