PGA Tour, LPGA announce partnership that could lead to joint events [Golfweek]

[nevets88]

There will be a joint event in May with the European Tour's men and women together in Morocco. I wonder what the format will be.

Quote

The organizations announced Friday that they will be entering a “strategic alliance agreement," in which the duo will partner in several areas to further promote the game.

Most notably, the PGA Tour and LPGA's alliance may one day include joint events, per the tours' release on the announcement.

http://golfweek.com/news/2016/mar/04/pga-tour-lpga-alliance-partnership-joint-events/

[rkim291968]

Joint event?  It is going to be more of a show than a serious competition.  I will be curious though.   

[Golfingdad]

32 minutes ago, rkim291968 said:

Joint event?  It is going to be more of a show than a serious competition.  I will be curious though.   

I read that story too and I could see both.  Some mixed exhibition type things, but also serious tournaments.  I am intrigued.

[Dave2512]

Team match play? That could be cool.

[SavvySwede]

I'd like to see two separate tournaments played side by side on nearby courses which they can rotate each round like at the Pebble Beach Pro Am. That way on Sunday they'll be more final groups to follow instead of watching the leaders stand in the fairway and wait to hit.

[Golfingdad]

18 minutes ago, SavvySwede said:

I'd like to see two separate tournaments played side by side on nearby courses which they can rotate each round like at the Pebble Beach Pro Am. That way on Sunday they'll be more final groups to follow instead of watching the leaders stand in the fairway and wait to hit.

That's funny because that is almost exactly what I was thinking too.  My first thought was Torrey Pines.  Men on the south, women on the north.  And I hadn't even considered the benefit of so much more golf to be showing at the same time. :)

The author of the story opined that they play the same course at the same time ... alternating groups.  That would be interesting.

[Shindig]

Sounds like something I'd enjoy watching.  I keep meaning to watch the Wendy's 3-Tour Challenge, but I never remember.  Maybe if it were during the normal schedule.

[SavvySwede]

34 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

That's funny because that is almost exactly what I was thinking too.  My first thought was Torrey Pines.  Men on the south, women on the north.  And I hadn't even considered the benefit of so much more golf to be showing at the same time. :)

The author of the story opined that they play the same course at the same time ... alternating groups.  That would be interesting.

Interesting. but then it would have to be a much smaller field and the novelty would wear off after a couple of years. I only see something will a full field on both sides having the potential to grow into an important event.

[Golfingdad]

3 hours ago, SavvySwede said:

Interesting. but then it would have to be a much smaller field and the novelty would wear off after a couple of years. I only see something will a full field on both sides having the potential to grow into an important event.

Yeah that's true.  A LOT of logistical issues like that, but it will be interesting.

Heck, even if nothing changed other than maybe some joint marketing and maybe LPGA gets a more lucrative tv deal and we see them on networks on Sunday's with big name announcers - that will help.

[colin007]

Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden

 

 

 

 

[rkim291968]

13 hours ago, Golfingdad said:

Heck, even if nothing changed other than maybe some joint marketing and maybe LPGA gets a more lucrative tv deal and we see them on networks on Sunday's with big name announcers - that will help.

True.  The "alliance" can't hurt.     IMO, LPGA has much more to gain on this relationship.

[rolopolo]

I sure hope it never comes to team events where teams consist of ladies and men mixed. Mixed doubles in tennis is probably the worst sport ever invented after all the race car rubbish.

 

[Golfingdad]

Just saw the update to the Olympics thread and it dawned on me that we'll probably get a really good taste in August of what a "joint event" could be like when this partnership begins.

It looks like the events won't actually intertwine, but will be back to back with a couple of days break in between, but at least it's something. :)

[mdl]

Rotating courses would be pretty cool, as would team match play.  But really what I want to see is a true joint event with a combined field and different tees for the men and women!

I know people around here with much more knowledge than me have said that setup in LPGA events tends to be easier relative to PGA events along more dimensions than just length, but it seems like they should be able to tweak setup and tee positions to a place where you expect the average PGA score to be similar to, say, the average LPGA top 30 or 40 player score or something?

[Ernest Jones]

Shirts vs Skins?

Cross your fingers on the coin toss!

[Golfingdad]

53 minutes ago, mdl said:

But really what I want to see is a true joint event with a combined field and different tees for the men and women!

I dunno - that's still a bit too gimmicky for my tastes.  Nothing good comes out of it because the competitors are not on an even playing field.  Too many people would judge the validity of the setup based on the outcome.  x male won because the setup for the women was too hard relatively, or x female won because their tees were too short.  It seems like a lose-lose. (Consider the pushback from some people - like Vijay - when Annika tried to compete with the men on the same course)

But along those lines - the example in the article where he suggested simultaneous but separate tournaments on the same course, alternating groups, sounds pretty darn interesting to me.

[GolfLug]

1 hour ago, Ernest Jones said:

Shirts vs Skins?

Cross your fingers on the coin toss!

ROFL

[mdl]

3 hours ago, Golfingdad said:

I dunno - that's still a bit too gimmicky for my tastes.  Nothing good comes out of it because the competitors are not on an even playing field.  Too many people would judge the validity of the setup based on the outcome.  x male won because the setup for the women was too hard relatively, or x female won because their tees were too short.  It seems like a lose-lose. (Consider the pushback from some people - like Vijay - when Annika tried to compete with the men on the same course)

But along those lines - the example in the article where he suggested simultaneous but separate tournaments on the same course, alternating groups, sounds pretty darn interesting to me.

No doubt there'd be griping, but I still think it would be really cool to watch the same tourney but different tees.  Doesn't seem gimmicky to me.  I mean, it's not like they'd be giving strokes out or anything.  Just scale the distances by something like the ratio of 75th percentile driving distance for LPGA to 50th percentile driving distance on PGA.  Quick lookup tells me that means the women should play 90% of the distance as the men.  So a 550 yards par 5 for the men would have women teeing off at 497 yards.

That would be a really fun comparison of the skills between the two groups outside of pure distance.  Like, if most players of both genders are playing a par 4 as driver/P-8i, and playing the same greens and course setup, that seems fair and interesting to me, not gimmicky.

But I realize I'm probably in the minority.