Reading through both professional and fan commentary, as well as what the television has to say, I am confident about this concerning the PGA Tour and LIV Golf agreement/merger/whatever – nobody truly knows what it means for the future of golf. That in and of itself is a huge problem, sewing confusion so early on.
I have discussed here on my blog several times the “split” and in particular that I felt LIV Golf has gotten less and less interesting. My opinion from two months ago has changed little. Like most, I was fairly shocked when the “merger” was announced this past week. For two bickering and apparently philosophically different views on where professional golf needs to go, it seems like money miraculously cured all principled and ethical matters.
Here’s the crux of the issue from my TV fan perspective – golf is a gentleman’s game, and this perception of golf is pretty well manifested in the telecasts of the PGA Tour, LPGA, Champions Tour, and the European (DP) Tour. LIV Golf, by contrast, is taking the snail’s route to turn golf viewing to excitement equivalent of profession hockey or soccer, with its “loud” approach that allegedly appeals to younger crowds, I guess. Perhaps it is the youth that enjoy the droning bass on LIV telecasts, which only remind me of a neighbor’s annoying loud music through the walls.
It’s LIV’s malformed golf experience that makes me wonder if its backers truly understand golf at all, or at least how it is perceived in the West. How do these diametrically opposed views on golf mesh into a combined league or agreement? I have chosen, for the most part, not to watch LIV, nor do I want to watch a LIV-PGA hybrid, at least today.
In matters of dispute by the titans that run the world, or parts of the world, there is no point in the little guys like me taking sides. I am neither pro-PGA nor anti-LIV, I just want to watch golf for what I know it to be, and today that’s the PGA’s brand. It’s like in politics or any other matters in society – only a fool invests his token to a cause for which he has no control over its deliberations. I can simply choose to watch or not to watch, guided by my self interests and formulated through my values and experience.
Thank you for reading my article. Donec deinde tempum.
