LIV Tour Discussion Thread (*** NO POLITICS ***)

[bcjim]

2 hours ago, redfirebird08 said:

 

I think in Rahm's case, it's 2 things: 

 

1. PGA Tour executives stabbed him (and McIlroy, and others) in the back when they made the framework agreement with Saudi government. This came out of nowhere. The players stuck their necks out to defend the PGA Tour, but the executives of the Tour showed that it's OK to do business with Saudi government. 

 

2. I assume Rahm's wife really wanted the money & easier golf schedule for their family. Rahm is playing fewer events now than he did before, so he spends more time with her and the kids. The money is an undeniable factor. Their kids, grandkids, and great grandkids will be setup even better now than they would have been if he continued to turn down the money. 

But, so far,  it looks like Jay was just "negotiating" and played Yasir like a Stradavarius.

 

 

Rahm was simply bought. I don't blame him.  But in first bite of the fruit,  he knew it would be a long 5 years. You can see it in his eyes. 

 

Rory is torn. He doesn't want to go but he thinks he should be treated like Tiger when he hasn't won a major in 10 years and only has 5 total.  He needs to take his own advice and play better. 

[redfirebird08]

52 minutes ago, Holy Moses said:

And Norman told Rahm a merger was in the works. "Take our money and you'll still be playing on the new merged tour in no time." 

Yeah, I think Rahm was hoping the merger would happen pretty soon. Guess we’ll see how it goes. Maybe they can get something figured out by end of this year. Tiger said on Sunday that the Saudi meeting in Bahamas was positive. 

[idrive]

8 hours ago, johnseg said:

I am not sure how you draw that conclusion when you have so many variables to consider.

I agree completely.

 

It has always been the majors that drew/draws the best players. Outside of the Players the best of the best are rarely if ever playing together.

 

And my post was a copy and paste. It was solely intended to show that the ratings were skewed, better than what we were being led to believe. Looking back, I wish I would have edited out the last paragraph.

[italianstallion]

8 hours ago, idrive said:

On the subject of LIV Golf, the numbers offer the latest evidence that viewers are more likely to be engaged when the best from the big-money League and its PGA Tour counterparts are competing at the same event.

More likely it’s “viewers are more likely to be engaged when there’s history and legacy on the line.”
 

To equate a rise in viewership at the best major of the year to “the best from both tours competing against the best” is not an accurate correlation. Besides, Gooch wasn’t even in the field anyway. I’d watch the Masters if it was just a bunch of no name top amateurs playing. I don’t currently watch the PGA TOUR or LIV due to the cesspool of drama surrounding them both right now. 

[JungleJimbo]

9 hours ago, dcmidnight said:

 

 

 

 

 

[notsohard]

Interesting read.............

 

https://www.golfmagic.com/tour/pga-tour/dp-world-tour-official-blasts-pga-tour-boss-complete-f

[NMBob]

12 hours ago, tmw4h5 said:

There was a study in 2010 (that was recently revisited by the authors) that essentially looked at the prospect of money buying happiness. They found that an increase in income had a consistent correlation to an increase in happiness up to about $75,000. As people's incomes increased over that amount, happiness tended to increase as well, but they were no longer truly parallel on the chart when being measured.

Essentially, they found that once people were able to cover their standard bills (housing, food, healthcare, vehicles, etc.) while having an opportunity to build up a nest egg and enjoy vacations, hobbies, etc.... that the extra increases in income resulted in smaller amounts of happiness.
Years ago I finally made enough money to replace by low-end Rockbass Corvette by Warwick with an actual Warwick Corvette Pro and that was a substantial jump in happiness. This last year I finally made enough money to purchase a bass I've wanted for 15 years -- a Warwick Thumb Pro. I absolutely love that bass, but if you were to measure the increase in happiness of the Thumb purchase vs the Corvette purchase -- the Corvette made me much happier. Once you reach a certain level of comfort, the happiness increase is incremental.

Think about the first time you bought a Scotty Cameron putter. I went from a RAM Zebra to a Scotty. I was stoked! Then I bought another Scotty and it made me happy, but not as happy. And then I bought another Scotty. And then a Bettinardi. And then a Nike Method original putter. And now one of those putters gets played and the others sit in a golf bag in my garage. They each brought me small, incremental increases in happiness and ultimately, they're souvenirs that are decoration pieces in a golf bag. 

If I somehow won enough money to pay off my mortgage, that would be tremendous in terms of relieving me of financial stress. A gigantic improvement in happiness. If I won enough money to pay off my home, sell it, and then purchase a 5 bedroom, 4 bathroom house with an inground pool and a game room and a golf simulator room -- man, my happiness would increase dramatically. But what if I win enough to purchase a couple vacation homes on each coast as well? Sure, that will be cool - but does it really impact my life that much? Does my life get that much better?

When you're discussing someone who has enough wealth that their every need and want is met, the difference in $300 million and $1 billion really isn't that big. They can invest more, they can build dynastic wealth -- cool, I guess? I don't think Rahm is waking up every morning saying to himself, "I'm so glad I took that Saudi money. I have more money than I know what to do with. This is so fun." 
 

 

It still matters to many athletes, they just take the larger money a very vast majority of the time.  You lay out the case, for the question that is never asked of the player who claims "taking care of his family" who just signed with now different team x.  The question which would be, "well, what was it that your family couldn't do without that 178 million didn't buy, but your accepted 192 million contract does?"

[Chanceman]

13 hours ago, Scotty1140 said:

 

It's the only thing that LIV has going for them that draws any attention is this sequence of rumors to poaching a PGA Tour player. Nothing about the actual golf feels exciting or legitimate. It feels so manufactured and uninteresting.

 

I honestly don't think the PIF even cares about the golf. They just want in on professional sports and for some reason golf is the current entry point. Poaching PGA Tour players is just a way to financially flex their muscles. LIV is just there to give them something to do.

 

No one cares about LIV, their rating are laughable as is their format, team names, logo's etc. It all feels like a group of junior high kids came up with the details of the league. And the PGA Tour's product continues to get watered down more and more. To make matters worse I don't think Jay Monahan could have handled this any worse than he has. "Dropping the ball" would be putting it lightly. If this continues on and on professional golf will be sacrificed for us fans.

 

The players will all get insanely wealthy, yet the on air product will get worse and worse. There was something about pro golf that just seemed more honest and authentic than any other sport for some reason. Sadly that will be lost. Hopefully I'm wrong. 

The life cycle of top golfers is only 5-10 years - even Tiger was edging down after 2005. Look at the Masters leaderboard - Scheffler, Aberg, Homa and Morikawa were not even around 5 years ago. Liv might have picked up some gun recruits but those guys are already on the way down.

[PedronNiall]

2 hours ago, JungleJimbo said:

 

 

 

 

 

Nah, we don't want them back, Rory. Four times a year is enough for the Benedict Arnolds. They got their money, so let them enjoy it while the guys who aren't crying over a few million per win not being enough take their place and bring it. If they hadn't left as they did, knowing they were helping another entity to possibly leverage the PGA Tour out of control of its own established stake in golf, perhaps things would be different. As it stands they deserve every hardship that comes their way trying to rejoin Tour events. Does Rory think if this were any other billion dollar enterprise that top professionals could take millions to go to a rival then come back without any animosity or pain? All of this has proven business is what matters to many involved, so let them have a taste of what the real business world looks like. 

 

The way sponsors continue to sign on to the Tour and ignore LIV speaks to exactly where they see fan eyes going for the foreseeable future. What too many fail to realize is that no one is bigger than this game or anything akin to it in life. If any of us are gone tomorrow the world will keep moving on no matter who we are. When someone tests that reality because they want to get richer I find it impossible to pity them. 

 

Why do they deserve an easy road back? They pushed the Tour to near insolvency trying to fund purses they didn't have the money for and have forced fans to deal with this media circus that seems likely to go on for some time to come. Rory is hilarious to me because he spouts all this nonsense about more money, more competition, legacy, and whatever else his brain coughs up for the day without getting that all of what makes the professional game great was in a place to be blown apart. Does he not grasp what went on simply due to having friends who jumped ship? Does he not get the people he keeps championing to get a way back are the reason he looked the fool when the merger was announced because PIF forced the Tour to act to avoid eventual bankruptcy?

 

All of this is getting to tiresome. I 100% understand why some have simply said eff it and stopped watching professional golf entirely at this point. Hope all the LIV fan boys who've been hyping it up since the beginning or jumped on the bandwagon since are having a great time any time LIV comes up because most of the rest of us surely are not. 

[dcmidnight]

6 hours ago, PedronNiall said:

All of this is getting to tiresome. I 100% understand why some have simply said eff it and stopped watching professional golf entirely at this point. Hope all the LIV fan boys who've been hyping it up since the beginning or jumped on the bandwagon since are having a great time any time LIV comes up because most of the rest of us surely are not. 

 

Couldn't agree more with this, with all of it. I dont blame people one bit if they quit watching over all this BS.

 

I think we forget sometimes how LIV must look to the average person, meaning not on golf forums and golf Twitter. To normal people they see guys signing for $50M, $100M, $600M and then complaining about a whole host of stuff. That doesnt work in the long term. Or the short term either apparently.

 

But I'm sure there will be a bunch of people getting piss drunk around one hole in Australia with the music cranked up to 11 and we'll have to hear from Greg all over again what a huge success its been.

[bscinstnct]

LIVs 💰 is checkmate by the fact that 

 

There are no golf superstars anymore. None who can single handedly make a difference in viewership like TW did.

 

They pay half a billion then, oops, that guy stinks now, nobody cares, nobody watches

 

Even worse for them, that guy who brought you nothing now wants 100s of millions to re-sign 🤣

Meantime, look at the RBC field thanks to @MattyO1984

 

That’s a nice field 

 

Defending Champion:-

Matt Fitzpatrick

 

Notables in the Field:-

Scottie Scheffler

Rory McIlroy

Wyndham Clark

Xander Schauffele

Ludvig Aberg

Collin Morikawa

Patrick Cantlay

Xander Schauffele

Tommy Fleetwood

Brian Harman

Max Homa

Jordan Spieth

Justin Thomas

Cameron Young

Will Zalatoris

Edited April 17 by bscinstnct

[Denny100]

Does anyone even watch LIV golf? genuinely, its not meant to be a wind up or a criticism, ive never met one person who has ever watched LIV golf ever.

[19thteegala]

44 minutes ago, Denny100 said:

Does anyone even watch LIV golf? genuinely, its not meant to be a wind up or a criticism, ive never met one person who has ever watched LIV golf ever.

I watch it. LIV golfs "major" is coming up next weekend. You should give it a go. You may enjoy it.

 

I also watch pga tour week in week out. Im a golf fan and think the competition will make viewing better in the future.

[CDM]

21 hours ago, ahenderX said:

Never even heard of that watch till I saw a recent article on watches pro golfers wear. So no, it has nothing to do with LIV. 

 

No worries, sorry I was just surprised you pointed it out.    It was a hot topic back in the day even on the PGAT.   

 

I think when he got the sponsor deal with RM's the watch was valued around 1 mil price point at that time.  Like anything rare the prices are inflated based on exclusivity.   RM sponsors Charles LecLerc (Formula 1) and his watch being 1 of 1  (I think only one was maybe?) and called as "prototype" it has a crazy price associated.  *Yet it is pretty much the same all the others they make.  Just different color, case material...but there is only 1.

 

Oddly now that you point it out it, it fits the LIV model.  "What are you willing to pay" for something    🤣  Ie: players   

 

 

[bscinstnct]

1 hour ago, Denny100 said:

Does anyone even watch LIV golf? genuinely, its not meant to be a wind up or a criticism, ive never met one person who has ever watched LIV golf ever.

 

If TWs practice rounds at Medalist with JT and Rickie and it would get more ratings than LIV 🤣

[pgapromex]

13 hours ago, bcjim said:

But, so far,  it looks like Jay was just "negotiating" and played Yasir like a Stradavarius.

 

 

 

LOL. So all the drama about The Saudis are ruining pro golf with the money and greed etc etc is completely wrong, what we are seeing is Jay playing them like a stradavarius?  

 

🤔

[BlackDiamondPar5]

3 hours ago, Denny100 said:

Does anyone even watch LIV golf? genuinely, its not meant to be a wind up or a criticism, ive never met one person who has ever watched LIV golf ever.

Of the 20 or so golf friends that I talk to regularly only 1 watches LIV. 

[Hawkeye77]

13 hours ago, redfirebird08 said:

Yeah, I think Rahm was hoping the merger would happen pretty soon. Guess we’ll see how it goes. Maybe they can get something figured out by end of this year. Tiger said on Sunday that the Saudi meeting in Bahamas was positive. 

 

Everybody said the meeting was "positive" and that nothing of substance was discussed - meet and greet.  Those comments didn't really mean much of anything.

 

Rahm gets to play the majors, has half a billion plus, folks need to stop trying to read his mind, lol, and all the "he's unhappy" "he's conflicted" stuff.  It's nonsense. He's got his money and he has not a thing to complain about.  

 

There will never be a "merger" - that's been out of the real discussion for a long time.  

 

Could care less if he ever plays a regular Tour event again, and no reason he should be able to - he left voluntarily now "boy, sure miss such and such event" -- just PR talking points.

[Hawkeye77]

1 hour ago, bscinstnct said:

 

If TWs practice rounds at Medalist with JT and Rickie and it would get more ratings than LIV 🤣

If he played 9 holes with Rick Shiels viewership on YouTube would dwarf LIV's total YT numbers for the past year. 

[mosesgolf]

3 hours ago, bscinstnct said:

LIVs 💰 is checkmate by the fact that 

 

There are no golf superstars anymore. None who can single handedly make a difference in viewership like TW did.

 

They pay half a billion then, oops, that guy stinks now, nobody cares, nobody watches

 

Even worse for them, that guy who brought you nothing now wants 100s of millions to re-sign 🤣

Meantime, look at the RBC field thanks to @MattyO1984

 

That’s a nice field 

 

Defending Champion:-

Matt Fitzpatrick

 

Notables in the Field:-

Scottie Scheffler

Rory McIlroy

Wyndham Clark

Xander Schauffele

Ludvig Aberg

Collin Morikawa

Patrick Cantlay

Xander Schauffele

Tommy Fleetwood

Brian Harman

Max Homa

Jordan Spieth

Justin Thomas

Cameron Young

Will Zalatoris

That is a deep field indeed. 
 

Now does the absence of the following 5 really matter that much?

 

1.  Rahm

2. Bryson

3. Brooks

4. Joaquin Niemann

5.Cam Smith

 

Imo those are the 5 that really matter from LIV. The others quite frankly are not so good and their best days are behind them.   So are these 5 not playing really impacting the field?

 

Bryson was playing poorly when he left, Brooks doesn’t care nor win regular Tour events, Cam is playing poorly these days.  Rahm and Joaquin Niemann are the only ones who impact depth rn.   Big whoop.

[Titleist99]

4 hours ago, bscinstnct said:

LIVs 💰 is checkmate by the fact that 

 

There are no golf superstars anymore. None who can single handedly make a difference in viewership like TW did.

 

They pay half a billion then, oops, that guy stinks now, nobody cares, nobody watches

 

Even worse for them, that guy who brought you nothing now wants 100s of millions to re-sign 🤣

Meantime, look at the RBC field thanks to @MattyO1984

 

That’s a nice field 

 

Defending Champion:-

Matt Fitzpatrick

 

Notables in the Field:-

Scottie Scheffler

Rory McIlroy

Wyndham Clark

Xander Schauffele

Ludvig Aberg

Collin Morikawa

Patrick Cantlay

Xander Schauffele

Tommy Fleetwood

Brian Harman

Max Homa

Jordan Spieth

Justin Thomas

Cameron Young

Will Zalatoris

Holy Moly! That's a stout field. Wyndham Clark and Will Zalatoris must step up and stop Scottie Scheffler from bullying the proceedings.🤣 

[Titleist99]

46 minutes ago, mosesgolf said:

That is a deep field indeed. 
 

Now does the absence of the following 5 really matter that much?

 

1.  Rahm

2. Bryson

3. Brooks

4. Joaquin Niemann

5.Cam Smith

 

Imo those are the 5 that really matter from LIV. The others quite frankly are not so good and their best days are behind them.   So are these 5 not playing really impacting the field?

 

Bryson was playing poorly when he left, Brooks doesn’t care nor win regular Tour events, Cam is playing poorly these days.  Rahm and Joaquin Niemann are the only ones who impact depth rn.   Big whoop.

Great breakdown of the current situation in golf.

 

Just to add, four out of the five mentioned have no desire to ever play PGAT events in the foreseeable future. They're well compensated for playing leisure golf.

[mosesgolf]

16 minutes ago, Titleist99 said:

Holy Moly! That's a stout field. Wyndham Clark and Will Zalatoris must step up and stop Scottie Scheffler from bullying the proceedings.🤣 

PGA Tour: I call your Wyndham and Will Zalatoris and raise with Ludvig Aberg 😁

LIV: FOLD 😩

[bscinstnct]

1 hour ago, pgapromex said:

LOL. So all the drama about The Saudis are ruining pro golf with the money and greed etc etc is completely wrong, what we are seeing is Jay playing them like a stradavarius?  

 

🤔

 

If you’re the fox play the hare, if you’re the hare play the fox

 

-Lorn au Arcos

 

One could surmise that Jay played the rube, feigning he was caving in to PIF, to buy time for the US investment cabal to come together. 
 

As far as a great majority of golf fans, thinking that Liv is ruining professional golf….

 

Perception becomes reality ; )

[CDM]

On 4/16/2024 at 9:34 AM, Shilgy said:

Viewers have options on how to watch these days.

 

Just messing with @Shilgy but when anyone says that about LIV it is attacked as a complete lie  🤣🤪

 

Do I believe it was down? Sadly I do based on data.  The simple fact that almost every PGAT event is down by decent percentages all year, the 20% range is probably true. 

 

The Masters and The Open are the best pro golf events IMHO but I only watched the final 11-12 holes of Sunday.  Not even highlights, just checked the leader board as I played all weekend instead.

 

I was locked in for the long "couch" weekend like many years past but by Wednesday I had zero interest in watching. 

 

As a number of posters has recently noted the same BS narrative they just keep bringing up ruins watching just a great event.  Worse they talk about how viewership is down and YET they can not understand all the narrative BS the spew out could be part of it  🙄

 

Maybe I am in the minority but I don't care at all about PGAT or LIV anymore.  Its nauseating.  Either make the deal OR announce no deal and move the **** on and just focus on the game.

 

Said it before, stand by it, the PGAT should have stuck to what they had, made zero changes...!  LIV will die out but the issue for the PGAT is the longer this goes they will take a ton of damage engaging and continuing to perpetuate the narrative...! 

 

Edited April 17 by CDM

[StoutKing]

If LIV is considering paying a player USD $850,000,000 I urge them to consider buying fans.  I would literally watch every tournament for just $10,000/year.  They would instantly have 85,000 fans.  I will even buy a LIV hat and wear it around.  I'm not joking I think it's a good idea if they have that much cash to blow.  Signing players isn't going to help the popularity of the product.

[redfirebird08]

2 hours ago, Hawkeye77 said:

 

Everybody said the meeting was "positive" and that nothing of substance was discussed - meet and greet.  Those comments didn't really mean much of anything.

 

Rahm gets to play the majors, has half a billion plus, folks need to stop trying to read his mind, lol, and all the "he's unhappy" "he's conflicted" stuff.  It's nonsense. He's got his money and he has not a thing to complain about.  

 

There will never be a "merger" - that's been out of the real discussion for a long time.  

 

Could care less if he ever plays a regular Tour event again, and no reason he should be able to - he left voluntarily now "boy, sure miss such and such event" -- just PR talking points.

I don’t believe the PGA Tour can operate long term with LIV Golf constantly attempting to buy the players. Even if there is not a full merger, there needs to be a legitimate peace settlement where they stop taking players. 

[PedronNiall]

1 hour ago, CDM said:

Said it before, stand by it, the PGAT should have stuck to what they had, made zero changes...!  LIV will die out but the issue for the PGAT is the longer this goes they will take a ton of damage engaging and continuing to perpetuate the narrative...! 

 

The problem was Rory was a mouthpiece for the loud but minor contingent behind the scenes saying the purses weren't enough before. It turned out most of those saying that were either already contemplating a move to LIV or were nobodies who didn't matter, but by the time that came out it was too late. The Tour had to get a buzz going that they were upping the payouts for the poor little souls only making a few mil a year from playing on top of their $10M or more in endorsements. 

 

Monahan did start going to people in Washington to head this all off but he waited too long as he didn't think PIF was going to be an issue until they were. He and the powers that be had no choice but to play moneyball until they could put something else together. Rory was the only voice of note publicly saying the money wasn't enough for some players even after the Signature Events started and fueling the drama as he didn't know how to keep his mouth shut with a mic in front of him. 

 

A minority of Tour players at various levels of talent kept seeing the big dollars in other sports and suddenly thought they deserve the same, despite golf not doing anywhere near the numbers of said other sports. Maybe when that cohort manages to kill the game entirely and have no source of income they'll have a moment of clarity about how lucky they are to get millions for playing outside every day. 

[Titleist99]

1 hour ago, redfirebird08 said:

I don’t believe the PGA Tour can operate long term with LIV Golf constantly attempting to buy the players. Even if there is not a full merger, there needs to be a legitimate peace settlement where they srage of top taking players. 

Somehow the PGAT has lasted 2 1/2 years with this constant drip drip barrage of nonsense. The tour has survived the loss of four top five players ....... Smith, Rahm, Dechambeau, and Koepka, not to mention one of the all time greats of golf Mickelson.

 

I think by now fans have made their choice and have picked a side. 72 hole championship golf or 54 hole leisure team golf. History and legacy or millionaires making more millions.

 

There's room for both, but don't confuse the two. JMO

[redfirebird08]

2 hours ago, Titleist99 said:

Somehow the PGAT has lasted 2 1/2 years with this constant drip drip barrage of nonsense. The tour has survived the loss of four top five players ....... Smith, Rahm, Dechambeau, and Koepka, not to mention one of the all time greats of golf Mickelson.

 

I think by now fans have made their choice and have picked a side. 72 hole championship golf or 54 hole leisure team golf. History and legacy or millionaires making more millions.

 

There's room for both, but don't confuse the two. JMO

The one big positive with LIV is that it has opened spots on the PGA Tour for talented young guys who were blocked from playing by older guys like Poulter, Garcia, Oosty, Bubba, Phil, Westwood, Casey, etc