You’re completely right, Spieth draws a country mile more people than Cantlay, Schauffle, Spieth, even Rahm who is Top 5. Spieth might suck at golf right now, but he deserves** a lot more than the other guys on that list. (And it’s why he is still getting paid the big bucks by Under Armour and Titleist).
Nobody** (normalized towards average fan) would care if Cantlay retired tomorow, as ugly as it is.
you are 100% correct.
Doesn’t mean its right or any deserves that or is entitled to it, to @anon26814599’s point.
I’d much rather watch X or Cantlay, but i’m (we’re) the minority fan.
That’s what sucks about the PGA Tour…and Rules about Hockey. Hockey takes care of the core fan first, then worries about the masses…for the most part. The Tour treats the die hards like idiots - yet it is them who is morons.
Why don’t we have a thread dedicated to him yet…
hold my beer.
because the pga tour sucks at covering golf
No idea.
But you can believe they will at least try to drag a faltering Jordan Spieth into the fray over Lee Westwood or Jazz Janewattananond.
Those types of decisions will be easy to make.
Man - that is a great point.
Super unrelated but whatever I’m getting close to quitting time on a Friday, I was actually thinking about hockey coverage in some of the coverage take stuff. Hockey will often get the complaint that it’s too hard to follow the puck. Networks (american ones) have attempted to address this by adding a light or coloured streak behind the puck - never worked. Hockey fans know that you don’t necessarily watch for the puck but watch the play and then can follow the puck. I was trying to draw an analogy to watching golf (watching golf vs. following the overall narrative) but haven’t quite got there yet…
Bird in hand vs. 2 in the bush argument
The bird in the hand stinks and if the pgl fails could be resuscitated relatively quickly to its current form
Fuck it pgl fan #1 right here
people who want entertainment complain about hockey being hard to watch, soccer being hard to watch, “no namers” being shown in golf, etc. people who want sport understand what’s what.
it’s not about showing “good golf”. it’s about showing entertainers athletes you know and care about. They show a lot of seals and otters during Pebble Beach week, I mean… really?
This thread is wild man
How DARE you leave out Mario.
Anyone here use an Applebook (or MacBook, I mean…) or iPhone?
The fuck is an Applebook?
I think the travel aspect of a world golf tour is being very underplayed. If you’re already loaded, do you want to fly to a time zone 8-hrs away and attempt to perform at some kind of high level? Cape Town? Literally the middle of nowhere. Yes, private jets and all that. But either you send them on a two-month overseas swing and attempt to limit circadian disruption, or you have them fly overseas one week a month, which is exhausting in a totally different way. Remember, they are already filthy rich playing mostly in the USA.
Have you guys even seen or met a PGA Tour wife or agent? Literally everyone in these guys’ worlds will be badgering them to sign up.
Mostly true. I’m the first top say the KFC Tour guys are getting underpaid. And that the current 150 PGA guys should value the feeder tours, instead of lining their pockets with obscene FedEx bonuses. But what this will do is widen the gap even further. I don’t subscribe to the “top players adres getting underpaid”-take; just look at their earnings of the course, and everything corrects itself.
The Euro and PGA Tour will have a very hard time to fill the schedule, get sponsors to commit, and to give up and coming players a feasible and financially sound way of earning a living.
“KFC players are underpaid” is not a take I thought I would hear. Can you say more?
How much money do the top 10 players “deserve” compared to the KFT and Canadian tour members?
This question, arising from some comments here, set me thinking. Does anyone “deserve” a certain level of finance? Since arriving in the US the idea of wealth and success has interested me a lot.
A college football coach can earn more than a top surgeon, unpaid college kids can fill a stadium way larger than Man Utd, if you have a few million to spare you can run for president, it’s a crazy world out here.
So is the money in golf the real problem in today’s game. Jake, like me, talks about a different time in golf and so we may not be relevant in today’s discussion. In my past in the UK, a kid would play amateur golf trying to get into bigger and better events as they improved. Playing for region or country and hoping to maybe get into the amateur or Open championship. Some would be taken on at a club as an assistant, a few found friends and believers and turned pro. The top players earned a living but it was only a few that played for a lifetime. A similar route was for most sports back then.
So it’s difficult for anyone from that era to see money be the main driving force for many today in sports. If your a good golfer do you deserve to have a paid job for life? Who decides the pay grades of each level of player now? The market, the tour, sponsors, the fans?
In business if you get a thousand applicants for a single post, the wage goes down. If you need the very best or have very few applicants the wage goes up.
I would never stop any youngster chasing a dream, far from it I would encourage them fully. Yet will paying more to the lesser tours improve the game at the top or encourage more minor tours paying a little less. Today I see literally 100’s of young players hanging out at clubs in Florida in the winter hoping to make a living as a Pro golfer. With such a large amount of talent have they lessened the wage? The PGA turns out a thousand qualified Pro’s each year but now hundreds apply for every assistant position again decreasing the wage and chance of a career.
Jake has his views and so do the greats of today. I have no solutions just more and more questions. Fitting it all together to make everyone happy is going to be interesting to say the least.
Many know more about point systems and qualifications than I do, but I’m on board for the few top guys that you could say “deserve” to be playing in more tour events.
However.
That’s like saying the NBA D-League Players deserve more. or XFL. or AHL, WHL. Or AAA and AA baseball. No, they don’t. They don’t create the same revenue and they haven’t made it. They can try there hands at the Euro Tour, Japan Tour, Sunshine Tour, etc (assuming the latter has better pay days).
Is it all about the money or is it about the health of the game. I wasn’t entertained by the Tiger, Phil show at Shadow. I prefer the majors to the FedEx. Is the US and it’s money culture the only important thing in golf? I have no idea what tour golf around the world will look like in the future. Maybe like the Super Bowl and NFL they can say they are world champions even if there isn’t anyone else in the world playing pro American Football.
75% of the tour doesn’t create the same revenue…