LOS ANGELES – Everything was going to be so perfect. It had stars. He had records. It had one of the most beautiful settings in all of prime-time sports. It was supposed to be the big day of the PGA Tour.
Two weeks ago at Pebble Beach, Wyndham Clark shot a third-round 60 to break the all-time course record and take the lead in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. The tour couldn’t have been a better Sunday, in theory. It was the off week before the Super Bowl, which meant he practically had the sports calendar to himself. He made the tournament a signature event, meaning one of the most iconic venues in golf had the best players on tour competing. And suddenly, the reigning US Open champion, the star of the new season of the Netflix golf show “Full Swing,” Clark found himself in a Sunday duel with the sport’s most exciting young player, Ludvig Åberg.
And it just never happened.
Instead, extreme weather halted play on Sunday with flooding and downed trees across California. The course required so much water over five days that the tournament couldn’t even be finished on Monday. Instead of an exciting, star-studded primetime finale with everyone talking about PGA Tour golf, the tournament ended with Clark’s Saturday 60th and a whimper.
This has been a strange six weeks for the tour. He’s in the prime of his schedule before the majors, and there’s an ongoing discussion about whether the PGA Tour season is lacking juice.
But maybe the Sunday you were waiting for will arrive. At the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club, which many consider the best non-major on the circuit, the final round is getting interesting. He has the world’s No. 7 player, Patrick Cantlay, with a two-stroke lead. He has good friend and No. 5 golfer Xander Schauffele in second place, tied with rising star Will Zalatoris back in the mix after missing 2023 due to back surgery. Add to that Major winner Jason Day and Ryder Cupper Harris English four in an elite field, and this could be the Sunday that brings that juice.
But about that juice.
It’s really no one’s fault. It’s not even clear if it’s true. But something strange has been happening. All six tournaments so far have been won by a lot. Literally. They have been won by the so-called randoms, the “mules”, as some in the golf world like to refer to them. Chris Kirk. Grayson Murray. Nick Dunlap. Mateo Pavón. Wyndham Clark. Nick Taylor. All six have entered the tournament with odds of 100-1 or better. Five of the six entered the week outside the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking. The only winner within that top 50, Clark, won without a final round.
PGA Tour winners and pre-tournament starting prices starting in 2024:
Chris Kirk 100/1 Sentinel
Grayson Murray 300/1 Sony
Nick Dunlap (a) 400/1 Amex
Matthieu Pavón 150/1 Farmers
Wyndham Clark 100/1 AT&T Pebble
Nick Taylor 100/1 WM Phoenix– Michael Verity (@MichaelVerity) February 12, 2024
It hasn’t even been bad. A lot of golf has been exciting. One tournament was won by a 20-year-old amateur who claimed his right to be the potential future of the sport. Two of them have included moving stories about overcoming adversity. Two have made it to a playoff! And last week in Phoenix it became national news due to crowds of drunks overrunning security.
But, for better or worse, the sport has become a results-driven business. As the wars between leagues and private equity firms continue and all we hear about are ratings, player impact programs and stars, there is debate over whether these results have been a problem.
Bottom line: Chris Kirk (100-1) won The Sentry flagship event in a low-scoring battle with stars like Sahith Theegala and Jordan Spieth. It wasn’t the best tournament, but Kirk’s victory after taking time off to deal with alcoholism and depression was an incredible story. A week later it was more of the same. Grayson Murray (300-1) also struggled with alcohol and mental health, even facing a PGA Tour punishment years earlier, and won in a thrilling playoff thanks to two incredible shots at the key moment. They weren’t stars, but most agreed they were really great finishes.
Then, at the American Express, which is by no means a big tournament that requires big fanfare, 20-year-old American Amateur champion Nick Dunlap (400-1) took over the golf world by becoming the first amateur to win a PGA tournament. Tour event since Phil Mickelson 33 years earlier. This was gold.
Next up was Frenchman Matthieu Pavon (150-1), 31, who won at Torrey Pines. Then came the Pebble Beach weather disaster and the circuit was deprived of its exciting final round, which also led to more people in the golf world watching the final round of LIV in Mexico. And last week, the Waste Management Open in Phoenix, known for its rowdy, booze-filled atmosphere, featured a thrilling playoff finish between Nick Taylor and 47-year-old Charley Hoffman. And even that was drowned out by the news that fans broke containment and weather delays pushed that exciting finish to the first half of the Super Bowl.
The tour was unable to achieve a victory.
A subsection of people turned this into a conversation about LIV’s departures and a sign that the tour was no longer a big deal. This offseason, the PGA Tour lost a major star, Jon Rahm, and another top-20 player, Tyrell Hatton. Losing them hurt me. No doubt about that. But it’s probably a mistake to act as if the results of these tournaments were because those two weren’t there. Kirk and Clark overcame fields filled with most of the best players in the world. Even Sony, AmEx and Phoenix had their fair share of top 10 and top 20 players. Those players just beat them.
It’s probably more about the personality component. No matter what you think about LIV, it’s at least fair to say that it took a lot of the top people on the PGA Tour. Few are bigger than Mickelson. Brooks Koepka is a star. Bryson DeChambeau is an outcast. Dustin Johnson may not have a big “personality,” but he has been one of the most talked about golfers for over a decade. Rahm and Hatton are two passionate and emotional players who bring style. Cameron Smith is a fishing-loving Australian with a mullet who was on his way to becoming a bigger star. And everyone has opinions about Patrick Reed.
Even if you want to criticize the quality of some of these players, the truth is that LIV has many of the golfers that attract the most attention.
And while it’s no one’s fault, the PGA Tour players who play the best aren’t exactly the winners on the surface. As Garrett Morrison of The Fried Egg noted, only one of the six winners ranked in the top 20 of the PGA Tour’s Player Impact Program, which rewards players for generating business on tour (tickets, sponsorships, media consumption and fan engagement). And that was Clark at a rain-shortened event.
If my data collection is correct (maybe it isn’t?):
– No one in the 2023 PIP top 10 has done better than third place this season
– A player in the PIP top 20 (Wyndham Clark) won and it was a rain-shortened event.– Garrett Morrison (@garrett_TFE) February 17, 2024
The biggest brands on tour right now are Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and Tiger Woods. Well, Riviera is only McIlroy’s second event in the United States this year. Spieth is playing solid golf but not quite winning. And Woods is a 48-year-old legend who averages more surgeries per year than the top 10. Then, just to add gasoline to the market share fire, Woods with Drew from the Genesis, the event he organizes, on Friday due to the flu, and Spieth were disqualified on Friday for submitting an incorrect scorecard. Those are two great attractions of the equation.
Their next wave of young stars like Scottie Scheffler, Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa aren’t at the hype level of those names, and even they haven’t played at their exceptional levels (yet) this season.
Actually, none of this is a problem. The tournaments are still good. Many have included interesting stories. Anyone acting like this is a big deal is probably trying to make it into one. But it’s one thing. Something worth keeping an eye on.
“It’s important, obviously,” Schauffele said Saturday, “but I was talking to the CEO of AmEx and he was talking about the ratings when Nick (Dunlap) won. People love the Cinderella story. I’m not sure what Waste Management’s ratings were, but Charley is (obviously I’m biased, I’m from San Diego), but he’s one of the older guys trying to win here, it being a younger crowd. He is something beautiful on the PGA Tour. “Anyone can win any week and there are a lot of stories circulating.”
It’s something that makes this Sunday something important. Riviera is possibly the best course the tour plays on all year round. Cantlay and Schauffele are top 10 players year after year, and Zalatoris is someone the golf world is looking for. But even this qualifying victory comes with a caveat.
Cantlay isn’t exactly a popular player. He is only 19th in last year’s PIP rankings and has at times lost points with the masses over accusations of slow play and a highly reputable report that he did not wear a hat at the 2023 Ryder Cup to protest that players were not They were paid for the event. Schauffele is the world number 5 and one of the most consistent players of his era, but his career is mostly known for being consistent without winning many major events. Basically, even the PGA Tour’s big Sunday will come across some of the most boring stars on it.
But this is where we need to move away from PIP and popularity. Let’s just talk about golf. This final round is going to be incredible. It will be the best course with the best players and something golf fans should keep an eye out for.
We are six weeks into an eight-month season. Shut up and enjoy.
(Photo by Patrick Cantlay: Harry How/Getty Images)
