LIV Golf's Sergio Garcia (l) alongside the PGA Tour's Camilo VillegasGetty Images
Everyone wants the war in golf between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf “to be over already,” a growing consensus that is “beginning to bridge the sport’s great divide,” according to Beaton & Radnofsky of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. It has been 10 months since the PGA Tour and LIV’s Saudi backers “shockingly agreed to try to work together,” but the two sides “still have nothing to show for it.” During that time, bewilderment over the agreement that "blindsided nearly everyone in golf has morphed into angst over the lack of an actual deal.” The two sides’ “uneasy truce” last June was born of a realization that they could not “coexist while battling each other into potential oblivion in the courts.” Now they “may be on the verge of a new discovery: that they can’t coexist indefinitely without a deal either.” There are also “growing indications of war weariness from another important constituency: the fans.” While LIV has “struggled” to attract a sizable television audience in the U.S., the PGA Tour has “seen its viewership tumble this year” (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 4/11).
GROWING CONCERNS: USA TODAY’s Christine Brennan wrote golf is “increasingly and devastatingly sectioning itself off from the people it needs the most, its fans,” all because the game’s “most compelling matchup these days is PGA Tour vs. LIV.” By any measure, as the Masters begins, golf is a "sport in some significant trouble.” The glory days of Tiger Woods “are long since over.” TV ratings “are down” and the players themselves “are concerned” (USA TODAY, 4/10). In London, Oliver Brown wrote this year’s Masters “assumes profound magnitude for golf’s future.” Augusta “represents life in a bubble.” But the powerbrokers and TV execs “will be watching the numbers more closely than ever.” If even the Masters, one of the “most coveted TV properties in all sport, mirrors the recent decline in popular interest, it will be irrefutable proof that the game has a serious problem” (London TELEGRAPH, 4/10).
THE MASTER PLAY: In London, Luke Baker wrote while the politics of the sport “may be insufferable, Augusta should at least provide four days of world-class golf to take our mind off it all.” The Masters “never fails to deliver” and is a “welcome distraction from the civil war is exactly what the sport of golf needs” (London INDEPENDENT, 4/10). In London, Matt Cooper wrote some “will crave a PGA vs LIV final-round duel, the civil war in microcosm.” Others “fear such a prospect would be the equivalent of throwing oil on flames that really need putting out.” Cooper wrote it is better, perhaps, to “simply enjoy the fact that what LIV wanted, and what the PGA Tour tried to recreate, will now be delivered by the Masters and the other three majors alone.” Cooper: “The original best-of-the-best showcases, the majors, truly matter” (London INDEPENDENT, 4/10).
A-LISTER: In D.C., Rick Maese wrote LIV Golf CEO & Commissioner Greg Norman yesterday “was like every other ticketed customer” during the practice round, “jostling among the crowd and walking outside the ropes” as he watched players prepare for the opening round today. Norman had "not been at the Masters since 2021," when he was an analyst for SiriusXM. Augusta National Chair Fred Ridley made headlines a year ago when he “explained that an invitation was withheld from Norman for the 2023 tournament ‘to keep the focus on the competition.’” This year, Norman did not bother waiting for an invitation and “came to the course with a pair of LIV executives through the main gate.” Patrons “occasionally stopped Norman for photos or to shake his hand,” but there were “no signs of animosity for the man who launched LIV, revamped the golf landscape and lured many of the game’s biggest names away from the PGA Tour” (WASHINGTON POST, 4/10).
