2022 Golf Winners and Losers

We finally have an entire season of LIV Golf in the books and it seems fair to draw some conclusions about how it will affect golf going forward.

The easiest way to look at it is through the lens of winners and losers. Before we start, let’s set one ground rule.

Every player connected with the PGA Tour and LIV golf is, or will be, making a ton of additional revenue going forward. Pat Perez made over $8 million on LIV, not including his signing bonus. Pat Perez thinks he’s a winner this year, but golf fans and the game of golf gained nothing from his windfall. He played bad golf that no one watched. That’s not a win.

Likewise, Phil Mickelson pulled down over $200 million as a signing bonus. He is also neck-in-neck with Greg Norman as the most reviled and tarnished human in golf. He might feel like a winner, but he’s a pariah. Again, not a win for the game.

In fact, if you take money out of the equation of determining winners and losers, almost everyone lost.

LIV Golf did not help grow the game in any measurable way.

It’s a traveling exhibition that brought the hitherto unknown game of golf to places like Westchester County, New York, Boston, London, Chicago, and Miami.

And don’t throw Bangkok and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia at me. Thailand is already golf-crazy, boasting multiple professional tournaments, and at least 60 courses in the Bangkok area alone.

And Jeddah? Just stop. Playing LIV Golf in Jeddah is like when Pablo Escobar brought pet hippos to his estate in Bogota. It makes no sense except to show others that you have the bank account to buy exotic animals and bend them to your will.

So on to the Winners:

LIV Golf

The fact that LIV survived is a win, even if it looks like a Pyrrhic victory. It’s not a competitor to the PGA Tour, it’s a paid exhibition. They poured billions into the venture and didn’t come close to creating a sustainable business model.

But LIV Golf will play next year. That’s a win for them. They survived and that was the bar they had to clear to be considered a success.

Rory McIlroy

Rory emerged as the voice of a generation. Not since Tiger has the PGA Tour – and the larger golf world – hung on the words of a single player like they did with Rory in 2022. Rory picked up the mantle Tiger needed to pass off and is now the conscience of the PGA Tour.

I understand not everyone is happy about that (looking at you, Rahm), but that is probably rooted more in jealousy.

At a time when the PGA Tour needed an alpha male to come in and grab the wheel, Rory stepped up and proved worthy. This was the year he entered the Pantheon with names like Palmer, Nicklaus, and Woods – people who not only played well but shaped the game in historical ways.

Thomas, Spieth, and Rahm

Without these three being stalwarts in their support of the Tour, I’m not sure Rory could have done it alone. While Rory’s profile gained the most shine, Thomas, Spieth, and Rahm formed a core that gave the Tour backbone when it appeared they lacked one.

The next generation of PGA Stars

Max Homa, Cameron Young, Sam Burns, Scheffler, Zalatoris, and several others found their legs when LIV cleared the thicket of aging stars. LIV golf did a great service in pruning out the old growth, even if it meant sacrificing some big trees like Dustin, Brooks, and Cam Smith.

It was worth it to allow more sun to shine on the upcoming stars. I’d rather see Zalatoris, Homa, and Cam Young battle down the stretch at a tournament than Westwood, Sergio, and Patrick Reed.

I’m excited to watch these young players build a career more than I want to watch guys who don’t care coast into retirement. Short-term loss, and a long-term gain for the PGA.

Tiger Woods

For a guy that didn’t play much, Tiger left a huge impact on the 2022 season. When he showed up at that first players’ meeting and laid out his vision, it changed the course of the sport.

He smartly engaged Rory as his lieutenant, showing that Tiger is still a shrewd kingmaker. He could have tapped Thomas – his closest friend on Tour – but he recognized Rory was the right man for this moment.

It’s almost like he physically pulled the PGA Tour’s head out of its backside. No small task. He was also diplomatic enough to keep a slew of panicked players, nervous Tour officials, fans, and sponsors united in his vision.

That’s next-level CEO stuff. It also makes Tiger the most consequential golfer in the history of the game – as if he wasn’t before this.

The Losers:

Every player who joined LIV Golf essentially forfeited their futures in Ryder Cups, President Cups, and a couple – if not all – Majors.

I’m still shocked at how many of them didn’t realize this when they jumped to LIV. Either they bought the snake oil Greg Norman was selling or they didn’t believe the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, and OWGR when they told them this was going to happen.

Either way, trading millions of dollars for a chance to compete in the most historic golf competitions on earth is a dubious exchange. It essentially forced all these players to answer the age-old question – Do you love the game or do you just love money?

It can’t be a coincidence that more than a few players who are disliked by fans, fellow players, or generally considered unsavory characters, took the money. This stark litmus test might end up being the best thing that ever happened to the PGA Tour. The bad seeds self-selected themselves out of the sport.

Jay Monahan

The man helming the PGA Tour through its most tumultuous season was slow to see the beast of LIV Golf approaching, misjudged its appeal to a large segment of players, dithered as Major winners left his Tour and recruited others to do the same, failed to manage the story in the press, confused and angered fans with his directionless response, and survived only when Tiger and Rory pulled his lifeless body out of the inferno.

Some paint him as a boxer who survived a savage 15-round bout. I see a guy who got pummelled and was saved by the bell.

In a saga that produced a slew of heroes and villains, Monahan was largely inconsequential. That’s hard to fathom for the leader of the besieged Tour. The PGA should be looking for a new Commissioner in the near future.

Fans

Fans have one desire above all others – We want to see the best players play on spectacular courses in meaningful tournaments. That’s really it. We want to see the drama of human competition that creates a range of emotions for players and fans alike.

LIV Golf blew that up for the foreseeable future. Like them or not, Dustin, Brooks, Patrick Reed, Bryson, Cam Smith, and others on LIV – these guys are great players who may never again play a tournament anyone cares about.

That’s a loss for fans. There’s no way around that.

The 2023 golf season will be a wild ride. We will continue to see significant changes. We will find out if The Masters sides with LIV or the PGA Tour. The same is true for the R&A and the USGA. Whichever way those decisions fall, they will create a firestorm.

We will also see if the restructured PGA Tour creates more competition or simply widens the gap between haves and have-nots.

The game of golf is not past the big twists and turns that rocked the sport in 2022. Whether it’s watching the maneuvering on the Leaderboard or the backroom, we’ll all be watching.