Atlanta, ga. – While Jay Monahan shook his hands with Brian Rollapp, welcomed him to the podium and left the scene, felt a significant transition for the future of professional golf.
The contrast was visible. It was also Sartorial: Monahan in a structured blue jacket surrendering Rolepp to a more random gray, Lifer Golf Golf with low handicaps surrendering to the man who barely plays, the tall commissioner for PGA Tour’s fires surrendering to the NFL long NFL, a genuine and new act.
Rolapp has only been at work for a few weeks, so it’s too early to judge any kind of performance. It may be meaningless to read at a press conference for the press. But if Step 1 is talking a good game and Step 2 is making it happen, Rollapp seems to have at least the first part down. The word “impressive” is widely used when people are asked about it, from players to media members to tour employees. And Wednesday at ChampionshipIn his first appearance in public depth, three moments showed why.
1. “The goal is significant change.”
Rolapp several times stressed that he has been encouraged by the PGA Tour state he is inheriting. He mentioned a “strong list” of partners. Sport is growing and business is growing with it. He actually said twice that “the strength of the tour is strong” and is a credit for his delivery that almost seemed to make sense when he did.
But his emphasis was on changing. He recycled a phrase from his initial letter: We will honor the tradition, but we will not be much forced by it. And he stated that one of his first acts like CEO is to create the “Future Competition Committee” that aims to review the competitive model of the tournament.
“The purpose of this committee is quite simple: we will design the best professional professional model in the world for the benefit of PGA Tour fans, players and their partners,” Rollapp said. “It aims to fully restore the way we compete in tournaments. This is comprehensive of the regular season, after season and out of season.”
And then he doubled in that idea of a revolt.
“The goal is not the extra change,” he said. “The goal is significant change.”
Feel free to believe it when you see it, of course. This is not a league known for its dynamic decision-making, and while this committee will have Golf Gravitas-Tiger Woods is serving as a chair-is mainly composed of founding figures that have served on other tourist boards and committees such as Adam Scott, Patrick Cantlay, Maverick McNealy, John Henry and Joe Gord. Adding the magician of the baseball reimbursement Theo Epstein is intriguing, as is the entire Committee Directive. But it is also right to maintain a little skepticism that the true change begins with the formation of another committee.
Rolapp described three pillars that the tournament wants to double: by further engaging in a meritocratic structure (he called this equality), making it feel special when the best tournaments of the tour are united (this was “insufficiency”) and doing a better job to connect the regular season and the offspring of this “).
Everyone would be welcome.
2. “Sporting Business is not so complicated”
What attracts Rolapp people is not that he is particularly dynamic, but on the contrary that he makes things complex sounds simple. I asked if there was any annoying change coming from the NFL and his business Kajilion-Dollar in PGA Tour, which is a sport with different determination and, I would think, a completely different business. He was more or less tightened.
“It’s much hotter in Ponte Vedra than in Manhattan this time of the year,” he said.
“No, I don’t think it’s an annoying change. I think a lot of what I learned in NFL can be applied here, and see, the sports business is not so complicated. You get the right product, you get the right partners, your fans will reward you with their time because they are telling you well and they want more from it, and then the trading part will take care of it.”
From the outside, the sports business looks complicated – as well as properly getting the product. So the idea that Rollapp is not upset by the challenge is either naive or extremely encouraging. Golf fans will root for the latter.
How about changes in great time? He hopes they will be done and then continue to be done.
“You just have to renew constantly. I think if there is anything I learned in the NFL, it’s this,” he said. “We didn’t sit down yet, we changed rules every March. We changed the starting rule. This is what I mean by honoring the tradition, but not being forced by it. I think the level of innovation is what we will do here, and I think it’s a lesson I learned.”
3.
The closest thing we got to a tested exchange came near the end of Wednesday’s press, when a UK reporter raised an ordinary refrain from the Liv era, which fans want to see the best players in the world more often than they currently.
Reporter: I think has already been surveyed that they want to see the best players together on a more regular basis. Shouldn’t this be the advantage for you?
Roles: Are you asking a liv question?
Reporter: Basically, yes.
Roles: Well, ask a liv question.
It was a level of ambiguity that we are not necessarily learned in this beat. Rolapp was direct in his response and demanded justice from the media. There is something refreshing there – and the implication is that he has nothing to hide.
After all, his response was that the main advantage of the tournament is to the players and its current product rather than a priority for any kind of agreement with LIV. And while he added that he would “aggressively follow” anything that could improve the tournament, he mainly predicted strength.
“I will focus on what I can control. I would offer you the best player collection in the world is in PGA Tour,” he said. “I think there are a bunch of metrics that demonstrate that, from sighting to everything you want to choose. I will complain about it and strengthen it.”
Eventually the questions slowed down, Rollapp asked a recent question and then descended from the podium, where he met various media members while filtering outside the room – most of them for the first time.
He is new here, after all. So far this looks like a good thing.
Dylan dethier welcomes your comments at Dylan_dethier@golf.com.
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