A tradition like no other ****Official Masters Thread****

[ptlyon]

Originally Posted by scho63

The MASTERS is NOT a PGA event.

Whatever. So it's a self contained event. You get what I mean.

Seriously, what the hell is up your ass today? All over BRC and his health issues. What gives?

[Ocotillo]

Originally Posted by ptlyon

Whatever. So it's a self contained event. You get what I mean.

Seriously, what the hell is up your ass today? All over BRC and his health issues. What gives?

The Masters is a de facto tour event. It favors players on the U.S. PGA Tour.

Every winner of a PGA Tour event (except for the Zurich Classic and a few secondary tournaments like the one in Puerto Rico) gets invited.

Everyone in the PGA Tour Championship gets an invite, too.

[DJ's left nut]

I feel like that sort of thing never works.

Indy/CART did this in the 90s and effectively destroyed both sports. It still blows my mind that CART just doesn't exist anymore when it had an open path to being the dominant open wheel circuit in North America.

Indy has seemingly started to recover a bit but open wheel racing in the US wandered the wilderness for 30 years before that happened.

Now when you're a bunch of Saudi billionaires, I don't suppose you really care that much. You have the bankroll to eventually just plow the PGA under. So I guess that's the end game. But it won't be good for golf.

[philfree]

The LIV is backed by Saudi money but it's not a Saudi tour. They have one tournament in Saudi Arabia.

https://www.espn.com/golf/schedule/_/tour/liv

The Saudi's want to have a tour with everyone else's players, on everyone else's golf courses, in everyone else's country with everyone else's fans. Are there even any Saudi's who play on the LIV? How many Saudi's actually play and watch golf? I'll never watch one second of this bogus tour and I'll never root for any of the LIV players when they play the majors. They're dead to me.

[KC_Connection]

The PGA Tour is about to close a deal with PIF (the Saudi fund that backs LIV) to fund its tour, so I trust everyone that has a problem with LIV and its funding will also have a problem with the PGA Tour shortly too?

[philfree]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

The PGA Tour is about to close a deal with PIF (the Saudi fund that backs LIV) to fund its tour, so I trust everyone that has a problem with LIV and its funding will also have a problem with the PGA Tour shortly too?

If the PGA funds itself with the Saudi dollars then I'll quit watching it. I wonder what Bobby Jones would think of what's happening in pro golf these days?

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by philfree

If the PGA funds itself with the Saudi dollars then I'll quit watching it. I wonder what Bobby Jones would think of what's happening in pro golf these days?

Well they already have a framework deal for PIF funding and the plan is to follow through on it this year. With as bad as the tour has been doing since the LIV division, it's gonna happen. The Saudis are also in the process of reaching a deal to fund the major tennis tours as well.

I guess you can still watch the amateurs play?

[philfree]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

Well they already have a framework deal for PIF funding and the plan is to follow through on it this year. With as bad as the tour has been doing since the LIV division, it's gonna happen. The Saudis are also in the process of reaching a deal to fund the major tennis tours as well.

I guess you can still watch the amateurs play?

I'll watch the girls/Nelly Korda play. Don't watch tennis these days but I still think it sucks. I'm not sure adding the defected players back with the Saudi dollars will increase their ratings. There's a chance it might make it worse.

[Hoopsdoc]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

The PGA Tour is about to close a deal with PIF (the Saudi fund that backs LIV) to fund its tour, so I trust everyone that has a problem with LIV and its funding will also have a problem with the PGA Tour shortly too?

I don’t care about the Saudi money. It’s the way the tour is set up, as previously mentioned.

I won’t quit watching the PGAT unless they adopt LIV’s idiotic model. Then I’ll lose interest.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by Hoopsdoc

I don’t care about the Saudi money. It’s the way the tour is set up, as previously mentioned.

I won’t quit watching the PGAT unless they adopt LIV’s idiotic model. Then I’ll lose interest.

Meh, it's all just golf to me. In fact, I find it (in general) to be a superior product to watch. No commercials help with that and the fields on most of the PGAT events have deteriorated now to the point that LIV largely has more interesting finishes with better players.

[Papachief]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

Meh, it's all just golf to me. In fact, I find it (in general) to be a superior product to watch. No commercials help with that and the fields on most of the PGAT events have deteriorated now to the point that LIV largely has more interesting finishes with better players.

Better players?

They have 3 players who can win on the PGA tour, John Rahm, Cam Smith, Brooks Koepka. Everyone else is including Bryson are just after thoughts. I don’t blame the players for taking the money offered and for some of the older guys it’s a great opportunity to continue their careers. But in reality it’s a weak tour made up of hasbens and want to be’s. The product is mediocre at best.
That being said, I really hope they can all merge and be one again.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by Papachief

Better players?

They have 3 players who can win on the PGA tour, John Rahm, Cam Smith, Brooks Koepka. Everyone else is including Bryson are just after thoughts. I don’t blame the players for taking the money offered and for some of the older guys it’s a great opportunity to continue their careers. But in reality it’s a weak tour made up of hasbens and want to be’s. The product is mediocre at best.
That being said, I really hope they can all merge and be one again.

Yes, better players. No clue how Bryson could be considered an afterthought considering he just contended at Augusta and came 4th at the PGA last year. Any time he's been healthy over the past 5 years he's been a threat to win tournaments.

You should probably be familiar with Joaquin Niemann as he's a borderline top 10 player in the world right now. Tyrell Hatton is easily a top 20 guy as well and just finished top 10 at the Masters. Talor Gooch was also a top 30 guy before he left and he's won 3 times on LIV since then.

They have a whole bunch of other guys who could also easily be classified as top 50 players (Reed, Oosthuizen, Ancer, Meronk, Burmester) considering where they were ranked when they left and that isn't even getting into the aging veterans who can still win on a good week (DJ and Sergio stand out in that regard).

It might even be argued that LIV has a third of the top 50 players in the world at this point (and the split is going to become even more palpable when they inevitably get guys like Rory or Hovland next). Any non-signature PGAT event doesn't have fields anywhere close to as good as this.

[chiefzilla1501]

Yeah scheffler is like the Mike trout of golf. An absolute joy to watch. But despite having personality just not very marketable. They both kinda just go about their business

[wbbonneriii]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

Yeah scheffler is like the Mike trout of golf. An absolute joy to watch. But despite having personality just not very marketable. They both kinda just go about their business

The only difference is Trout had never won jack in the majors…has his team ever won a playoff series?