This week we will see the 50th game of Memorial Tourone of the PGA Tour’s most prestigious events. While little has changed at the Memorial over the decades, just as host Jack Nicklaus intended, the same cannot be said for the tournament.
The PGA Tour lead is planning a review of the plan for the near futurewith the aim of compressing the season into six months.
Nicklaus is not “in favor” of the PGA Tour plan, and 18 times major winner used part of his pre-Memorial press conference Tuesday to criticize the proposed changes and detail why he thinks they will be a problem “if we don’t address it.”
Nicklaus on compressed PGA Tour schedule: ‘That’s a problem’
When asked to share his thoughts on Tour schedule variesNicklaus didn’t want to talk about the subject at first, beyond confirming that he wasn’t in favor of them. He also expressed his desire to speak with the CEO of the PGA Tour Brian Rolapp and outgoing Commissioner of the PGA Tour Jay Monahan to discuss his opinion.
“Well, I don’t want to comment on the (PGA) Tour schedule because I’m not exactly in favor of what they’re doing right now. But I really haven’t had a conversation. I want to sit down with Brian (Rolapp) and Jay (Monahan) and have that conversation,” Nicklaus said Tuesday at Muirfield Village.
But then the 86-year-old golf legend decided to detail his problems with the new schedule anyway. His main argument is that a crowded schedule would put “too many big tournaments too close together.”
“I mean, I hate to see tournaments too crowded together with too many majors too close together. That’s a problem, I think,” Nicklaus said. “And I think it’s going to be a problem for the tournament going forward.”
After joking that he would later be “punished” for sharing his criticism of the PGA Tour’s future direction, Nicklaus gave more specifics on the problems a busy schedule causes, pointing to this year’s Cognizant Classic as an example. In the future, he argued, smaller tour events “don’t stand a chance.”
“But anyway, that’s neither here nor there. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up here. I’ll be punished for it later. Anyway, I think it’s harder for your tournaments to stand out. I mean, if you look at the schedule, we’re involved in the Cognizant event down in Florida and, you know, we’ve got Pebble, Beach and then Angelnig and Los. there was Bay Hill and The Players,” Nicklaus said. “I mean, what chance does that tournament have? I mean, it’s standing right in the middle of them. They don’t have a chance.”
Nicklaus is afraid that fields in smaller events will suffer because it is difficult for top players to compete more than three weeks in a row.
“Other tournaments also say, you know, I’ve got four out of five. It’s hard for guys to play that. Look, the problem isn’t so much from the players’ point of view, it’s hard for the players to be really focused to play that much and be on top of their game. And that, for me, is — I look at it from the way I was as a player. I could play in a couple of weeks, I could take a couple of weeks to three weeks. able to recharged the batteries And I think everyone needs to recharge their batteries, “explained Nicklaus.
He added: “To lock it all up for a period of time, and then leave it open the rest of the year, I think is difficult. I don’t know if that answers your question or not. But I mean, I think it’s – I don’t think it’s a problem yet, but I think it will be if we don’t address it.
Nicklaus reveals the impact he hopes to still have on the future of golf
Because of his great stature in the game, Nicklaus’ opinions still hold significant sway, and he’s not afraid to share them. In addition to criticizing the tournament’s schedule changes, Nicklaus also shared his thoughts on the proposal golf ball return during his memorial press conference.
Ultimately, though, Nicklaus revealed that, given his advanced age, he’s “not trying to influence the game.” Instead, he just wants to do what’s “right for the game.”
“Well, I’m not trying to influence the game, I’m just trying to make sure that what we do here is right for the game,” Nicklaus said Tuesday. “Anything that the Tour or anybody wants to sit down and ask me and talk about, I hope that through the experience that I’ve had, I can have some impact or what do you call it? Something to fall back on, something to bounce off of, somebody to bounce off of.”
He then described his desire to uphold the “great traditions of the game” rather than “worry about trying to create new things”.
“And I’m too old to worry about trying to create new things, I’m just trying to make sure that the game of golf – the game of golf is a great game, it gave me everything I had the opportunity to do. Most of them, most of the people out there, the same thing, the players. And a lot of you are here writing because of golf, and it gives you the greatest ability to write, but it’s very good to write another game. game that I love and it’s a game that I want to see the traditions of the game preserved,” Nicklaus said. “I think golf in its last years has been a big, big, big benefit to charity. Charity has been a big part of the game of golf and bigger than any other sport. I’d like to see that continue. I just think to be able to tell and tell people how to know, not tell someone how to live their life, but I think most of them play golf. they take off their hats, shake each other’s hands and say, “Well done,” or they say, “Oh, you played a fool today—I don’t know what they’re going to say.”
Nicklaus used his relationship with Arnold Palmer as a model of how civil the game should be, depicting them as respectful rivals on the field and friends off it.
“Arnold and I, we had as much competition as any two guys could ever have. And we walked off the 18th green and we shook hands and shook hands and, you know, it’s, ‘Where are you going for dinner tonight? Well, go get Winnie, I’ll get Barbara, we’re going to dinner.’ That’s the kind of thing you make friends with through the game, that’s the kind of influence I have.”
In closing, he expressed his hope that these values ​​in golf will always trump “confrontation” and “bad blood.”
“I don’t like to see confrontations. I don’t like to see bad blood. I don’t like to see things like that happen. I don’t think you get a lot of things like that in golf. I think we’re very blessed by the nature that the game has is a civil game.”
