Rose: 4 Majors in 4 months is bad for golf.

[LICC]

> @JAMH03 said:

> > @MMB1500 said:

> > Justin Rose has broken ranks from golf’s leading players by criticising the new schedule for 2019, which features four majors in as many months. This week’s Open Championship rounds off a major season that used to end with the US PGA; that tournament has been brought forward to May from August and Rose believes the new calendar is detrimental to competitor preparations.

> >

> > The former world No 1 said: “In my opinion they’re too soon. It’s too condensed. As a professional in terms of trying to peak for something, the process that’s involved in trying to do that can be detailed and it can be longer than a month. So that’s my reasoning for that.”

> >

> > “I think it’s pretty much driven by FedExCup, wanting to finish on a certain date, everything else having to fit in where it can,” Rose added. “For me major championships should be the things that are protected the most. That’s how all of our careers ultimately are going to be measured. Thirty, 40 years ago there wasn’t a FedExCup so if you’re trying to compare one career to another career, Jack [Nicklaus] versus Tiger [Woods], it’s the majors … they’re the benchmarks. For them to be tweaked so much I think is quite interesting at this point.”

> >

> > Personally I agree with Rose though for other reasons, mainly that the four most important tournaments in golf are over within a third of the year. I'd rather see them spread out a bit more. Thoughts?

>

> Im really enjoying this, lets give it some time.

 

Same here. I like having a big event to look forward to every month from March through August, and then the Ryder Cup or President's Cup to follow. And the PGA Championship is greatly enhanced going second rather than being a second class citizen in August. It's the Fedex Cup they still need to fix. A handicapped final tournament is ridiculous.

[stanger37]

> @golfer07840 said:

> Amazing how much pull the NFL has. They directly have affected global sports scheduling. **Unintentionally of course,** but still, just amazes me.

> On that same note, my mother's birthday is the 2nd week in January and we always have something going on that weekend. Well for those who are NFL fans, you know that 2nd weekend in January is a major playoff round so she always complaining that we have to plan the birthday dinner around the playoff games. "Is it really that important?" she asks. My response this year was "It's important enough that the PGA Tour rearranged their schedule so they could get out of the NFL's way."

>

> As for Rose's comments; I think he's arguing the wrong point. It isn't the major's and how far apart they are (That's already been well documented here as to how silly that is) I actually think it's the WGC events that are making the schedule feel more cramped than it actually is.

 

NFL 100% on purpose makes the rest of the sports world revolve around the NFL. The other 3 sports get May and June. Other than that, NFL makes sure people have a topic to talk about the NFL year round. But I feel your pain, the wife's birthday is Feb. 1st, always right around the Superbowl.

 

The NFL RedZone channel and Fantasy football I think is a big reason. It used to be you watch your home team play, whether they were on CBS or Fox and 12 or 3 CST. Or if there was another good game on, watch out of town game. My dad would always flip back and forth between the game and golf. Now with RedZone, you can watch football from 12-6pm without a commercial, all day long. All the exciting plays. You don't need to flip anymore and with fantasy, you have a vested interest 75% of the games.

 

And with the amount of commercials that golf has, you can easily forget you were watching anything else if you flip during a commercial of golf, turn on football game and watch half a quarter before flipping back to golf. Chances are it is on another commercial, finish the quarter and then go back to golf..... (And Patrick Cantlay is still shuffling his feet)

[Rangeballz]

Right now its major, meaningless tournament, WGC event, somewhat meaningless tournament, repeat three more times. Fantastic in April when we are starved for golf, but it does get a bit exhausting. I don't know what the answer is. I'm still getting used to this year.

[golfer07840]

> @stanger37 said:

> > @golfer07840 said:

> > Amazing how much pull the NFL has. They directly have affected global sports scheduling. **Unintentionally of course,** but still, just amazes me.

> > On that same note, my mother's birthday is the 2nd week in January and we always have something going on that weekend. Well for those who are NFL fans, you know that 2nd weekend in January is a major playoff round so she always complaining that we have to plan the birthday dinner around the playoff games. "Is it really that important?" she asks. My response this year was "It's important enough that the PGA Tour rearranged their schedule so they could get out of the NFL's way."

> >

> > As for Rose's comments; I think he's arguing the wrong point. It isn't the major's and how far apart they are (That's already been well documented here as to how silly that is) I actually think it's the WGC events that are making the schedule feel more cramped than it actually is.

>

> NFL 100% on purpose makes the rest of the sports world revolve around the NFL. The other 3 sports get May and June. Other than that, NFL makes sure people have a topic to talk about the NFL year round. But I feel your pain, the wife's birthday is Feb. 1st, always right around the Superbowl.

>

> The NFL RedZone channel and Fantasy football I think is a big reason. It used to be you watch your home team play, whether they were on CBS or Fox and 12 or 3 CST. Or if there was another good game on, watch out of town game. My dad would always flip back and forth between the game and golf. Now with RedZone, you can watch football from 12-6pm without a commercial, all day long. All the exciting plays. You don't need to flip anymore and with fantasy, you have a vested interest 75% of the games.

>

> And with the amount of commercials that golf has, you can easily forget you were watching anything else if you flip during a commercial of golf, turn on football game and watch half a quarter before flipping back to golf. Chances are it is on another commercial, finish the quarter and then go back to golf.....** (And Patrick Cantlay is still shuffling his feet)**

 

I literally LOL'd at that.

 

 

[legitimategolf]

As difficult as this new scheduling might be on Rose and the other players, I'm pretty sure someone will still find a way to win the tournament. They always do.

[smashdn]

Not a fan of the current schedule either. I don't know the correct answer but...

 

...If I made the golf schedule and there were no other constraints: The official PGA Tour season would start on January 1. Majors: Masters - April, US Open - June, The Open - Late July (give that urf time to dry out and brown out over there), PGA - Early September. Players is played in May. There is the "Out West Swing", ATT Pro-Am, Waste Managment, Hawaii, etc. Then you do Texas with the Houston Open the week before The Masters. Then Florida and Carolinas (AP, Harbour Town, etc.) Then you schedule around the US Open and the Tour northeast swing to Boston and Canada and mix in the Greenbrier in there. Then the John Deere ahead of The Open. Come back and hit Memphis in the heat. The Colonial (in the heat). Finish in October with the Tour Championship at AAC. Silly Season after that. Stablefords, match plays, skins, etc. At that point the TV audience has drifted off for the most part. Keep it laid back and interesting for the guys trying to go up the money list and stay in the game.

[pheenomz4774]

I agree with Rose that something is "off" regarding this year, but I am not quite sure it's because of how close the majors are. I think the issue is that the events between the majors....kinda stink now. With the Player's before the Master's this year, all but one/two of the really good tournies happen before major season. Most of the WGCs and the popular courses on the west coast swing and in FL (API and Players) are done. There just aren't a lot of tournaments in between the majors that the world's best all collectively play in, so I'm just tuning in to about 5 events from May - July. Whereas I watched about everything I could January - April.

[DatSliceDoe]

I'm no fan of this new schedule at all. FedEx Cup is trivial at best.

[dalehead]

I can understand JR's point that it's difficult for players to peak for four majors in four months. The majors are golf's standard of measure. Don't you think Tiger would trade his Fed Ex Cups for four more majors? Even one more? Do you think Brandt Snedecker or Billy Horschel would trade theirs for a US Open or Masters? Yet the major schedule had to be condensed so the Fed Ex Cup playoffs didn't have to compete with football for TV ratings. We are getting things backwards. If the Fed Ex Cup disappeared tomorrow would anyone really care? Fans just don't relate to a season long competition for points to determine a champion. Champion of what? It's not even possible to argue that the Fed Ex Cup identifies the tour's best player that year. It doesn't even reward consistency. Get hot in the playoffs and you can walk off with the season long title. The old schedule of April, June, July, August gave both the players and the fans a chance to unwind from one major then gear up for the next. The three most important championships in the world were nicely spread out over a four month period. Then came the US PGA which allowed fans to come down slowly from their major habit without going cold turkey. After this week it's "See you in 9 months." To quote the great Jim Mora, "Playoffs??? Don't talk to me about playoffs!"

[idrive]

I just want to add that I completely agree with Rose. The entire scheduling as it is now is not in Golfs best interest.

 

Every 6 weeks for a Major...

[Titleist99]

Let me get this straight......a guy that won $18M last year, most from the FedEx cup is now complaining that the FedEx cup priority schedule is interfering with his major tournament preparation.....laughable. How about prepping for three majors better yet try to peak for two majors, maybe you'll up your total to two or three then. Golf is one of the few sports that has an eleven month season.....The season began on October 4, 2018. The 2019 FedEx Cup Playoffs will begin on August 8, and conclude on August 25, 2019...The wrap around season. Most sports seasons last approx.. 4-6 Mo. The Pga tour has 46 official events an another 6-8 unofficial events......Maybe there's too much money and too much entitlement when the leading money winner starts to complain about the schedule of the tournaments...….

[BrianMcG]

Rose should just quit golf. Whaaaaa, there’s a big tournament 4 months in a row. I want three weeks off. Boo hoo.

 

In the past the PGA Championship was persona non grata being in August. All the players complained it was always too hot.

[stanger37]

To piggy back off of all the NFL scheduling talk...what is golf going to do if the NFL goes to 18 games? It is finally now getting talked about and all it is going to take is some fine tuning before it actually happens. I assume they cut pre-season down by 2 games so now the NFL is starting middle of August. BMW Championship and Tour Championship will be overlapped. I highly doubt the NFL would still do 4 preseason games and push the season back another 2 weeks.

[MidwestGolfBum]

I'm not so sure this is really as much of a complaint next year when we start talking about Ryder Cup and Olympics fitting in there with the playoffs. It will seem as though we have a pretty good flow for that, at least to me. I am probably in the minority of American viewership, but I really don't care about the NFL. I would rather watch College football and basketball, which generally was more important after the old schedule anyway.

 

I don't really have a fix for the off years, outside of maybe adding a week more between each, but you end up having to change the schedule basically every single year based on Ryder Cup, Presidents Cup, Olympics, NFL season potentially getting longer, etc.

[Man_O_War]

PGA in may ..is really the only change......should be put back to august

[LICC]

> @idrive said:

> I just want to add that I completely agree with Rose. The entire scheduling as it is now is not in Golfs best interest.

>

> Every 6 weeks for a Major...

 

I can't see them moving the US Open from finishing on Father's Day.

Why not have the tournaments play Wednesday to Saturday once the NFL season starts?

[BreakingPar]

> @Titleist99 said:

> Let me get this straight......a guy that won $18M last year, most from the FedEx cup is now complaining that the FedEx cup priority schedule is interfering with his major tournament preparation.....laughable.

 

Shouldn't his opinion perhaps carry more weight precisely because of that?

 

I'd bet money he would trade the FedEx for an Open championship in a heart beat. As would Tiger, and probably a few more FedEx cup champions.

 

I haven't seen a compelling reason in this thread yet for why he is wrong. Careers are judged on major championships, and they need to be protected. Playoffs don't even really make all that much sense in golf tbh, especially this handicapped version they're rolling out. I'll wait before making a final judgement, but count me among the skeptics :/

[bspn]

I always thought the old schedule was too compressed around this time of year with The Open > WGC > PGA all within the space of 3 weeks and then right on into the Fedex Cup playoffs. This year has felt much better paced to me, albeit with some of the big names skipping regular events they would otherwise play in order to get enough rest between majors. The other benefit of the new schedule is they've got rid of that awkward break right in the middle of the Fedex Cup.

[Titleist99]

> @BreakingPar said:

> > @Titleist99 said:

> > Let me get this straight......a guy that won $18M last year, most from the FedEx cup is now complaining that the FedEx cup priority schedule is interfering with his major tournament preparation.....laughable.

>

> Shouldn't his opinion perhaps carry more weight precisely because of that?

>

> I'd bet money he would trade the FedEx for an Open championship in a heart beat. As would Tiger, and probably a few more FedEx cup champions.

>

> I haven't seen a compelling reason in this thread yet for why he is wrong. Careers are judged on major championships, and they need to be protected. Playoffs don't even really make all that much sense in golf tbh, especially this handicapped version they're rolling out. I'll wait before making a final judgement, but count me among the skeptics :/

 

Justin Rose just has to narrow his focus..... He was my dark pick to win until this nonsense.

[Nard_S]

Fatigued off the Fed Ex Cup stuff, find it quite meaningless and quite forced fed as some iconic goal for us to get excited about. and keep tabs on. Don't need "points" to figure out who's hot or not. Majors matter, always will. Rose is spot on.

[wildcatden]

Well, we can't have any majors before the Masters unless we want all the people in h-e-double-hockey-sticks to freeze.

[BottleCap]

> @Apathy_Overdose said:

> I can't say I disagree. I like my golf all year around. I understand that's not feasible but meaningful golf only being played between Feb-August that includes a month of nothingness between US and UK Opens is bad scheduling and doesn't quite satiate my golf appetites.

>

> Actually I think a big part of the problem is all the big tournaments crammed together from late January to March. In a span of 10 weeks we have these 10 tournaments:

> 1) Torrey

> 2) Phoenix

> 3) Pebble

> 4) Genesis (Riviera)

> 5) WGC Mexico

> 6) Honda

> 7) Arnold Palmer

> 8) Players

> 9) Valsper

> 10) WGC Match Play

>

> That's way too front loaded and crammed together so the big name players have no choice but to skip many of these that they would normally otherwise play. Why can't they fit one of those in during the lull between the two opens? And one maybe even later in the year. That would make the schedule more balanced as opposed to having all these big tournaments before April (aka real golf season) even begins and then only having the majors + Memorial in the next 4 months.

>

> There should also never be a WGC the week after a major like the one next week, I'm sure a lot of players will skip that too because of having just played oversees in the open.

>

> Tldr: schedule is too front loaded and needs more balance and have it spread out over the year to accommodate the players and as well keep fans watching all year.

 

The Valspar and Phoenix aren't big tournaments

[BottleCap]

> @PZero said:

> Rose is right. The year has felt off.

 

He should just start his year sooner, kick off his schedule with the Safeway Open, then the end of his schedule can be the British Open

[pgapromex]

Rose sold his soul for $$$ from Honma and now he's complaining about schedules. His stats are down strokes gained etc sorry pal you made your bed sleep in it.

[Ashley Schaeffer]

Imagine caring about what Justin Rose says. Justin Rose. I mean, y'all know he's Justin Rose, right?

[Cwing]

I agree. This season doesn’t feel right.

[TMoakley1547]

> @wildcatden said:

> Well, we can't have any majors before the Masters unless we want all the people in h-e-double-hockey-sticks to freeze.

 

This has been my thinking since I started reading this thread. If the Masters didnt have to be the first major of the year AND be the first weekend of April, they could stick the PGA in March, and back the Masters up a week or two.

[duffer987]

> @dcmidnight said:

> Honestly I thought he sounded like a big complainer for absolutely no reason, sounded like he was trying to throw shade at the FedEx Cup. Sorry man, how did your $10M check do, did it deposit OK? Honestly I dont know what he is whining about. The last three majors of the year have ALWAYS been a month apart. So instead of being June/July/August they are now May/June/July. Shut up already.

 

Can you highlight the part where he is a 'big complainer' and 'whining' or are those just your rote pejoratives when you disagree with someone?

[manku]

Maybe the public is tired of seeing 500 yard holes reduced to 3 wood 9 iron. I know I am. Or having golf on 52 weeks a year plus the European tour.

 

It's too much sports in general. I already feel like I've spent too much of my life watching spectator sports!

[MMB1500]

> @pgapromex said:

> Rose sold his soul for $$$ from Honma and now he's complaining about schedules. His stats are down strokes gained etc sorry pal you made your bed sleep in it.

 

Sold his soul? What's wrong with Honma?