Joe's Blog

As a freelance video journalist, I have covered two PGA Championships, one U.S. Open, and two LIV Golf tournaments.  I have enjoyed every experience and love the game of golf.  I take no sides among governing bodies and simply side with the game and the people who play, from novices like me to the pros (though I was annoyed when the PGA moved the 2022 Championship away from Trump National Bedminster and completely out of New Jersey, because I lost a week-long gig covering the tourney.  That cost me thousands.  Of course, I made up for that - and then some - covering LIV Golf Bedminster and LIV Golf Boston).

Brooks Koepka - 2019 PGA Champion

So without even a hint of any inside info, here's my take:

For starters, many people covering golf claim that the PGA players lost out by remaining loyal to the PGA, but I believe the opposite is true - the loyalty shown to the PGA by most stars essentially killed LIV Golf.

LIV needed many stars to abandon the PGA to succeed, and other than a handful of stars - most notably, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, and Cam Smith - most of the LIV golfers were simply no longer top-notch PGA golfers or never were.  And that was a major problem for LIV.

Because they had too few stars, LIV had trouble finding sponsors, so they were hemorrhaging money.  Yes, they were funded by the Saudi's seemingly limitless PIF fund, but after losing more than a billion dollars in just over a year, the Saudis clearly saw no reason to continue losing money with no hope of profit, so they negotiated this deal from a position of weakness and did so without their "founder," Greg Norman, a retired golf Hall of Famer who hates the PGA.  So leaving Norman out of the negotiations was necessary, and he'll likely be out of golf completely when the deal is finalized.  

Brooks Koepka at Trump National Bedminster

LIV also landed an absolutely worthless TV deal with the CW network.  The deal
was so bad, that LIV Golf began simulcasting CW coverage on YouTube last month because affiliates weren't picking up the low-rated coverage.

LIV was also hurt because they couldn't get on golf courses that the PGA uses.  Again, having covered LIV Golf Bedminster and Boston, I can tell you that Trump National is a top-notch course.  In fact, I played there two weeks ago in the outstanding PGA Memes Challenge.  But the course that LIV used in Boston - The International - was not on a par with Trump National.  The fairway on the first hole in Boston was so wide that Norman and the parachute team he hires actually landed on the first fairway.  Hell, even novices like myself would have no trouble driving a ball in the fairway from the pros tee box.  And the volunteers at The International, well, I actually recorded one cart driver crashing into another and nearly taking the feet off of one of the LIV competitors, whose fast reflexes saved him from serious injury.  (Watch this video I recorded of the parachute team followed by the golf cart crash)

Dustin Johnson at Trump National

So I don't see this as a PGA loss and a loss for the players who stayed true to the
PGA.  I see this as an absolute win for the PGA and a defeat for LIV.  In fact, again, having covered three majors, I've seen how many of the media are only there to cover Tiger Woods, so I think bringing more cash into the PGA will help sustain prize money when viewership and media coverage inevitably dips after Woods retires.

But as they say, "The devil is in the details," and we've not yet seen the details, so I could be way off.  Still, in the end, I think the PGA comes out of this with a major win, no different than the NBA merger with the ABA, or the NHL merger with the WHA.  The NBA and NHL won and became stronger; and I think the PGA just made themselves a lot stronger.

* All photos taken by the author.