As the Presidents Cup gets underway at Royal Montreal Golf Club, two long-time golf broadcasters wonder if the biennial event will generate as much interest as another, smaller showdown that’s scheduled a few months from now.
“Everybody’s looking right now to December to see the match between LIV and the [PGA Tour], with the four best players,” said Gary McCord on the latest episode of “Kostis & McCord: Off Their Rockers,” a GOLF production. “I think that’s taking precedent over everything at this point.”
McCord was referring to the previously announced Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler vs. Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka match, which will take place on a December date to be announced in Las Vegas. While McCord’s assertion that the upcoming match consists of the game’s four best players is obviously his opinion, it’s certainly not far off, especially when it comes to star power and name recognition. But it’s also the first time these made-for-TV matches will have a PGA Tour vs. LIV angle.
“I realize it’s not apples and oranges because one is an 18-hole match and the other is over [four] days, but I’m going to be really interested to see what the TV ratings are between those two,” Peter Kostis said. “We’ll see how much interest there is.”
McCord said he thinks part of the reason December’s match was scheduled was due to players’ frustration over golf’s divide, and the fact that a deal is still not in place to bring the sport together.
“I think basically the four best players in the world are getting tired of this crap going on,” McCord said. “We don’t know what happened a couple of weeks ago when everybody met in New York to see if they could hammer out something. No one has heard anything, as always. So I think these four guys are like, alright, the hell with that, we are going to do this match and see how it goes. And we’re also going to go and have TNT do it, who is not really one of the title sponsors on the PGA Tour. And if I was a sponsor on the PGA Tour and I saw my TV ratings go down and now I saw the four best players in the world getting ready to do a made-for-television event with TNT doing it — and if these numbers did anywhere near the last-day numbers of any of the four majors — there is going to be some hooting and hollering about what are you guys doing at PGA Tour headquarters at Ponte Vedra.”
At the Irish Open a few weeks ago, McIlroy said the match wasn’t meant to send a message.
“You’ve got the best player in the world. You’ve got two guys in Bryson and Brooks that have won majors in the last two years. You’ve got me in there who, I haven’t done what those guys have done the last couple years, but I’ve definitely been I feel one of the best players in the world,” McIlroy said. “It’s a way to show golf fans in the world that this is what could happen or these are the possibilities going forward. I’ve been saying this for a long time: I think golf and golf fans get to see us together more than four times a year.”
