The specter of LIV Golf looms over the PGA Tour even in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
The world’s best golf league starts the year with its usual Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua’s Plantation Course on Maui this week. It’s going to be a great tournament because it always is. The course is one of my very favorites, probably third behind St. Andrews and Pebble Beach, and the limited field promises fireworks.
It probably won’t be what it was last year, though, when three guys broke the tournament record (which stood since 2003) for lowest score. That is where the outlaw LIV series comes into play.
Of those three record-breakers, only Jon Rahm returns because defending champion Cameron Smith and Matt Jones are still waiting for invitations that will never come. It is the first time in the tournament’s 71 years that the defending champion has failed to show up for the easy money.
Smith qualified by winning the Open Championship and the Players Championship. He is still No. 3 in the world after he, Jones and 11 other players who spent last January on Maui eventually defected to LIV Golf. They left the Valley Isle with a combined $3.3M before seeking greater riches on the Saudi Arabia-funded venture. That’s 14 returnees to 13 defections. Nice split.
It was part of a contentious ordeal that had players taking sides in a challenge that resembles the battles between the NFL and AFL and, more recently, the ILH and OIA.
The PGA Tour fought back immediately, suspending anyone who went with the new tour. That’s why you won’t see major winners Smith, Dustin Johnson and Patrick Reed lounging by the pool at Kapalua this year. Johnson has played Kapalua 11 times, more than anyone else. Had he not defected, it’s not hard to imagine him teeing it up for a 12th time this week.
This week has 17 of the top 20 players in the world entered. But even that claim is convoluted, since the LIV series doesn’t get coveted world ranking points and five players have dropped out of the top 20 since joining the neophyte organization, including Johnson dropping 28 spots and Brooks Koepka slipping 29 places. You won’t hear it during the television broadcast this week, but those guys are easily among the best 20 golfers in the world.
I don’t know if the LIV series will survive, but it is a good show. Players are free to wear shorts with music blaring and they happily endure a “back off challenge,” with a crew of comedians throwing insults at millionaires when they address the ball. It’s like muni vs. country club and they pull it off, living up to the tour’s motto of “golf, but louder.”
The problem is that I am the only one I know who has actually watched it. Johnson’s 35-foot putt to win in Boston would have broken the internet if it had happened on the real tour. Alas, LIV seems to only exist on the fringes of cyberspace.
I see the possibilities with the team concept — if it can find enough sponsors to copy the model built by Formula One auto racing, they might have something. Can you imagine Johnson wooing Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth to join him on his Mercedes team and Phil Mickelson throwing a bigger offer at them for Red Bull?
That would be insane, and putting the money both tours provide aside, I have never seen Johnson as happy as he was when his Four Aces won the LIV team title. The unflappable masher is the definition of “meh” even in his biggest victories, with the possible exception of his Masters win, but his smile radiated while celebrating with teammates Talor Gooch, Pat Perez and Patrick Reed.
You will see plenty of excitement from this week’s eventual champion, especially if someone like Sahith Theegala earns his solo PGA win in what was a winner’s-only tournament until this year. A win will net someone $2.7 million out of the $15 million total purse, both figures nearly doubled from a year ago because the TOC is one of the tour’s 17 “elevated events,” with higher purses, a change brought on in part by the big money offered by LIV Golf.
Commissioner Jay Monahan is always free with his time when he lands at Kapalua, and he will be asked his millionth question about the LIV series. It obviously presents a threat, but the main thing he needs to remember is that this is the PGA Tour and there is no need to worry.
New stars will emerge to replace the old, and it will probably happen on Sunday. With 13 newcomers, it starts now.
