The star power that PGA Tour golfer Rory McIlroy brings is “ushering in a new era of the Phoenix Open” and the PGA Tour's designated events, according to Theo Mackie of the ARIZONA REPUBLIC. In golf’s "post-Tiger era, stardom has been ephemeral,” but McIlroy “has been the constant.” This week's WM Phoenix Open is part of the PGA Tour’s designated events series this season, and while the tournament “might not keep its designated status after this year,” that “seems unlikely” given the stop's appeal. The only thing needed to “see the impact on the fan experience” was to “follow McIlroy for a few holes.” Mackie: “The proof lay in marauding flow of the masses.” TPC Scottsdale’s fourth green might be the “most remote region” of the course, but when McIlroy came by, the hole “filled up, fans standing shoulder to shoulder … and when he left, those fans scurried along” (ARIZONA REPUBLIC, 2/9).
LESS ISN'T MORE: GLOBAL GOLF POST’s Scott Michaux writes the PGA Tour should get “immense credit for its on-the-fly reimagining of the 2023 schedule with the hasty creation of its lucrative ‘designated’ events.” PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan “acted quickly to build a schedule that makes his best remaining assets happy.” But there are “whispers” of the Tour “presumably downsizing its designated-event field sizes next season.” However, creating more limited-field, no-cut events would “fly in the face of everything folks at the tour have been mocking about LIV Golf since it started” and it would “undercut every talking point Monahan has hammered home of what differentiates the PGA Tour from its upstart rival.” McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa and Jordan Spieth have “all been playing up the meritocracy that separates the PGA Tour from LIV and the value of earning trophies and building legacies.” Michaux: “A bad week and a weekend off every now and then isn’t going to damage those legacies” (GLOBAL GOLF POST, 2/10).
Rory McIlroy typically does not play in Phoenix but is this year due to its designated status on the PGA TourRob Schumacher/USA TODAY NETWORK
