Think this for sure happened at The Match last year? They roasted him hard on twitter to the point where I’m surprised he came on the pod.
That’s always how it’s been and will always will be. The only question is where you draw the line. There’s no reason the 125th best player is somehow “worthy” of being on Tour. It’s an arbitrary line.
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You mean having Jay Monahan’s compensation tied to total number of “playing opportunities” isn’t a good reason?
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I don’t think he was part of The Match, was he? It was PPV and Bacon was on the ground.
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It was The Match. Jacobsen was in the booth as the main analyst and spoke over tons of player-caddie stuff.
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Yeah had to double check that. He was in the booth with Ernie Johnson and Darren Clarke
After he talked about the Norman meeting I realized that Jacobsen and other Pros from that era must all go through life with the WWAD (what would Arnie do?) mentality. BUT, pretty soon most players will be in the “What would Tiger do” mindset and that’ll be interesting to see where that leads. Jacobsen did mention that Tiger should be the next Arnie-esque ambassador to golf. Will he care if the tour gets fragmented?
I’ll go with Peter Putz.
Tiger had been heard of long before he ever played professional golf. He didn’t need the PGA Tour to be known.
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@Lazstradamus - have you listened to The Fried Egg today with Shackleford? There’s an interesting legnthy discussion on the PGL. Shackleford said that heading to Torrey he thought it had a 15% chance of happening. After Torrey and talking to people there he thought it had a 50% chance of happening.
Just want to clarify - I’m not arguing that Tiger and others would be nobodies without the PGA Tour, just that players on tour have benefited from the commercial success of the Tour (just as the Tour has benefited from having great players). To me, something that has contributed to the Tour’s commercial success is the fact that it’s the only place to go for top tier professional golf in the U.S. Setting aside whether the Tour could have done things different/better over the years, having what amounts to a monopoly is usually not bad for business. It would take a smarter person than me to determine how much money/popularity Player X would have gained or lost by playing on a hypothetical competitor to the PGA Tour, and there aren’t many examples I can think of where a particular sport was able to sustain multiple leagues competing for the top.
I thought Jacobsen’s arguments were horrendous. Amateurs are usually known well before they are on Tour, there are plenty of amateur events and competitions of all shapes and colors.
The oversight of “the PGA tour split from the PGA of America and now is a great thing” really wore on me too.
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There is an argument to be made that splitting into multiple bodies could have substantially reduced the overall pie - boxing, indy car are examples. He did not make the argument very effectively though.
I’m not asserting its 100% true or that golf is like either of those. But fragmenting the product seems to cause confusion and dilute the value of each tour.
Or it could be the complete opposite- maybe the Norman tour would have been superior, crushed the PGA, increased the pie, and resulted in a better product.
@VelvetSteve, my man…There’s no reason it shouldn’t happen. It’s a business RIPE for a competitor to come in and say, “You know what? You’re not that bright. You’re stale. You mistreat your talent and most of your stars are dumb enough to buy your shtick. We’re going to take someone else’s money and ruin your business with it.” This happens all the time to established companies. It’s 2020, people. Wake the heck up. Tradition and the “that’s how we’ve always done it” mindset has never been more in trouble than it is today.
Here’s the thing…When your alarm is set for 2am, there are about 3 billion people who don’t live in the U.S. who are happy to be watching. People think the A in PGA stands for America. It stands for association. The world is flat. It’s a global economy blah blah blah, but you get my point. The hyper-Americanized PGA Tour isn’t as digestible for overseas audiences as you might think. And if 10 of the 18 events are in the U.S., the local market is more than well served. The idea that Jacobsen floated about it would be tough to find host locations is downright laughable.
The first time I heard of Tiger, I think he was 9. The first time I saw him on TV was the US Am, might have been the US Junior, but it was a USGA event.
The first time I heard of Els, I was 13 or 14. He was killing friends of mine in the Junior World Optimist at Torrey Pines. He was described as “a dad strength kid.” He did well on the European Tour, alongside other stars you’ve heard of. He also won a couple USGA events calle dthe US Open and the Open Championship- none of those are PGA Tour events.
The first I heard of Mickelson was also Junior Worlds. Then he posterized the NCAAs for a while, and won on Tour while in college which makes you wonder what the PGL would do to NCAA golf.
Another odd little “well what about” point Jacobsen made, “what happens if you’re ranked 48th and you hurt your wrist and can’t play?” Well, I guess like everything else in the world, it’s next man up. The show must go on. Peter replaced someone on Tour and someone replaced him. It’s called competition. But his answer is representative of this PGA Tour mindset that gives us Medical Exemptions which suck. I’m not saying the Tour is a broken model, but it’s a really, really fucked up model that subsidizes a bunch of bullshit that nobody cares about, like the Champions Tour and purses for people that don’t draw any fans to the game.
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Between Lanny and Jake, no shortage of OK BOOMER takes on the pod recently.
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Indeed. But Lanny gets a certain nod (until he defended Reed.).
You know, I for one am pretty stoked for more tournaments in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. I’m sure that what’s really good for the [checks notes] 3 billion people ready and willing to watch professional golf are a bunch of no-cut, limited field, $10M purse events held at His Majestic Generallisimo’s Gates of Heaven Golf Club, where you have to be an landowning male to even step on the grounds.
And those of us back in America are supposed…to…applaud the decision to siphon away top-level talent to this series of Kleptocrat Klassics? Because “we have enough golf”?
I’ve said it before, but it’s a horrifying cash grab. And I have yet to hear a likely positive outcome for this proposed World Tour other than “but the #content”.
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Why does anyone care how much pro athletes make. I’ve never got the “so-and-so should have more gold” take on why a certain tour/league is bad. IDGAF what they make. Imagine not knowing the prize money. It changes nothing for me.
Not just defending Reed but wanting to literally hear nothing else about it.
These guys are living in a bygone era.
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Zinger coming up next week!
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