Golf Competitive Interests: Good to play, bad for tour?

Pebble beach, California – There may not be a better example for the transient PRO Golf puzzle than Rory Mcicroys last 24 hours.

McIlroy is here now at a press conference in the AT & T pebble beach Pro-AM, on the second day of the Sun on the Monterey peninsula. It’s 10:45 in the local time, advance all day of work. But only last night was 3,000 miles away, in the shining Sofia Center in the garden of Palm Beach, Florida, who first competed in the golf league simulator to coordinate.

It was a fun hour in a tight window, Jupiter Boston and Tiger Wood ‘and Tiger Wood’ links in the screen and caress in rotating greenery under the strobes of the Arena around 1,500. Powerful grades of the first month suggest that the audience is eager for the quasi-golf version, and so far the TGL – with his whizbang technology, a quick pace and a goal, gambling about ten years from the usual sports TV.

“Do what we wanted to do,” said McIlroy, “What is to try to ask younger demographic to watch a golf in the way they are manageable for them and more version of the bite. I hope you just keep going, keep the swing.”

After the game, McIlroy drove home, fired until 10pm, and he was glued to a jet at 7 am in the morning for long Western stall and the beginning of his tour. His real day job.

McIlroy Debut season, plus the return of the dominant world no. 1 scottie scheffler and fan favorite Jordan Spieth, need Be attractive enough to start the tour of the year that slowly launched. It’s a pebble beach! No football! Almost all tour are the best here! However, you would never know from the type of existential issues of McIlroyed here on Tuesday, a reminder that some long-lasting problems are large and small, some founded some fundamental, and others chip in its core, competitive product.

Just look around the landscape: McIlroy calls on the unity for a broken pro game. Justin Thomas is Inviting players to be more accessible to broadcast partners to stop crowded grades. CBS Sports’ Dottie Pepper, during five more hours plus lungs, is Invoking a tour to deal with their epidemic pace.

McIlroy’s 24-hour trip underline the current struggle that suggests for the first time that one of the best golfers in the world may be enough. Instead of preparing for $ 20 million in the signature event in one of America’s strongest tours in the strongest tour of the world, he assisted in starting his golf-neighboring Startup.

All these elements should be extra on Golf Ecosystem – TGL and Liv and YouTube Influencence. But in many ways they have created only more options for distraction, disorder and divided attention from the total PGA tour.

“I think it’s already diminished,” Mcilroy admitted.

This does not mean that everything does not serve the purpose. The TGL is capitalized on a short spring window to display a different version of an ancient game. Liv guarantees the product and players on a global scale. YouTubers find their niche as relative golfers do cool things. But it also became obvious that the tour should take a compromise, in a way to make some concessions, if he wants not only survive, but progress in this new era.

“There’s room for all this,” McIlroy said. “But I can see if the golf consumer could tire a little whatever they are available to them.”

And that miriska actually begins brainstorming – even if every possible solution was released with problems.

McIlroy has made an idea of ​​scheduling a scarcity, that there is too many tournaments a year, that there is no time for the fans to miss. But would a tour, which worked for decades to provide teams for their membership, really mitigated the schedule and keep sponsorship dollars? In order for this to happen, a business reason should be sufficient – and would require that not only reimaginje, but a revolution.

McIlroy mentioned the idea of ​​playing the best players – a very assumption of these signature signature events – but noted that there was still a handful of stars that are currently in this divided landscape elsewhere.

Mciclroy asked about slow reproduction, the problem that was there for eons, but now it seems to be charged attention and changing media habits, they seem to have taken over the renewed significance. Baseball Grow League – Perhaps the only sport that can rival golf in your insistence (stubbornness?) About preserving history and tradition – a clock on Pitt 2023. Years that shaved about 30 minutes of the game time. Can something like to do in golf?

Maybe. This was done before, on the European tour. But the dispute game is a multiple question. Of course, we could develop a clock of the clock, but unlike the MLB Stadium is difficult to manage, and the sport play as many as 156 competitors all day to play throughout the field that extends over the field for half a dozen hectare. And, yes, they will trim the field sizes starting next year, but it was a wild controversial move that threatened funds for the life of players. This time of year exists limited daylight, condensing and grouping time with large fields. There is a technological advance that stretched the playground, demanded the conditions that push the courses on the edge and created the loggias with a pre-accompanious long couple. 3 and available couple 5s. It goes on and on.

“I don’t know what the answer is,” Mcilroy shrugged.

Everyone is reasonable ideas. Everyone can grow a fan base. Everyone could help the tour to prosper at this age of private capital and ROI. But they are still in the conflict with the essence of this tour – a tour of whose foundation was not brands, but a modest star like Scottie Scheffler, who does not apply for TGL, which Eschews wearing a private life private And which prefers – like a forest in front of him – that his brand sufficient great golf is enough.

“When I think about something that would be good for golf play, I think we can go back to the competition of things, I think it’s the best,” Scheffler said. “I never tended to be an entertainer. If people wanted to watch and enjoy and then go out and have a shot. But I don’t do anything crazy to get more people to watch more.

“At the end of the day I think people like competition. I think we can stop talking about all other BS that happens in Golf game – I’m sure there are a lot of talks about the pace and all these other things, and all these other things Things and Play a pebble beach this week, one of the most beautiful and iconic golf courses in the world, and we have some of the best players in the world. Like, let’s absorb it. “

Therefore, in the end, McIlroy’s vision for a tour golf looks a lot as last year’s end round of the USA open. It wasn’t his way that day, but that’s not the point. It was still a high point of the year: two mega stars, in the iconic and challenging place, fighting for the mass prize, the whole golf world is watching.

No one that day was blocked for a recording or central conversation or a team component. She was competition in her purest form. It was a golf – Modern Golf – for its best.

“There are a lot of things about golf that are very different from other sports,” McIlroy said, “but I think that makes him unique. I shouldn’t try to stupid for golf to complain about more people. Golf is golf. At the end of the day. That’s the age of so much. I really like the way Golf is and I think a lot of other people.

“I still understand criticisms to make the entertainment product improve … but, first of all, we are professional golfers; we want to go out there and shoot the best possible result and try to beat themselves. We hope that people feel fun – and if not , then I don’t know what to tell them. “