The Break: What If Less is More?

Why the PGA Tour schedule needs variety

I went to LIV Golf Virginia on Thursday afternoon, and while I was walking around the host property before the actual golf started, I got to thinking while getting in a lot of steps.

There’s a sameness to every LIV Golf event, and that’s by design. Every event has the same nomenclature: Maybe Sponsor Name + LIV Golf + Location. Each tournament looks about the same, with suites on the 18th hole, a boozy hospitality experience, a fan village mostly for non-golf people or parents to hang out, the purse, the shotgun start — the list goes on. In some ways, that’s good, if you like the experience. In some ways, that’s bad, primarily because every event feels exactly the same, just at a different venue.

I fear the PGA Tour may be rushing toward the same thing with its plans to tighten the schedule and shorten the season. There are nine Signature events (The Sentry would have been the 9th) in a 37-week slate that includes four majors, The Players and the FedEx Cup playoffs. All of those events have purses of around or more than $20 million. That’s 17 events of that stature in about 36 weeks — a big event practically every other week.

Yet, it felt like the Cadillac Championship was overkill. There are a few reasons for that — being one of three Signature events in four weeks, the poor attendance, the late nature of its insertion into the schedule, the handful of top-20 players skipping it.

My long-held theory is that if you treat everything like a big deal, then nothing is a big deal. The more events that the PGA Tour puts forth as huge, vital and important, the more those events collectively lose some meaning.

Some of the secret sauce of the PGA Tour schedule as it has long been is that there are down periods. There are well-supported events, played for less money in smaller markets, and it’s a big deal when top players commit to compete in them. There aren’t 40 of the world top 50 competing, but it’s still a lot of fun, and a lot of good is done for the local community. These events have their own character and quirkiness in the best way possible. They have a ton of value because they’re an opportunity for a casual fan to pause and for the hardcore fan to get to watch something different.

What I’m saying is that the PGA Tour should avoiid collapsing the schedule to focus specifically on the best players competing against each other in a traveling circus of events that might eventually start to feel a lot alike. Lean into the things that make the non-Signature events fun, unique and rewarding. They need to be there.

For a recap of my visit to LIV Golf Virginia, scroll down!

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2 Off the 1st: A Podcast for The Break subscribers

On this episode, I recap my experience at Day 1 of LIV Golf Virginia, setting the scene as turmoil engulfs the once-Saudi-backed tour. What is it like attending an event? How many people showed up? Were the players and staff panicked? Then, Rory McIlroy talks about the reality of some players skipping some Signature events, and the PGA Championship field is set.

2 Off the 1st comes out now on Mondays and Thursdays — for The Break subscribers.

I went to LIV Golf Virginia

I had never been to a LIV Golf event, and I figured LIV Golf Virginia might be my last opportunity. So, I applied for credentials and went down to Trump National Golf Club Washington D.C. — in Northern Virginia — on Thursday.

There were probably 30 people protesting the Trump Administration a third of a mile from the entrance. I hadn’t experienced that before at a golf tournament.

I arrived and got set up, just like I would at any other event. It was run capably and professionally. The host course had plenty of amenities for attendees, including a few hospitality options, a merch tent and what they call the Fan Village, which feels like a good-sized space for non-golf people to kinda chill or kids to run amok away from the golf.

It felt strange to show up and then have to wait 90 minutes to see any golf, but that’s the nature of a shotgun start (plus a 19th and final group off the 1st tee, right after the initial feature group). Players congregated at the putting green near the perched 1st tee, as Trump National’s practice facility is down a significant hill with the rest of the course situated close to the Potomac River.

There were so many speakers, maybe every 25 yards, along the 1st and 18th holes, as well as select other places on the course. Out of them came the event emcees, who delivered somewhat scripted banter, event details and caught up spectators on what had been happening in previous events. A Spotify playlist curated by LIV Golf played a bunch of ‘90s alt-rock hits, some modern country songs and some house music. It was mostly inoffensive ambient noise that sounds way louder and pervasive on the telecasts, to LIV’s detriment.

I would guess attendance maxxed out around 3,000 on a Thursday afternoon. One volunteer actually speculated whether LIV’s potential demise would keep people away or turn out more folks, curious to see the spectacle.

I went up to the first tee for the start, which included parachuters landing on the first fairway, Bryson DeChambeau (and only Bryson) signing autographs for kids and, eventually, the emcees hyping up the start…and then traditional golf claps for each of the players. It was fascinating to see golf fans kind of default to expected behavior as 50 or so of them watched DeChambeau and then Rahm get going.

A volunteer told me most people just followed those two, and, from what I could tell, that was the case. Branden Grace made a lovely putt on the 1st hole that was seen by maybe 15 people. That kind of thing happens on the PGA Tour, too.

The players and staff didn’t seem panicked, though CEO Scott O’Neil was on the first tee to welcome players. He even gave Jon Rahm’s caddie a short neck massage. He was doing what a guy in his position should probably be doing to his people: trying to assure them and connect with them.

If you were just dropped in this event and told nothing about the four-year war in professional golf — which is has really been a detente for three years — then you would say this was a perfectly cromulent experience. But it does appear to be one that would otherwise be happening in relative local anonymity, if it weren’t for the potential that it’s the last time it unfolds in this area.

The Links

• The PGA Championship field and alternate list are out for next week at Aronimink

• Bryson DeChambeau got stiff-armed on an autograph by a kid who didn’t want his new hat Sharpie’d

• Michelle Wie West was cuss-out-loud nervous as she came back on the LPGA yesterday

• Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose and other European players wore Seve’s white-and-blue fit to commemorate 15 years since his passing

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