You're definitely right on both of these points in the short term, but over the long term, I think a) simply sticking its head in the sand isn't going to work for the Tour forever, even if the majors are for now on their side, and b) a PGA Tour partnership with a more benevolent force like the Premier Golf League - an organization that wants to work with the Tour, rather than against it - could conceivably up the prize money for stars to at least vaguely competitive levels, *if* the Tour is willing to fundamentally change its business model.
You might be interested to read up about
World Series Cricket, because there are some very interesting parallels between the changes cricket experienced in the late 1970s to what could be happening with golf right now. Kerry Packer, the Australian media tycoon who provided the funding for this rebel enterprise, enticed a bunch of the sport's most established stars to sign contracts for a new league which basically invented the limited overs (one day) format of cricket, in contrast to the staid four-day or five-day format (“Test Matches” when played between countries, or “first class cricket” more generally), and totally revolutionized the game. I'm not sure the LIV team golf idea is that revolution we're waiting for; while I'm all in favor of team golf and particularly match play golf - or at least medal-match play golf - in principle, I don't think that has to be an integral part of any new model. Rather, I think
@Senator Donut is onto something with his points about the Masters. Maybe the way forward is to create maybe a dozen marquee events on Tour which look like the Masters - fields of +/- 80 players with a fairly generous cut, qualification criteria based on a combination of current rankings/recent performance and star power/past performance, everyone off of #1 tee, more compressed viewing windows - and gear the Tour around them. The idea would be to get all of the best players from around the world to play in all of these events - making them basically the equivalent of the ATP/WTA 1000 events in tennis - and perhaps also to partner with the European Tour* during these weeks to create "opposite field" events open to the best of the rest from both tours.
Another decent parallel might be the foundation of the English Premier League in 1992, followed latterly by the establishment of what is now called The Championship beneath it. Before 1992, the English Football League encompassed the top four divisions of soccer in England, and the income earned by First Division teams wasn't *that* much greater than the clubs below them. But then the Premier League split off and formed its own governing body, independent of the EFL, and for better or worse its revenues have skyrocketed since then. (And latterly, the division below the Premier League, now the "Championship", did something similar to gain a bigger share of the revenue that was left, which is why "League One" and "League Two" in England are now actually the third and fourth tiers.) The PGA Tour's biggest problem is that you have the equivalent of three or four divisions all on the same revenue earning plan; what you really need is one marquee "league" which is smaller and has a higher concentration of top talent, and a way to promote and relegate players to and from that league. And the more I think about it, the PGA Tour and the European Tour* are going to have to join forces here and create a worldwide structure - or for the McIlroys and Spieths and Thomases to do it themselves, creating a modern-day equivalent of the Premier League under new ownership/leadership - and stop living separate lives. Going back to tennis, I'm struck by how second-tier American golfers can make a great living without ever leaving the USA, in a way that American tennis players simply can't. Maybe the way forward is to tell these guys unable to break into the 80-player fields that they won't necessarily be losing their current levels of income; they'll just have to travel to Europe and elsewhere more often to try and earn it? Both normal and opposite field events in Europe would benefit from a stronger American presence, and ultimately you'd have something that does look like tennis more generally: majors with big fields that everyone wants to win; ATP 1000-level events that every star around the world will always play in; 500-level and 250-level events around the world (akin to the current PGA Tour and European Tour* structures) that stars will sometimes enter but where the rank and file grind out their tour cards; and then a global Challenger Tour structure beneath the main Tour (i.e., a globalized Korn Ferry Tour). I know I've mentioned cricket and soccer, but maybe the best parallel really is tennis and the men's player mutiny in 1988 which led to the dramatic restructuring of what became the ATP Tour in 1990.
* I know it's now called the DP World Tour. But really.
I mean, all of that is just me spitballing ideas on what a realistic endgame to all of this might look like. Thoughts?
