Golf union status Korn Ferry ranks

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There were several curious pairings at last week’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championshipwhile PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, PGA tournament commissioner Jay Monahan and Rory McIlroy all saw time playing together through the first three rounds. We’re going to take a guess and say that pairings like this don’t happen by chance. What do you think about them? And does it give you any clue about the state of the current golf union?

James Colgan, news and features editor (@jamescolgan26): It was the continuation of a unifying theory I first learned as a local club team almost a decade ago: Golf is a powerful social lubricant. It would benefit these people to share common ground every few weeks for the sake of golf, and a pro-am is one (high-profile) way to do that. It doesn’t mean anything – nothing – for the rhythm of the union. But that’s okay.

Josh Sens, senior writer, (@joshsens): It’s optics. No more, no less. Zero impact on the union itself. On the other hand, imagine what it would look like if everyone featured in the same high profile and he didn’t spend time together on the course? There really was no other choice.

Dylan Dethier, senior writer (@dylan_dethier): These photos don’t lie: these are men who know it’s in each of their interests to be in business together. The appearance also represents something of a victory for Al-Rumayyan, who appears to have achieved full assimilation into one of golf’s highest-profile parties just a few years after his startup LIV carved a hole in the middle of professional golf. Something is coming. Very slowly.

Whose role is more important in a relationship like this? Rory McIlroy as broker? Al-Rumayjan as the man with the lever? Or Monahan as the commissioner who is under pressure to unify the sport?

Colgan: Certainly not Rory, who is, it must be remembered, a golfer and not an M&A expert. The pressure on Monahan to keep the Tour and its golf afloat is immense, but secretly, so is the pressure on Al-Rumayyan, whose hopes for Saudi legitimacy in golf are still very much in question.

Meaning: After all, it’s about money, so in that sense, Al-Rumayyan has the most influence. But Rory has an interesting role as a former Tour hardliner who now stands as the game’s highest-profile globalist, bent on wonderfully conciliatory tones. You can throw all the money you want at a product, but in the end, you need interesting performers to make the show work. And Rory is the most powerful figure in the game in this regard, which is still important in the competition.

Dethier: Jay and Yasir need each other for their respective organizations to achieve long-term success, but there are also short-term incentives for them to be at war. Rory is extremely important as a high-profile peacemaker who can bridge that gap as quickly as possible. But that doesn’t mean everyone on both sides will like it.:.

Wenyi Ding, 19, won the Asia-Pacific Amateur on Sunday, which also earned him a place in the 2025 Masters and Open. The problem? He won’t go. Ding said he plans to turn pro through the DP World Tour’s Global Amateur Route, meaning he will no longer have the amateur status he needs to keep his major championship invitations. While Augusta National and the R&A can still invite players at their discretion, would you like to see golf’s governing bodies (including the USGA and US Open, for example) waive this bylaw and allow qualified amateurs to compete even after turning pro?

Colgan: Changing the eligibility rules is probably the most reasonable outcome, but I honestly don’t think it matters. The amateur competitor still means something in golf, and I like the spirit of the amateur-only exemptions. The problem is that no golfer should refuse to turn pro for the sake of a major championship invitation. It seems like there’s plenty of room for cooler heads to prevail here, and I think they will.

Meaning: Keep the bylaw. If he needs/wants the money that badly, let him ask for it, but the rules shouldn’t be bent around him to allow him to go to grad school. Surely principle can triumph over profit in some corners of the game, right? Maybe? Anyone? Bueller?

Dethier: I feel cold-hearted to say, but I have no problem with Augusta keeping this to amateurs only. If you’re going to be a professional, qualify as a professional. Let’s keep our amateur exceptions for the amateurs. Maybe give the place to the runner-up if the winner goes pro? But I hope Ding will make it to the Masters soon via another route.

With the aim of “modernizing broadcasting”, the The PGA Tour tested player interviews at the Sanderson Farms Championship last week (71-year-old Reed Hughes spoke briefly with Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis on Thursday) and there are plans to test more unconventional innovations during Friday rounds. While we’re all for streamlining, if the Tour really wanted to make waves in this space, what would you suggest they include in 2025?

Colgan: I think the problem with golf TV isn’t innovation – it’s finances. The networks responsible for televising golf do not always have the financial incentives to match providing quality coverage to viewers. When the financial math of putting golf on TV requires more commercials, intermissions and sponsor reads per hour than the average fan is willing to consume, you end up where we are. If you want to change golf tv, you have to change it. Then add some trackers.

sense: James is our expert on the golf media landscape, and he’s pretty much got it. Beyond that, from where I sit, the next most effective innovation would be to remove as many hamburger events as possible, so you’re not trying to force-feed the viewing public events that are nearly impossible to get excited about. around. However, I understand that it is not that simple. So in the meantime, anything the Tour can do to help fans get to know the players and show us they’re not all just carbon copies of each other in shirts and hats. Interviews in the course. Features up close and personal. This is the age of shallow influence culture. If you’re not showing the most dominant players, you should show their personal ‘brands’ somehow.

Dethier: I have to laugh at the framing here; there’s nothing more golf than opening up a “modernization innovation” via an interview with a 71-year-old competitor. But the Hughes story is interesting and trying new things is cool. Go ahead! I don’t think many people will be looking until the spring – unless we see Tiger in December – so there are a few low-risk months for Tour beta mode.

Thirty PGA Tour cards were awarded for the 2025 season at the conclusion of Sunday’s Korn Ferry Tournament Championship. Give us a name to watch next year.

Colgan: What about the top finisher in the whole damn thing? Braden Thornberry was a super-decorated amateur player, winning the Haskins Award and the NCAA Singles Championship in the late 2010s. He missed invitations to the US and British Opens in 2018 in order to turn pro… and then fell off the map. He has played the last five years on the KFT, and finally broke through on Sunday to earn his Tour card for ’25.

Meaning: Past performance is no guarantee in golf, but if you like your young pros to come with top university pedigrees, look no further than Karl Vilips, a Stanford Cardinal from Western Australia, just 23 years old, who doesn’t look that old anymore. young as ever. to. It has a mature head on young shoulders. Let’s see where it takes him

Dethier: The player in the best form is Matt McCarty, who has been on a steady climb since turning pro, winning three times in six starts to earn a promotion to the major Tour battlegrounds and enters as top dog good. But I admit to being intrigued by Tim Widing. He will join an increasingly competitive group of players vying for the title of second best Swede (Ludvig’s lead is secure for now), he lives in San Luis Obispo, which is cool and different and (not to lean too much on Swedish stereotypes) I can’t help but see his name and think he might be a world famous DJ throwing down a killer EDM set to a packed club in Vegas or, like in Ibiza. But the tour isn’t bad either.