TORONTO — There was always going to be something calming about Thursday. During a week of upheaval in the golf world, where the PGA Tour announced plans for a seismic change to men’s pro golf, we learned one thing: No one knows everything. And everyone knows very little. So the gift that Thursday offered was something of virtual certainty: tee times. Only Mother Nature can screw those up.
Two-time defending champ Rory McIlroy went off with Justin Rose (and alternate Omar Uresti) at 7:33 a.m., and it wasn’t long before the news of the week came up.
“Rosie and I said, ‘All right, no chatting until lunch so that we can actually concentrate on what we’re doing out there,’” McIlroy said after an opening 71. “We started to get in a conversation walking down the 1st and we’re like, no, let’s stop this. Let’s just focus on our golf and we’ll say what we want to say when we get inside.”
Here’s how the PGA Tour looked the day after everything changed
Sometimes, PGA Tour shots need to take precedent over PGA Tour thoughts. Inside the ropes over outside. McIlroy admitted there’s more pressure off the course these days. The most uncomfortable he said he’s felt the past 12 months was Wednesday, indoors, sitting at another press conference podium.
That conversation Rose and McIlroy nipped in the bud is bound to become a snapshot of the next few weeks on the PGA Tour. Players exercising patience, trying to focus on what they can control: their golf. But surrounding all of it, of course, is an unspecific future. At most tournament sites, there are about 140 players and about 140 caddies. In other words, there are a lot of ideas being shared.
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Maverick McNealy’s golf has been a struggle lately, but his stock has never been higher as a talker. He impressed many of his peers in the players meeting when he spoke up more with a statement than a question for Tour commissioner Jay Monahan. In short: I hope you guys are sure about just how different it will be as a for-profit company than a 501(c)(6).
The truth: incredibly different. The potential revenue streams, payment schemes and operational decisions are wildly different for for-profit companies. The mind races. That’s human nature. So different is the ecosystem that it’s almost irresponsible to make guesses as to what it will look like. Which might explain why one of the final few paragraphs of McNealy’s lengthy social media missive was written this way:
“I do not want to answer any more questions about this. I know so little. And I think further discussion of this will only hurt the Tour and our goals for this week.”
To Mav’s point from Tuesday, the for-profit future can alter every structure of pro golf as we knew it. Could players get paid individually for how often they appear on Tour broadcasts? The Player Impact Program currently covers that to an extent, but aspects of it were always kept a bit vague. Could we see PGA Tour player-shirts worn by fans, like the kind we see across town at a Toronto Blue Jays game? Who’s ready to buy the Rory McIlroy home kit for when the Open visits Northern Ireland again in 2025? How about player equity in this new organization? It’s a point that has been elevated by Harry Higgs, both in the player meeting and in casual conversations each day that has followed.
