Phil’s announcement, Bryson’s ace shows a bigger change in golf

In the first week of the official PGA Tour season, several highlights have filled the void in the world of professional golf.

Look, it’s healthy for the tournament to have a proper offseason so we can miss it. And reports related to the future of golf pros have been swirling, including big news like LIV’s potential REPLACEMENT for Greg Norman or his potential alliance with the PD world tour. However, the biggest Thanksgiving week headline in golf probably came from Bryson DeChambeau’s dramatic finish follow up acea 16-day quest that showcased his accuracy from 100 yards, the size of his new glass mansion, and his steadfast belief that he wouldn’t get a wedge through his living room window. He picked up half a million TikTok followers along the way and passed two million followers on Instagram, the latest in a year of chart-topping content creation that also saw him pass one million subscribers on YouTube and (notebook views) win the U.S. – in Hapur.

DeChambeau was busy this week; he also wrapped up the first season of his YouTube series “Break 50” with Tom Brady, the latest in a stellar guest list that included Tony Romo, John Daly, Phil Mickelson and President-elect Donald Trump. DeChambeau’s video with Brady has already garnered over a million views less than 48 hours after it was posted. Brady loves golf, which was certainly a motive for his participation; Another factor may be that he also recently launched his own YouTube channel, which saw a boost from DeChambeau’s collaboration.

Mickelson made headlines in the YouTube space, too; he and popular golf YouTuber Grant Horvat announced that they are planning a series of 2-vs.-2 challenges against other players, athletes and celebrities, coming in January. Mickelson is no stranger to the content space – his own Fireside chats made for a fascinating Twitter series – but while we’ve seen golfers featured on many YouTube channels, the pros as content creators is a more recent development. While Mickelson’s the claims that the Tour is sitting on “billions of dollars” in NFTs may have been aggressive, it’s clear that he’s using the freedom of an LIV offseason to play a different kind of team golf and potentially unlock some additional value in the process.

I’m not here to tell you how you should feel about all of this. Clearly, DeChambeau’s research captured the attention and imagination of many sports fans, and if you want to celebrate a new era of athlete access and smart content creation, this is the era for you, and I’m excited on your behalf. On the other hand, if the idea of ​​the greatest player in NFL history and the second-best player of his generation racking up YouTube followers by taking golf challenge tricks makes you want to stare blankly into the abyss, ok i understand that too. . But there’s no doubt that we’re in the midst of an ongoing shift in what it means to be a professional golfer and a golf fan, too.

Another headline, then, from this week: Crypto.com was announced as the title sponsor for The Showdown, a team match scheduled for next month pitting two PGA Tour stars (Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler) against two LIV Golf stars (DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka). Crypto.com’s appearance isn’t necessarily popular at PGA Tour headquarters, where they’re used to being in control or at least investing when their pros do it, and this matchup is seen as a sidestep to ongoing negotiations between the Tour and backers. of LIV in the Saudi Public Investment Fund. But that makes a bitcoin trading platform the perfect sponsor, right? Golf’s premier tour isn’t just negotiating with LIV, but with a decentralized golf landscape in which being a “pro golfer” can mean more different things than ever before—a development that forces outsiders to take risks and hit the establishment and it’s tougher than ever to determine what’s authentic and worth your time.

The Tour establishment is not blind to this changing landscape; it has also been diversifying. It has a stake in TGL, which is just weeks away from launching, and this week, one of its franchises, New York Golf Club, made the rounds on a media tour of NYC that included a stop on “The Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon. . That wasn’t necessarily a dream fit for Cameron Young, to whom Fallon said midway through, “you haven’t really said a word.” Young is more of a club-talking guy, and he has good company in that club like world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler. But part of the TGL’s promise is the personality to go with all that golf prowess. These days, there’s an expectation that your clubs won’t all of them speaking.

However, the decentralization of Golf is not just arena golf, YouTube matches and TikTok challenges. This fall has brought golf to different tournaments in different corners of the globe, which is generally pretty cool. This includes Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry playing the Irish Open and the season-closing leg of the DP World Tour. It includes Cameron Smith playing in state championships and national championships as part of his Aussie summer of golf. It includes Tom Kim returning to play in his native South Korea. There is a beauty in their golf freedom; there’s all kinds of cool tour golf that exists outside the confines of the PGA Tour. As golf’s leadership tries to sort out what a unified ecosystem would actually look like, it’s worth asking ourselves how to serve all of its various areas.

Much of (broadly speaking) this wave of new school golf fun is what we, the golfing public, have been asking for. Golf and its characters presented in more entertaining formats? Yes please! Still, Thanksgiving week is as good a time as any to watch the NFL — centralized, intensely organized, and matchup viewing for tens of millions of families — and feel a little envious. We know who is playing and when. We know the stakes and we know our loyalties. We know what the season is building to. And we know we’re looking at the best. Games are in the spotlight.

Conversely, in pro golf, it’s hard not to wonder where this all fits in the context of the game’s future. Scheffler-McIlroy vs. Koepka-DeChambeau is a good matchup on its own, but does it get us any closer to a cohesive and meaningful tournament? When the PGA Tour returns in January, will it hold the same amount it did in a simpler sports world? DeChambeau has become the official king of golf content, but his highest-profile golf takes place on social media and in magazines. Is this a sign of things to come?

So in Thanksgiving terms: There are more side dishes this year than ever, but your aunt and uncle are in the kitchen, talking in hushed tones about whether they can save the turkey. You are hungry. It’s time to find out if a big bird is coming or if you just have to dig into what you’ve got.

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