PGA Tour? LIV Golf? How about neither?
The Golf War has achieved a level of dilution to match that seen in IndyCar circa 1996. Can it avoid alienating fans forever?
You know the last time I watched an IndyCar race on TV purely as a fan?
Not a word of a lie, it was in 1995.
What does that have to do with the LIV/PGA theatrics of 2022? Only the fact that this looks all too familiar to someone who covers multiple sports. Golf has reached much the same situation that led to a generation of confused fans checking out from American open-wheel racing altogether.
Disregarding all the legal battles and moralising going on, that situation boils down to this: outside the four Majors, golf fans who want to see the best players don’t know where to look anymore. How much patience will they have before they find a new sport entirely?
Credit: Motorsport Images
Simple lessons from the American motorsport war
IndyCar racing was at the top of its game in 1995. Spurred by World Champion Nigel Mansell’s switch from Formula 1 a couple of years earlier, it had attracted a worldwide following despite being a domestic series.
Then, on May 26th, 1996, two major 500-mile single-seater races went ahead in the United States. The storied Indy 500, which had never needed to concern itself with any competition before, suddenly had a rival event in Michigan (above). Dubbed the US 500, it was the result of an acrimonious split between the ‘establishment’ CART series and the ‘breakaway’ Indy Racing League, which had the Indiana classic on its side.
While it’s overly simplistic to compare IRL-CART to PGA-LIV on too many levels, the essence is much the same. An existential, stubborn fight over money and control of the sport, with access to the biggest event(s) – here we can compare the Indy 500 to the Majors – a critical bargaining chip.
Now, leaving the rights, wrongs, speculation and daily updates from the Golf War to one side, let’s focus on the alarming similarity in outcomes in terms of viewer interest. That Sunday in 1996, on which the warring parties had deliberately engineered a clash, led to the entire sport losing fans.
Despite a good crowd and its attempts to manufacture gravitas and ‘heritage’, the US 500 couldn’t truly get around the elephant in the room that was its established rival. A multi-car crash before the race even began was a bad omen that proved prophetic. Yet over in Indianapolis, which had all the history but none of the big names – imagine The Masters without the world’s top fifty in attendance, if you can? – they were also losing. Swathes of seats were empty. There’s a moment in this four-part documentary in which a Hoosier tout says he couldn’t even shift tickets at face value. A year earlier, with the big rift still just a murmur on the horizon, he would have sold them for thrice the price.
It was a lose-lose situation of the most destructive kind. I was one of many who decided they had neither the time nor the inclination to watch two compromised races instead of a single great one. And who in their right mind would take a deal like that when there are so many other forms of entertainment?
Had America’s auto racing ‘leaders’ sorted it out fast, I’d have forgiven, forgotten and engaged with the sport once again. But without going into a deep history dive, that Memorial Day proved the beginning of the end. IndyCar racing (I’m using the term in its generic sense in this article) still hasn’t gotten near the burgeoning status it had in 1995.
While the Majors retain their Indy-style lustre for now, it still feels like men’s professional golf has arrived at its own 26th of May. It’s compromised events going up against each other. Forget the whys and wherefores, just put yourself in the shoes of the remote-wielding fan on any non-Major week from January to September. A couple of the most recent Major champions are at LIV, while others are playing the PGA Tour.* What to watch?**
How many fans are going to choose this moment to throw up their hands and go watch pickleball or sword-swallowing?
(*I know I’ve over-simplified this. LIV doesn’t have a tournament every week — yet. And sometimes Major champions play in Europe, too. But to save us all a 9000-word article, I’m boiling this down to the central conflict.
**If you think TV networks are going to ignore LIV indefinitely on moral or contractual grounds, by the way, it’s worth take note that SuperSport, the sports broadcasting behemoth of the African continent, is already taking full broadcasts...)
Speaking with my fan hat on, I’ve mentally checked out of all the tours for the time being. I’m waiting for something bigger and better and smarter to emerge from this skirmish. Just like I did with IndyCar racing…
Can golf dodge a quarter-century of pain?
The good news is that there are some signs that golf won’t fall into the 25-year trap US single-seater racing did.
For a start, its blue-riband events haven’t been compromised. The Majors are doing fine in a way that Indy wasn’t, and should still be there for the four-times-a-year golf fans. (Which might just be the majority of golf fans anyway.) But this assumes common sense prevails. That none of the big four falls victim to its own powerful leverage in the ongoing battle, leading to depleted fields. Which isn’t exactly a safe assumption at this stage.
As for the more pressing matter of dilution on regular weeks, there has been movement with some potential to succeed. You probably don’t need me to fill you in on the PGA Tour’s response to the Saudi challenge, the crux of which is ensuring more dough and a number of identifiable events featuring all the top players.
It's not a world golf tour and it may kill Europe, but it’s the counter to LIV most likely to succeed at short notice. It has buy-in from the best players (it was their idea, by all accounts), which should in theory stave off further big-name defections. The ‘elevated events’ thing was long overdue anyway: definitely a win for any fan trying their darndest to engage with the PGA Tour. As Phil Mickelson rightly pointed out in his recent chat with Bob Harig at Sports Illustrated, none of it would have happened without the LIV threat. In that sense, as I’ve suggested since February, Greg Norman putting heat on the establishment really has done the game some good (I won’t say grown it…) in the golfing equivalent of a split second.
But does the PGA Tour upping its game mean it can ‘win’ this fight, or does it merely intensify a stalemate situation? If it’s the latter, and if the Majors throw caution to the winds like the bosses at Indianapolis did, then golf’s time as a mainstream sport yet may be in peril.
The lesson from auto racing is not to overestimate the patience of any but the hardcore viewer. That if you spend years squabbling over the spoils, there may not be much left to win by the time you’re done warring.
But while LIV-gives-establishment-a-healthy-shove-for-the-better looks more plausible an outcome than it has for a while, LIV-kills-establishment is still very much on the table. Assuming LIV isn’t going anywhere, it will take outstanding leadership, selflessness, rebuilding of bridges and laying-aside of egos for the former to win out before a generation of fans turns its back on this divided sport for good.
I suspect the clock is ticking faster than many of those too close to the action realise. Will they learn from other sports, and from history? And might I modestly suggest that my February article is a great place to start?
Or, if you’re sick of the off-course stuff and want an excuse to relive a great year in the Majors, be quick and subscribe to Geoff Shackelford’s Quadrilateral, so you can take part in this poll on The Year in Majors.
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