Commentator believes the PGA Tour has made an ‘absurd’ decision which doesn’t make any sense
It seems safe to say that Scottie Scheffler probably does not need to work another day in his life should he decide not to after an amazing 2024 in which the world number one has won eight times worldwide.
Scottie Scheffler has had one of the greatest seasons of all-time, with the world number one winning The Masters, The Players, an Olympic gold medal, The Tour Championship and four signature events. It will not surprise anyone to know that the 28-year-old made a lot of money over the course of the year.
However, what may have stunned some was just how much money Scheffler received in prize money alone on the this year. , with $25 million coming from his victory at East Lake in the FedEx Cup finale.
Golf has always been a lucrative sport for the best players in the world, but clearly, things have reached another level in recent years, particularly since the formation of , which has seemingly been able to pump astronomical amounts of money into the game. .
PGA Tour not currently sustainable
The PGA Tour have seemingly looked to increase the financial incentives for their players to try and ensure that they have no desire to jump ship. But some believe that there is a huge problem with that strategy.
Speaking on Kostis & McCord, former player and commentator Gary McCord believes that something has to give on the PGA Tour as things are not sustainable.
“It’s absurd to think that they’re playing for this kind of money and we’re averaging, 20 percent down across the board now this year with TV,” he said.
“How do you build a model that this excessive amount of money, absurd amount of money is being thrown around, and here’s a sport that’s averaging a 2.4 rating on Saturday, and probably a 2.8 on Sunday? It doesn’t make any sense.
“One rating point is 975,000, so we’re talking a minimal amount of people watching, less and less now are watching, according to all the data that’s coming out now, so I don’t know how you maintain what we’re doing.”
Current model may leave the door open for LIV Golf in future
Ultimately, the television figures will be a concern for sponsors who obviously provide a lot of the funding. Eventually, they will decide that it is simply not worthwhile investing huge sums into a product which is not providing significant returns.
It will be interesting to see what LIV make of the situation. While their viewing figures have hardly given the PGA Tour much to worry about, they appear to have the funding to keep themselves going for some time yet. And should they still be there at a point when the PGA Tour has to drastically reduce prize money, it would be a surprise if more players did not jump ship to the competition.
That perhaps adds to the pressure on the PGA Tour to reach an agreement which ends the sport’s civil war before there becomes any sort of possibility that they can no longer compete with LIV Golf.