Melton: Gimme Leona Maguire from Team Europe. She’s had an uneven 2024 thus far, but she’s been an absolute stud in this event the last two playings. I like her to continue that trend and improve on her 7-2-1 Solheim Cup record. As far as the Americans go, it’ll be tough for them to come away victorious unless Nelly Korda and Lilia Vu play well.
Golf’s next made-for-TV match will see Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler face off against Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka in December in Las Vegas. What do you think of this matchup? And will the PGA Tour vs. LIV angle help with ratings?
Sens: It better help with the ratings because, really, is there any other reason for the match? This is designed to feed directly off golf’s civil war, and –outside of the majors, with a deal between the two tours nowhere in sight—it’s as close as the two circuits are going to get to giving people what they want. It helps, of course, that you’ve got four mega-names with lots of subplots/tensions in their relationships. But more than anything, this is an extension of the ongoing battle in the men’s pro game. Fans and media alike will assign all kinds of fabricated meaning to it as well, using the results as some kind of proof of which tour is more worthy. Birdies will abound. Ratings will be high. And people who already have a lot of money will make more of it by entertaining the masses with an event full of manufactured ‘meaning’. A perfect confection for our times.
Zak: It really is a compelling matchup, putting two of the Tour’s three best against two of LIV Golf’s best. You’ve got Mr. Entertainer in Bryson, Mr. Jock in Brooks, Mr. Worldwide in Rory and Mr. Best-Since-Tiger in Scottie. It’s as compelling a product as you can field without the names Woods, Mickelson and Spieth. I’m sure it will be marketed as a war of sorts, but I hope that isn’t the case. Because these guys don’t dislike each other. I hope it’s a proving ground for many things. Ultimately, it’s probably just 12 or 18 holes of fun match play.
Melton: I’m certainly intrigued by the event, and having a LIV-PGA Tour angle should do a great job adding hype to the match. Will that be enough to generate some much-needed high ratings? I’m dubious.
Does the PGA Tour vs. LIV tie hint that the sides might be coming closer together on a deal? Or at least learning how to co-exist? How valuable might mini treaties like this be for the future of pro golf?
Sens: Does anyone, even the main actors themselves, have any idea how far or close they are from the deal? With so many moving parts and parties to appease, I get the sense even those directly involved aren’t sure what a final deal would look like. Meantime, a match like this does seem like a search for ways to profitably coexist. Purists might not see it as a great sign for pro golf, but if you look at the game purely as an entertainment product, it strikes me as a savvy way to go.
Zak: Let’s call this a mini-treaty then. I think it’s valuable in the sense that ratings will be improved from the last match: a skins game featuring Rory vs. Lexi Thompson vs. Max Homa vs. Rose Zhang. I think it’s valuable to put LIV Golfers on the same playing field as Tour stars in the month of December (when they might normally be absent from public eye). I think it’s valuable to do it all in a non-major championship setting, too. Will it bring any “nos” from the boardroom closer to “yesses”? I don’t really think so.
Melton: I’m a bit exhausted analyzing every little thing in golf in the context of the Tour vs. LIV battle. The truth is no one knows what’s coming next other than a select few on the ins of the negotiations. I’m not putting too much stock in this event being a harbinger of things to come.
Speaking of LIV Golf, it released its dates and venues for the first four tournaments of 2025, and while all of them will be played internationally, they also all will be played during the same weeks as some of the PGA Tour’s biggest events — the WM Phoenix Open, Genesis Invitational, Arnold Palmer Invitational and Players Championship. Why would LIV Golf schedule these to compete directly with the Tour? Does it matter?
Sens: On the face of it, you could read it as a flex by LIV, especially going up against the hard-partying Phoenix Open, which is probably the closest the Tour offers to the atmospherics of a LIV event. But I don’t think it’s worth assigning too much meaning to any of it, other than to underscore that LIV is soldiering on, propelled by an endless budget, and that those dates on those venues fit well enough. As a serious competitor for the Tour’s main audience, it doesn’t seem much more than so much spit into the wind.
Zak: LIV can’t compete with the Tour for eyeballs, but I suppose it can try to put a dent in the ratings the Tour is most proud of? It can also stage the best events it can and produce social clips of players drinking beers out of shoes during weeks where the PGA Tour is cool, calm and relaxed at Riviera. It won’t matter, ultimately, to field tournaments during these weeks because the international time zones where LIV will be playing means they won’t actually compete directly. And at the end of the day, there’s about 10- to 15 golfers at LIV who fans really want to watch. And there are at least twice to three times that on the PGA Tour.
Melton: Truth be told, it doesn’t really matter when LIV schedules their events as it relates to Tour events. While Tour ratings might be down, they still dwarf the number of eyeballs drawn by LIV. I’m sure there’s some deeper meaning to this scheduling decision, but ultimately it doesn’t change the fact that LIV doesn’t move the needle.
