Friz

It would seem logical to me that the tour could provide travel and lodging for players and caddies at least each tournament, so that if they miss a cut at the bare minimum they're not losing money for going to work. But beyond that, one of my favorite things about the PGA Tour is literally watching people play for their livelihood....playing to keep their tour card for the following season. And I fully get why that is significantly more appealing to me as a fan than to the guy playing, but i don't want to lose that aspect. I think the changes that will be implemented in 2024 will strike a good balance of keeping this meritocracy and rewarding the players at the top, but wouldn't kill them to throw in some travel expenses for the guys in the field either.

Paul Casey joins LIV Golf, expects to make debut at tour's third event Paul Casey, the longtime tour player who currently is ranked 26th in the world, has joined LIV Golf and is...

No one is playing just for fun on Tour...obviously it's their job. But they guys on Tour who have turned down massive paydays from LIV are playing for something else on Tour where there is history, legacy, premier competition, and a place to make their own mark on that. It's possible to do both. The guys who left for LIV have quoted a lot of things that don't hold up under a little scrutiny as to why they left. JTs original statement was pretty clear in what he was actually saying

This seems the most likely result to me...so much of the attention they're getting right now is because it's new and it's controversial. The new factor is already going away, and the controversial part isnt doing favors. If people quit caring about the controversial part, it's probably just going to reduce eyeballs on the product as well. I dont know how many are watching just because they like the product, especially in time slots directly competing with the PGA Tour, but it doesn't seem like that's a big number. I'm just waiting to see what happens if it's considered a failure or flop and their lone revenue stream is pulled. May be a few years before that, but a lot of golfers could be out of work

This is just getting dumb...im not really sure what conferences will mean at this point. Clearly there are no geographic ties, the Big Ten will stretch from New Jersey to Los Angeles. There was already no way to have a balanced conference football schedule at 14 teams, can't play everyone, now it's even bigger. I get why, it's all about money of course and the big ten just absorbed the Los Angeles TV market...but at this point we are just heading towards Big Ten vs. SEC.

15 minutes of tuning in and I can't stand the commentary. They've clearly been instructed to hit their talking points as much as they can. The "star power" that's here, how much in on the line or how much money players won in London, why the team aspect is so good and how much the pkayers care about it, and they apparently need to remind me how exciting it all is. Also I'm not sure if they put microphones I'm the bottom of the cup or if someone found a new sound effect, but it quickly became very annoying to listen to the ball go into the cup. If I cared to continue watching I'd be way better off on mute. Also was interesting that despite the commentary about how many people showed up, I saw Pat Perez sink a birdie putt to dead silence, Kaymer stick an approach to about 4 feet to dead silence, and I think it was Wade Ormsby put an approach to about 6 inches and literally one guy was clapping. And there is just no appeal to seeing what happens. I can watch some guys hit some golf shots, but I don't care who wins, a bunch of guys who got paid before showing up playing with no cut for no stakes besides an additional paycheck just sucks all the life out of a tournament. I'll happily go back to the John Deere, that was more than enough from LIV

Yeah I was following along here and debating on picking the H4 up, but out of stock for me as well.

Wolff was at least the most honest and genuine with his comments about why he joined. I'm sure money played a factor, but at least he didn't just spew the same lies about "growing the game" and all that. He was genuinely not interested in the high stress tournament life of the PGA Tour. This was from an article at Golf Digest He said he felt isolated, depressed, dejected. He simply hasn’t been happy for long stretches, and he seems to view LIV as a much lower-stress option to the life he lived 12 months ago. Wolff absolutely loved his time at Oklahoma State—he has said he regrets leaving Stillwater early and spent most of his time there during his hiatus from the game last year—and reveled in the team environment. He is a deeply social person, perhaps not cut out for the rugged individualism of the PGA Tour. He knows that, and he’s OK with that. "I just think that like this just gives us such a good opportunity and getting back to [why I joined]," Wolff said. "You're going to try so hard for your team and it just gives you so much more opportunity to enjoy yourself and have little small wins and feel good about yourself rather than shoot 75 on Sunday [and feel like] I could've played better, I could have done this, I could have done that."

It seems like the argument "the PGA was forcing us to play" is completely based on the idea of "if I don't play this week, I'll fall behind in the FedEx Cup." But thats never how the FedEx Cup has worked....the guys at the top aren't there because they've played the most events, its because they've played the best golf in a few events. Get some wins, get some top 10's, and your FedEx Cup status will be just fine after a week off. Finishing 30 times in 50th place gets you fewer points than finishing 6 times in 20th place. You've always been better off picking the spots you think you can do well and preparing for those events than trying to play everything and just scrapping up whatever points you can get. And what is their solution anyway? Should the PGA Tour just cancel a bunch of tournaments and implement bye weeks in the middle of the season where no one can play and fans have nothing to see? Is that good for their second favorite talking point of "growing the game of golf"? These guys are all just using canned talking points and statements that don't hold up to a little bit of scrutiny.

There is a lot of interesting things that could be done with different formats. I don't want to see a different format every single week, but a little variety here and there would be a good thing for viewers too. Match play has become a must watch tournament for me, and while the Zurich Classic team event isn't as high on my radar, I get the appeal of having something different for a week. I have a format that I think would be interesting to watch, and keep interest every single day for both fans and players. It would basically consist of 1/4 of the original field size is cut each day, and scores reset each day. So your only goal is to survive and advance from each day while starting with a clean slate. So for a field of 100, 25 guys are cut after round 1, scores reset and the 25 worst scores of round 2 are cut, reset again and cut the 25 worst scores of round 3. Then the final 25 guys play 18 hole stroke play for final standings. I'd envision entertaining playoffs all over the place to get cuts exact as well, no advancing on ties. Maybe a little off the wall but exciting all the way through

The one main thing I want, and maybe not for the main TV broadcast, but it should be doable for things like PGA Tour Live, is some ability to customize your own viewing experience. If I want to watch Patton Kizzire instead of Rory on Thursday, I should be able to. If I'm more interested in following my fantasy golf team than the top of the leaderboard, I should be able to do that. However its used, there are cameras all over the course, it shouldn't be that hard to have a camera on every shot that is happening. Let me choose who I want to watch, or what scenarios I want to watch. The Masters does this, and I would love to see it improved and expanded. As for the normal broadcast....the cut cam needs to be a thing. Friday afternoon they talk all the time about projected cuts, but they don't show any of the guys trying to stay on the right side of it. Who makes and misses the cut is arguably more interesting on Friday afternoon than the top of the leaderboard. Add something more permanent on the screen to give me a better idea of the course. The players and commentators have walked the course for days and know every corner of it. I, sitting on my couch at home, likely at the very best have seen a couple pictures of a few different holes. I love it when they do the hole flyover so I have an idea of what the hole looks like, but I also am not going to remember every hole instantly. If they added a hole overlay on a portion of the screen, it would help me see the shots they're trying to play. Hell, I'd give up the left 1/3 of my screen for them to place a hole layout there for the shots they're showing, make it interactive for the commentators to sprinkle some of those graphics onto, such as the birdie, par, bogey locations from other players and probably a ton of other creative things they could do with it, and keep the camera on the other 2/3 of my screen. And I don't really know the answer to this, but there has to be a better way to show ball flight on approach shots. The shot tracer on drives (especially if they could couple it with my hole overlay, so I know if the ball is tailing toward trouble or following the fairway) is great, but it seems like the default on approach shots is to get the camera in the sky following the ball until it lands. Like, thats probably really talented camera work, but it doesn't show me much of anything as a viewer. I'm just holding my breath not knowing if the ball is headed right at the pin, 20 yards left or right of the green....its all a mystery until it just lands somewhere. At the very least a shot tracer on all approaches would be nice, but some sort of advancement in technology where I could follow the flight of the ball on TV from the golfer's perspective would be ideal.

Speaking of stupid things Brooks Koepka says...he claims he didn't even have the LIV conversation until the US Open ended. Wasn't it within 24 hours of the US Open ending he had pulled out of the Travelers and was confirmed? Pretty abrupt decision for someone who previously stated "someone will sell out and go for it." But he didn't sell out, he just needed more recovery time between events, because apparently the PGA Tour was forcing him to play before he was ready? If only someone had let him know he was already exempt through 2026 and was allowed to skip tournaments if he was injured....poor guy.

I'd guess that 126-150 still will have conditional status to fill fields like they do now, but likely won't be many opportunities. Elimination of KF Tour Finals is certainly going to make that fall race for 71-125 even more interesting. 126 is might have a few starts the next season but is a virtual instant demotion, and 151+ would be completely SOL. At the same time, they can say they're giving KF more, but an increase to 30 coupled with elimination of KF Tour Finals is going to lead to fewer KF guys moving up. I'm going to assume more than 5 KF guys on average advanced to the PGA Tour through the 25 spots available in Tour Finals, but clearly they had to pull the DP World Tour spots from somewhere to guarantee those guys starts. The Q School piece is interesting too, I was originally thinking guys that finished in the top 5 of Q School must be frequently finishing in the Top 25 the following year, so they were just cutting out the middle stop. But I took a quick look at last year's Q School Top 10, and as of right now only 1 of those guys is in the top 25. A few guys who would've gone straight to the PGA Tour are sitting around 150 in Korn Ferry. Went back another year and 2 of the Top 10 (1 of the top 5) is currently in the PGA Tour. So this does seem like an odd choice

DP World Tour, PGA TOUR expand and strengthen alliance * Move is a significant boost to a global pathway for competitive golf Some key items pulled from the article: Partnership between PGA Tour and DP World Tour through 2035 As part of the new joint venture, the PGA TOUR will increase its existing stake in European Tour Productions from 15 percent to 40 percent, while utilising the DP World Tour’s recognised international credentials and global footprint to continue to coordinate a worldwide schedule. from 2023, the leading ten players on the end of season DP World Tour Rankings [in addition to those already exempt] will earn PGA TOUR cards for the following season. the DP World Tour will work closely on the development and implementation of the new international events announced by PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan last week at the Travelers Championship in Connecticut, and DP World members will gain access to those events. Specific to DP World Tour - guarantees increased annual prize funds for the next 5 years and a formal pathway from the Sunshine Tour and ISPS Handa PGA Tour of Australasia to the DP World Tour Korn Ferry Tour to award an unprecedented 30 TOUR cards in 2023 The Korn Ferry Tour season has never been more important. Beginning next year, an unprecedented 30 PGA TOUR cards will be awarded to the top players on the Korn Ferry Tour Points List at season’s end, reaffirming the quality of the competition on the circuit and the importance of rewarding season-long performance. The additional five PGA TOUR cards available via the Korn Ferry Tour were announced Tuesday in concert with widespread changes to the PGA TOUR’s qualification process. It was also announced that 10 TOUR cards would be awarded to the top performers on the DP World Tour and Q-School would award PGA TOUR cards to the top five finishers and ties. It will mark the first time in a decade that Q-School will offer PGA TOUR status. It was also announced Tuesday that the Korn Ferry Tour Finals will no longer be a competition for TOUR cards between the top 75 on the Korn Ferry Tour and Nos. 126-200 in the FedExCup standings. The Finals will now refer to the final four events of the season, where members will compete for increased purses and points allocations. The four Finals events will feature $1.5 million purses and award 600 points to each winner. The preceding 22 events on the schedule will have a minimum purse of $1 million – a 67% increase from 2021 to 2023 – and award 500 points to winners. The 2023 Korn Ferry Tour season is scheduled to run from January to October. Overall Summary, how to get a PGA Tour Card starting end of next season: Presumably, tournament champions will continue to receive 2 year exemptions, or more for the bigger tournaments, consistent with current practice Top 70 FedEx beginning of playoffs will retain a card for next season 71-125 after the fall events will retain a card for next season Top 10 in DP World Tour's Race for Dubai will get a PGA Tour card for next season Top 30 in Korn Ferry season standings will get a PGA Tour card for next season Top 5 and ties in Q School will get a PGA Tour card for next season

Bad news Fireballs fans, your long and storied history is coming to an end. In the dumbest news I've heard so far today, apparently it isn't enough to have no constants in who is on your team and even captains can change event to event.....I mentioned earlier that being a fan of a team in LIV golf is nothing more than being a fan of a logo.....turns out that even THAT was too much. After one tournament, we have team names and logos changing. Imagine how mad their fan is going to be. Sergio Garcia To Change LIV Golf Team Name And Logo | Golf Monthly The Spaniard is set to rename his LIV Golf team with a new logo

Making assumptions, but I have to imagine it's a safe bet that the guys leaving the PGA Tour are getting some sort of guarantee they'll be in fields. I dont think we will ever see a point more guys leave than LIV has space for. But your last point is accurate, every new guy that joins boots out someone who has participated previously. I would guess they end up with something close to 40ish regulars, then the final spots in fields may be filled by a pool of 20 to 30 lesser guys that rotate in and out of events, if the format stays the same

So anyone who is a better golfer than me, do you look at this and see clearance to hit ball first, get it up in time, and carry to the green? The whole time I was watching him I couldn't imagine what he was trying to do...I saw zero chance of reaching the green. I figured his absolute best case scenario was what he ended up doing on his third and just a short advancement....but even that held a ton of risk this close to the lip. The only play I saw that close to the lip was open the face wide and just get it out in the safest direction possible. As mentioned he's still only a wedge and a putt from par....but he absolutely can not leave anything worse than bogey on the table.

Didn't read all the comments yet, but thinking Stroke Play is harder to win in all formats. You have to be definitively better than every other player in the field to win Stroke Play, a bad round could ruin everything, a single very bad hole could ruin everything. But Match Play you only have to be definitively better than 6 or 7 players, and only one at a time. A bad round could be salvaged if only one other person (your opponent) Also struggles. A very bad hole only impacts you in the one moment and doesn't carry over. I'm sure either would be quite difficult, but match play statistically seems like much better odds to win

Seems like the common sense thing to do, but i guess there was no time to wait? I've seen these before too, but I've always had the assumption that was for mowing or landscaping....apparently it can mean anything. Yeah, irked is about the most it was to me....I played out and carried on. Didn't even feel like it was worth bringing up to the pro shop...it was just so bizarre seeing it happen. My shot has come to rest and he's changing the outcome of it. It felt almost as though he had picked my ball up and carried it 20 feet closer to the hole....obviously in that case I could put it back, but can't do much about the hole changing. When I saw it happen on the second hole, its the first time I'd seen them changing pin locations so late in the day, but they did it between groups so it didn't really impact anything. But doing so after I hit my shot felt like it changed so much more. If I'd had the short putt and he'd moved it though I may have had a different reaction though!

Seems like if they were coming, this would've been when. First tournament on US soil, The Open has confirmed they can still play, US Open has passed....Brooks, Bryson, and maybe Patrick Reed were somewhat noteworthy, but not names I'll miss. The other guys, seems like they're just loading up on middling PGA guys, and every one they get is one step closer to irrelevance. I keep thinking they've got a hard cap at 48 guys....assuming these guys signing on are getting guaranteed spots in each field....I have to assume they are. It'd be wildly reckless for them to make the jump without assurance they'll get to play.

It's hard to say...the original pin location was behind a bunker so I didn't aim directly at it, and the new location I may have aimed slightly differently since it was no longer tucked...but odds are the result wouldn't have changed drastically. The main difference was the greenskeeper changing my chip. Can't imagine what he would've done if I'd actually held the green near the original pin. This makes sense...unfortunately adds a stroke to my round when my short game had been pretty solid...but fair

This isn't so much a breach of rules (at least by me i dont think) as a question of how I play and score this situation....which I would think should never happen but it did. Actually got a chance to play 9 holes this morning, and apparently the grounds crew started late. When I got to the second hole, group in front of me walked off the green, greenskeeper walks on, picks up the flag, and starts cutting a new hole. Odd, but I let him finish and play to the new pin. But then I get to the 4th hole, another par 3, he waits for me to take my tee shot, then as I'm walking toward the green he hops out and starts cutting a new hole again. My ball was very much in play, not on the green but I was in the rough about 8 inches off the back right fringe. He probably turned what wouldve been a 40 foot chip into 20. I got up and down to the new location, felt a little dirty about an easier par, then wondered what it should mean. I dont keep an official handicap, just my own unofficial tracker, but would this round even be considered official? Would there be a different way to attempt to play it out if I found the old hole cutout and played to there anyway? Course was just a small local 9 hole I'd never been on before. Kept in real good shape, but just very surprised by the greenskeeper

He won the Korn Ferry this week. PGA continues to keep the guys that can play

But with dozens of guys on the course most of the time, there is always something they could be showing....its not necessary to fill down time with commentary when it could be filled with other guys playing golf

That was my thought too....complete non-factor on Tour now. They're filling up those 48 spots and still haven't seen a name I care about