Reimagining Pro Golf: Five Ways It Can Be More Entertaining

Pro golf is having a tough start to 2024.

Ratings for the season are down by a significant margin and buzz around the PGA Tour has taken a noticeable nosedive as talk of money (spoiler: fans don’t care about money) continues to dominate headlines.

Just look at The Players Championship, which fell to 3.53 million Sunday viewers—down from 4.14 million last year—despite a frantic back-nine finish with four well-known players having a chance to win at the bitter end. More people watched Scottie Scheffler cruise to a drama-free, five-shot win at TPC Sawgrass in 2023 than his dramatic come-from-behind victory two weeks ago.

It paints a bleak picture. This year’s tournament was interesting and yet it was the lowest-rated final round of the event since 2014. Other events like the Waste Management Phoenix Open have also seen a stark decline in ratings.

I wrote about this downward trend prior to The Players—pro golf is struggling with apathy. Outside of the majors, the product is tired and needs to be reimagined. Golf lovers and casual followers alike are watching the game on YouTube or consuming other entertainment entirely instead of watching the PGA Tour (and far fewer people are genuinely interested in LIV).

You’ve heard enough negativity from me, so I thought it was time for a little optimism.

Look, can we be honest about this?

Golf is a niche viewing sport. It will never consistently touch the interest of football, basketball or several other prominent sports. Golf’s biggest “problem” is that it’s golf.

There is a lot of standing around, nuance and subtlety—and we’re short on personality, players tackling each other and having announcers raise their volume in excitement. It’s not for everyone. There is a ceiling.

But even with that, golf still deserves a meaningful spot in the broader pro sports landscape. It might be a relatively small corner with the majors, Ryder Cup and (hopefully) a few other events that can get people excited, but it’s still a corner.

And before you say this is all about Tiger not being a factor anymore, there are dozens of examples of tournaments that had great ratings and were highly entertaining without him. The 2022 Open Championship had 6.4 million final-round viewers, the most in 22 years, and Woods wasn’t a factor at all. Even nine years ago, the 2014 PGA Championship had 6 million final-round viewers without Tiger. He makes a huge difference, but there is life for pro golf after Tiger.

I’m a believer there is a path forward for professional golf to be reasonably entertaining instead of where it is currently heading—and that is the tennis path where everyone cares about four events while forgetting the rest.

The PGA Tour has been a member-run organization with a central mission of making money for its members. Its mission has not been to consider the fan’s experience first and then work backwards from that point.

That has to change. Figure out an entertaining product that fans will identify with and then build everything else around that. There are enough core fans—and there is enough reason for casual to occasionally hop on the bandwagon—that it can still be a strong product.

1. Bring All The Players Back Together

The most obvious one has to be mentioned first.

Fans are not benefitting whatsoever from the PGA Tour being divided into two worse leagues, especially as a lot of the best personalities and villains are toiling in obscurity on LIV.

Embattled Tour commissioner Jay Monahan says talks to unite the pro game are “accelerating” as we approach the Masters deadline (which was pushed back from the original Dec. 31, 2023, deadline) but it’s been mostly speculation to this point.

Honestly, I don’t care how it is funded—just get everyone back in one place. If the Saudi investment in golf is inevitable, utilize what they have to reimagine the game.

Golf can be entertaining!

We miss Bryson driving it over the lake at Bay Hill, Patrick Reed bending the rules at Torrey Pines and Jon Rahm calling the American Express event a “piece of shit putting contest.”

We could use Phil Mickelson laying up on a par-3 at the Memorial, Kevin Na walking in putts at the Shriners in Las Vegas and Matthew Wolff winning the 3M Open only to crater in the face of expectations.

We could use rules controversies and players bickering over actual golf topics instead of golf politics.

Just getting the players back together would be a huge win.

2. Two-Tier System With Relegation

The PGA Tour has already enacted a two-tier system with signature events.

Now it’s time to lean into that concept even harder with a cutthroat system any casual fan can understand.

The best 70 players all compete in 16 PGA Tour events, not including the majors, throughout the year. The fall is reserved for a silly season team golf competition that is a Saudi-funded cash grab.

The real season starts in January and ends in August, as it already does, alternating events between the PGA Tour and a lower league (no longer called the PGA Tour) that includes everything else (tournaments like the Valspar, Houston Open, etc.)

Players in the lower tier can advance to the PGA Tour by either winning a tournament (guaranteed spot remainder of the year) or finishing in the top 10 of the season-long standings for the lower league.

At the end of the year, the top 10 players from the lower league all advance to the PGA Tour. The bottom 10 players from the PGA Tour all get sent to the lower league. Sponsor exemptions are only allowed for the lower league.

Similar to LIV, players can sign contracts (and/or have equity in the league) to guarantee money—but getting to stay on the PGA Tour is based on performance only. If someone gets relegated, they play out the remainder of their contract on the lower tier.

This will introduce volatility and storylines on all sides.

3. New Playoff Format Hosted by Pebble Beach

Golf will never have serious playoffs like we see in other sports, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be entertaining.

The FedEx Cup has never gained traction because it’s a convoluted money-funnel for players, and there is no real volatility. It was never designed for fans, so let’s design a playoff system for fans.

There will be one championship tournament. Personally, I would like to see this at Pebble Beach or perhaps a rotating venue of great courses around the world.

Everything that happens during the season prior to the championship will be qualifying to be one of the final 30 players to reach the championship.

If you win a major or a PGA Tour event, you are guaranteed one of the 30 spots.

It leaves a minimum of 10 spots available for at-large bids into the tournament. Those spots are awarded based on season-long points.

For each of the first three rounds of the 72-hole event, six players are eliminated from the tournament—but all other scores reset each day, leaving Sunday with the top 12 players, all starting from scratch, battling for the title.

That creates urgency every round and guarantees the final day to be 18 players, all tied for the lead.

That’s it. No other points or modified scoring.

Winning tournaments throughout the year becomes more important and season-long points become more interesting as we figure out who will get into the tournament. East Lake—which is not a particularly entertaining course but has deep tie-ins to sponsorship—can host the final event prior to the championship.

4. Sleeker TV Product

Commercials pose a bigger problem for golf than they do for other sports.

There has been slight progress here but the commercial load in golf (54 minutes for three hours) is still too heavy for this type of entertainment.

I went deep on all of the changes that could be helpful if you want to read about it here.

The short version: more creative in-action advertising and more direct engagement from players (being mic’d up, coming in the booth, etc).

If an influx of cash is coming in, a lot of that money has to be spent on improving the TV product for anything else to matter.

Pour more resources into the coverage of PGA Tour events, even if it means limiting the coverage for the lower league.

Near the top of the wish list: getting to see every shot live on streaming. Seeing every player would have a positive impact on gambling and engagement overall.

5. PGA Tour Entertainment Extending Beyond Tournament Golf

The players have to be a critical part of entertainment in golf. They have to invest into the league.

Not everyone wants to consume golf through tournaments. Some fans will never be interested in that.

Can we get some YouTube matches between notable players?

Can we get a “playing lessons with the pros” video of a star player in a practice round breaking down strategy for each hole?

Can we get a post-production video of notable player/caddie conversations?

A lot of players don’t have much personality or aren’t willing to show it, but every player has interesting physical gifts. There is a place for all the stars to add more than their competitive play.

It’s a new concept for a lot of guys, but it’s a critical part of making the league valuable to fans.

We’re in a complicated situation now with a million moving parts—hence the delay in unifying the game—but there has to be a path to make pro golf a better product.

What are your ideas for making pro golf more interesting?

Let me know below in the comments.