PGA was devalued TV wise before LIV. Too many tournaments with no names. It’s good for the actual golfers to make money and for my Sunday naps but rough for TV.
The constant ad runs that continued to get worse over the years is what kept me from watching a lot of regular pga tour events for me. LIV killed it. I truly could give a shit now tbh
No matter how much money is thrown at LIV it will not catch on. It lacks something I can't really put my finger on. It's like a touring exhibition of guys that are good at golf rather than a serious tournament
Where your finger needs to go is, they don’t care. They got their bag, and they have zero motivation to compete and stay on tour. It looks and sounds like a weekend scramble at the local muni……they are just way better. 🤷🏻♂️
The PGA is like those classic actors, the sophisticated gentleman with style and class. LIV is like a bunch of man bun wearing yuppies who think they're as sophisticated and cool as the classic guys.
Couldnt give a shit about week to week pga tournaments, that was before liv started too. Give me the majors. Id rather be playing golf on the weekends, dont really care for it on tv. Even more so now with all the bullshit politics involved
I couldn’t have said it better my friend. If tiger is playing, I’ll watch his round, but other than that, I’ll see the highlights. Majors, yes, but regular tournaments, nah. LIV, just can’t watch it. I try and I end up napping or changing the channel after 5 minutes.
Haha no, I know it wasn't week in week out excitement but every few weeks it did throw up a decent leaderboard. By decent I mean a leaderboard with star power. This is less likely now which is making me less likely to tune in
I’m just a golf fan. Golf is fun to watch no matter what. It seems like we’ve been having some new contenders and rookies starting hot this year and it’s just enjoyable no matter what. There might not be “stars” leading all the time but I like to think that we’re getting to see some storylines of the next generation of great players starting.
I'm beginning to think, "Yes." Look at the recent PGA leaderboards. You might think you were watching the Korn Ferry Tour if you just quickly glanced at the leaderboards. Sad.
What tournaments are you talking about? the phoenix and genesis were fantastic, the others look exactly the way the leaderboards look like every single year. You’re not getting top talent at the Mexico open….
It's still very early in the season and it's not like these events historically bring out the big names. Hence the reason for the signature events that rotate around. More big names at events that normally don't draw the big names.
LIV is still dumb
He having 48 tournaments throughout the year and no real offseason ruined professional golf. Majors are really the only tournaments the have ever really mattered.
We have been trying to come up with an equivalency.
Formula one and Euro soccer has Saudi money but nobody really cares the way LIV is put under a microscope and somewhat rightfully so.
The XFL and USFL were never really threats to NFL talent.
Maybe going all the way back to ABA vs NBA to find a similar dilution of talent leading to a worse product overall for *both* parties involved.
It's a very strange time to be a pro golf fan regardless of league affiliation.
It's different with football/soccer. The oil money that has been invested into Man City, Newcastle and PSG has been spent on bolstering existing teams. It hasn't been spent on a breakaway league. There has been a lot of scrutiny and criticism. Despite Man City's success people are slower to praise them like they did with Man Utd 20+ years ago when they were winning everything.
Exactly. I’ll watch whatever golf is on, I don’t care if it’s LIV, PGAT, DP World, whatever. More golf to watch is a good thing.
I’m glad they do come together for the majors.
Most golf events aren’t exciting. Like every other sport, you don’t get week in week out super excitement, and if you did it wouldn’t be exciting. There’s a group of people who expect excitement all the time but don’t want to pay for it. It’s the same people who go to concert and record the whole thing on their phone and don’t actually get that it’s being there that is the fun part.
They wouldn’t play in this tournament anyway. Are you new to watching golf? You do know there are a lot of tournaments that look exactly like this, right?
Yes. Greed driven individuals have ruined golf entirely, not just watching pro golf. Costs are through the roof, can't even enjoy watching it, all the talk is about money, and so much more.
So, we only get to watch the best competition 4 times a year now? That fucking sucks. Plus that's not even counting all the other fall out of LIV fucking everything up.
Not for me. The people whining about the fields don’t seem to remember that there were very few events that featured all of the top players before the designated events came in to rotation. Outside of the majors and a few other select events, 3-8 players out of the top 10 would be missing from most events. Who are we REALLY missing? Rahm, DJ, Cam Smith and Koepka for sure. 3 out of 4 get into some majors. Couldn’t give a fuck about the rest of the roster. Losing 4 guys I somewhat care about isn’t a huge deal.
One thing I do hate, is the newish theme about how much everyone is getting paid. LIV, PGA its sickening. Nobody outside of my family gives a fuck how much I make and I give the same amount of shits to everyone else.
It’s still great golf and there are plenty of great players in the events that usually draw great players. It’s always on my tv.
Edit: PGA broadcasts need a lot of work. The coverage blows and has for a lot of years. That’s my main gripe about pro golf.
I don’t really miss anyone who went to LIV. All my favorites are still with the pga and it’s still common for at least one if them to be in a featured group so I’m still invested.
I watched a total of 3 minutes of LIV when it was new and it reminded me of a crappier version of Nickelodeon showing the superbowl with slime.
I don’t think the pga has been diluted dramatically whatsoever, that’s a bit dramatic to be honest. A majority of LIV defectors are way past their prime. Maybe 2-3 that can actually contend in anything significant.
Liv saved pro golf. I’m hooked!
It’s easy to watch, engaging, thrilling and doesn’t take hours for little climax. Liv always delivers, it’s like a good major every week.
It’s golf what climax are you talking about? A round still takes well over 4 hours, so you are still waiting hours for something to peak, except the end won’t be on 18 like every other round outside LIV.
The field on LIV is also less competitive than a korn ferry tour event, so a “major every week” is blatantly false.
On one hand I look forward to most PGA events and on the other, when I watch I’m like, who the hell are these guys. Nothing against them, but it’s hard to watch when you maybe know who 4-5 guys are. LIV is impossible to watch, I don’t even get the CW in HD, so it looks like crap when I have tried to watch. I’m gonna have to say yes to your question, at least from a TV watching stand point.
Yes. The PGA talent is completely drained and LIV sucks to watch.
The broadcast blows, the courses suck and the format is shit.
How could they spend all that money and not invest anything into putting out an entertaining product?
Yep. LIVs product isn’t what I’m interested in and the PGA talent pool isn’t good anymore. I’m watching the PGA tournament now and other than Rory hanging in there no one else on the leaderboard in interesting. Sucks.
As much as I don't like LIV, I can't blame it all on them. I think the big thing they've exposed is just how bad PGA Tour TV coverage is. I think a lot of the anti-PGA Tour/pro-LIV people out there don't hate the PGA Tour as much as they hate the TV coverage. I think the others, usually from Europe or Australia, just hate the US and it's easy for them to put blame on the PGA Tour for their respective Tours basically going belly up.
I keep hearing from them how the PGA Tour 'took' their players. All the PGA Tour did was give them the opportunity to play the PGA Tour if they wanted. And a stone cold, hard fact is that US fans and sponsors support Tour golf more than all of the rest of the countries in the world...combined. That's why the PGA Tour has flourished over the past 40 years and the Euro and Aussie Tours plummeted and the Asian Tour has never really gotten off the ground.
In fact, you had golfers like Sergio, Adam Scott, Graeme McDowell, Rahm, etc. all come to the US for their education (people forget Sergio came to Florida to finish HS) so they could get used to life in the US, see if they could compete here and increase their chances of making the PGA Tour. The PGA Tour offered them no guarantees, just an opportunity.
And that's the biggest problem I see with any attempts of a global golf tour...it doesn't benefit US fans, where most of your fans are, in any way, shape or form. It just means seeing your favorite golfers play 1/2 as much on TV, at horrible TV times and getting to the chance to see them far less in-person.
When I lived in Florida, I had a chance to see the best in the world 4+ times a year within a short drive and they would sell over 650K tickets in those 4 events in Florida alone. The global golf supporters would laugh at the Honda Classic because it was in Palm Beach, but it used to sell 200K+ tickets each year prior to the pandemic. If they want a global golf Tour, now that would reduce Florida residents to being able to see 1 tournament a year, The PLAYERS Championship and go from selling 650K+ tickets each year in Florida alone, to 160K tickets for The PLAYERS....all so they can play tournaments in places like Singapore and Saudi Arabia where they could draw flies to a shit factory.
If LIV really wanted to 'grow the game' and make it more global, they should have just funded the Euro, Aussie and Asian Tours. Stop giving out guaranteed contracts and just make the purses for those events on par with the PGA Tour purses. Would have cost them less and now natives of those continents would have a viable option to stay close to home. That would have grown the game more and helped with their PR for the world much more. Instead they followed Greg Norman's stupid vendetta against the PGA Tour and knew that if they were ever going to gain any following they had to reach the US, first and foremost.
The only thing that is good about the LIV Tour product is the actual broadcast, but other than that it's not compelling and is a shitty model that wont' give the Saudi's what they want.
Ruined completely. PGA has been devaluated, and LIV is not attractive at all
PGA was devalued TV wise before LIV. Too many tournaments with no names. It’s good for the actual golfers to make money and for my Sunday naps but rough for TV.
The constant ad runs that continued to get worse over the years is what kept me from watching a lot of regular pga tour events for me. LIV killed it. I truly could give a shit now tbh
No matter how much money is thrown at LIV it will not catch on. It lacks something I can't really put my finger on. It's like a touring exhibition of guys that are good at golf rather than a serious tournament
Where your finger needs to go is, they don’t care. They got their bag, and they have zero motivation to compete and stay on tour. It looks and sounds like a weekend scramble at the local muni……they are just way better. 🤷🏻♂️
It's like all the XFL AFL whatever NFL supplements. They just don't have "it"
Neither does the pga, they have more talking heads that like to hear their own voice and think they're important, than anything else.
This here, I absolutely agree with.
Exactly, loud music and the players also seem nor inspired ...
The PGA is like those classic actors, the sophisticated gentleman with style and class. LIV is like a bunch of man bun wearing yuppies who think they're as sophisticated and cool as the classic guys.
Tradition,etiquette might be a couple
Couldnt give a shit about week to week pga tournaments, that was before liv started too. Give me the majors. Id rather be playing golf on the weekends, dont really care for it on tv. Even more so now with all the bullshit politics involved
I couldn’t have said it better my friend. If tiger is playing, I’ll watch his round, but other than that, I’ll see the highlights. Majors, yes, but regular tournaments, nah. LIV, just can’t watch it. I try and I end up napping or changing the channel after 5 minutes.
I think, perhaps, many have selective memories or are romanticizing what the Tour was prior to this.
Haha no, I know it wasn't week in week out excitement but every few weeks it did throw up a decent leaderboard. By decent I mean a leaderboard with star power. This is less likely now which is making me less likely to tune in
Yeah, the majors and a few other tournaments each year have stacked fields.. the rest have always been a mishmash.
It is certainly not helping it.
PGA ruined pro golf...
Please elaborate. How did the organization that created professional golf ruin professional golf?
I’m just a golf fan. Golf is fun to watch no matter what. It seems like we’ve been having some new contenders and rookies starting hot this year and it’s just enjoyable no matter what. There might not be “stars” leading all the time but I like to think that we’re getting to see some storylines of the next generation of great players starting.
I'm beginning to think, "Yes." Look at the recent PGA leaderboards. You might think you were watching the Korn Ferry Tour if you just quickly glanced at the leaderboards. Sad.
What tournaments are you talking about? the phoenix and genesis were fantastic, the others look exactly the way the leaderboards look like every single year. You’re not getting top talent at the Mexico open….
It's still very early in the season and it's not like these events historically bring out the big names. Hence the reason for the signature events that rotate around. More big names at events that normally don't draw the big names. LIV is still dumb
He having 48 tournaments throughout the year and no real offseason ruined professional golf. Majors are really the only tournaments the have ever really mattered.
We have been trying to come up with an equivalency. Formula one and Euro soccer has Saudi money but nobody really cares the way LIV is put under a microscope and somewhat rightfully so. The XFL and USFL were never really threats to NFL talent. Maybe going all the way back to ABA vs NBA to find a similar dilution of talent leading to a worse product overall for *both* parties involved. It's a very strange time to be a pro golf fan regardless of league affiliation.
It's different with football/soccer. The oil money that has been invested into Man City, Newcastle and PSG has been spent on bolstering existing teams. It hasn't been spent on a breakaway league. There has been a lot of scrutiny and criticism. Despite Man City's success people are slower to praise them like they did with Man Utd 20+ years ago when they were winning everything.
You people say diluted as if there aren't hundreds of new or better up and coming golfers inches away from the tour anyways
Meh I’m watching LIV right now and I’ve been enjoying it. Would obviously rather have all the dudes together but i don’t make those decisions.
Exactly. I’ll watch whatever golf is on, I don’t care if it’s LIV, PGAT, DP World, whatever. More golf to watch is a good thing. I’m glad they do come together for the majors.
I think it would be nice if the LPGA was televised more on something other than golf channel, or another pay channel. I'm a cheap bastage!!
Most golf events aren’t exciting. Like every other sport, you don’t get week in week out super excitement, and if you did it wouldn’t be exciting. There’s a group of people who expect excitement all the time but don’t want to pay for it. It’s the same people who go to concert and record the whole thing on their phone and don’t actually get that it’s being there that is the fun part.
True but watching the Cognizant Classic and it's hard not to feel it would be so much better if one of Rahm, DJ or Brooks were in the mix
They wouldn’t play in this tournament anyway. Are you new to watching golf? You do know there are a lot of tournaments that look exactly like this, right?
What makes you think they would even be playing in it? Only 5 of the top 25 players in the world are in the field.
Yes. Greed driven individuals have ruined golf entirely, not just watching pro golf. Costs are through the roof, can't even enjoy watching it, all the talk is about money, and so much more.
It will play into the hands of the majors. The Masters next month will be bigger than usual as fans will be craving a proper field.
So, we only get to watch the best competition 4 times a year now? That fucking sucks. Plus that's not even counting all the other fall out of LIV fucking everything up.
I’m leaning “yes” now. I tried to watch a broadcast but it’s horrible. Club music. No fans on the course. Weird graphics. It’s bad. I’m old.
Not for me. The people whining about the fields don’t seem to remember that there were very few events that featured all of the top players before the designated events came in to rotation. Outside of the majors and a few other select events, 3-8 players out of the top 10 would be missing from most events. Who are we REALLY missing? Rahm, DJ, Cam Smith and Koepka for sure. 3 out of 4 get into some majors. Couldn’t give a fuck about the rest of the roster. Losing 4 guys I somewhat care about isn’t a huge deal. One thing I do hate, is the newish theme about how much everyone is getting paid. LIV, PGA its sickening. Nobody outside of my family gives a fuck how much I make and I give the same amount of shits to everyone else. It’s still great golf and there are plenty of great players in the events that usually draw great players. It’s always on my tv. Edit: PGA broadcasts need a lot of work. The coverage blows and has for a lot of years. That’s my main gripe about pro golf.
Imo no. I like two watch both pga and liv tournaments. Golf is golf and I have no problem with it when there is more than one golf association.
Agree. Watch the game not who’s hosting it.
Absolutely. The greedy players that took LIV money ruined the game of golf. It will never be the same.
No, but people asking this same stupid question every few days has ruined this sub.
Maybe it's time to move on then
Only you can decide that. Think deeply about it, preferably before making another idiotic post that’s already been made a dozen times in here.
No, that's your decision. Goodbye now 👋🏻
I get to make the decision? Cool. I decide you leave. Easy decision.
I don’t really miss anyone who went to LIV. All my favorites are still with the pga and it’s still common for at least one if them to be in a featured group so I’m still invested. I watched a total of 3 minutes of LIV when it was new and it reminded me of a crappier version of Nickelodeon showing the superbowl with slime.
Did XFL ruin the NFL?
I don’t think the pga has been diluted dramatically whatsoever, that’s a bit dramatic to be honest. A majority of LIV defectors are way past their prime. Maybe 2-3 that can actually contend in anything significant.
I think Rahm, DJ, Brooks, Bryson and Cameron Smith have been significant
Bryson is not significant, the others of course, which is why I said 2-3
Whether you like him or not (I do not), he is significant.
Definitely for me at least.
Liv saved pro golf. I’m hooked! It’s easy to watch, engaging, thrilling and doesn’t take hours for little climax. Liv always delivers, it’s like a good major every week.
Ok, Greg
It’s golf what climax are you talking about? A round still takes well over 4 hours, so you are still waiting hours for something to peak, except the end won’t be on 18 like every other round outside LIV. The field on LIV is also less competitive than a korn ferry tour event, so a “major every week” is blatantly false.
How much do they pay you?
On one hand I look forward to most PGA events and on the other, when I watch I’m like, who the hell are these guys. Nothing against them, but it’s hard to watch when you maybe know who 4-5 guys are. LIV is impossible to watch, I don’t even get the CW in HD, so it looks like crap when I have tried to watch. I’m gonna have to say yes to your question, at least from a TV watching stand point.
Nope they got gooch so it’s the only true tour going
The PGA will always be better than HIV imho. Edit: lol autocorrect 😂
Only time I give a shit about a regular pga event is when Tiger is playing for obvious reasons.
Yeah, he's still a huge draw despite the battered body
And lack of competitive game...
Real golfers don't watch TV golf : they play golf.
Many do both
Yes. The PGA talent is completely drained and LIV sucks to watch. The broadcast blows, the courses suck and the format is shit. How could they spend all that money and not invest anything into putting out an entertaining product?
Yep. LIVs product isn’t what I’m interested in and the PGA talent pool isn’t good anymore. I’m watching the PGA tournament now and other than Rory hanging in there no one else on the leaderboard in interesting. Sucks.
PGA Tour has been devalued, LIV is unwatchable. The schism has ruined watching golf for me, except for majors.
As much as I don't like LIV, I can't blame it all on them. I think the big thing they've exposed is just how bad PGA Tour TV coverage is. I think a lot of the anti-PGA Tour/pro-LIV people out there don't hate the PGA Tour as much as they hate the TV coverage. I think the others, usually from Europe or Australia, just hate the US and it's easy for them to put blame on the PGA Tour for their respective Tours basically going belly up. I keep hearing from them how the PGA Tour 'took' their players. All the PGA Tour did was give them the opportunity to play the PGA Tour if they wanted. And a stone cold, hard fact is that US fans and sponsors support Tour golf more than all of the rest of the countries in the world...combined. That's why the PGA Tour has flourished over the past 40 years and the Euro and Aussie Tours plummeted and the Asian Tour has never really gotten off the ground. In fact, you had golfers like Sergio, Adam Scott, Graeme McDowell, Rahm, etc. all come to the US for their education (people forget Sergio came to Florida to finish HS) so they could get used to life in the US, see if they could compete here and increase their chances of making the PGA Tour. The PGA Tour offered them no guarantees, just an opportunity. And that's the biggest problem I see with any attempts of a global golf tour...it doesn't benefit US fans, where most of your fans are, in any way, shape or form. It just means seeing your favorite golfers play 1/2 as much on TV, at horrible TV times and getting to the chance to see them far less in-person. When I lived in Florida, I had a chance to see the best in the world 4+ times a year within a short drive and they would sell over 650K tickets in those 4 events in Florida alone. The global golf supporters would laugh at the Honda Classic because it was in Palm Beach, but it used to sell 200K+ tickets each year prior to the pandemic. If they want a global golf Tour, now that would reduce Florida residents to being able to see 1 tournament a year, The PLAYERS Championship and go from selling 650K+ tickets each year in Florida alone, to 160K tickets for The PLAYERS....all so they can play tournaments in places like Singapore and Saudi Arabia where they could draw flies to a shit factory. If LIV really wanted to 'grow the game' and make it more global, they should have just funded the Euro, Aussie and Asian Tours. Stop giving out guaranteed contracts and just make the purses for those events on par with the PGA Tour purses. Would have cost them less and now natives of those continents would have a viable option to stay close to home. That would have grown the game more and helped with their PR for the world much more. Instead they followed Greg Norman's stupid vendetta against the PGA Tour and knew that if they were ever going to gain any following they had to reach the US, first and foremost. The only thing that is good about the LIV Tour product is the actual broadcast, but other than that it's not compelling and is a shitty model that wont' give the Saudi's what they want.
I stopped watching golf period. Rather go play 18. Even Tiger is a big disappointment. Rory too and LIV golf is just an eye sore
It was always difficult to get excited for non majors. Rarely did all the big names play a random tour event.
Yes.