In this installment of Ask Alan, our own Alan Shipnuck takes reader questions about the world of golf.
What DEFCON is pro golf in right now? The fact that the two best tournaments cannot have more than 100,000 viewers on Sunday seems disastrous for the football season as well. Combined with the low ratings for the playoffs, it really looks like this sport is on a rapid downward spiral! @SarrMaclean
I’ll say DEFCON 2: a raging crisis that’s threatening to turn into mutually assured destruction. The PGA Tour has been badly devalued by the loss of so many mainstays, and the TV ratings you cite reflect that. The Tour’s new benefactors can’t be happy either, as the first billion dollars of private equity money was thrown at players without a dollar going toward improving the product. After three seasons and countless billions of dollars, LIV still has only a modest audience and now faces multiple big-ticket personnel decisions as the first wave of signings age and/or must be put out to pasture.
The deal to reunite the sport isn’t a panacea, as many former fans have realized they’re not okay with not watching golf… and Bryson DeChambeau making it to the Byron Nelson isn’t going to change that. The tournament wars couldn’t have come at a worse time because the pro game was already suffering from a distinct personality deficit. Greg Norman, Payne Stewart, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh…golf enjoyed a quarter-century streak of charismatic, badass stars and incredible talent. Now the PGA Tour is dominated by short nice guys who barely move the needle. LIV has all the antiheroes and spicy personalities, but they remain mostly out of sight and out of mind. We’ll see how things shake out in the offseason, but DEFCON 1 could be coming.
Is Rory’s inability to win physical or mental? Or metaphysical? @Kevinp613
All of the above. With the Senior Tour at Pebble Beach last week, I looked up Ernie Els, who has many parallels with McIlroy: a massive talent who enjoyed a whirlwind of success at a young age and then was haunted by many different mistakes. Els is friends with McIlroy — he sold Rory his old home in South Florida — but he doesn’t mince words. “It’s not going to get any easier, that’s for sure,” Els said. “Pinehurst, this will hit you for a long time. Mentally, we’ll have to see. When that little bit of doubt creeps in, it’s hard to shake it off. I have been there many times. You beat yourself up.”
Els couldn’t hide his disappointment when he thought back to the final holes of this year’s US Open, in which McIlroy blew a 2-shot lead. “He hit the wrong club at 15,” Els said. “Driver was the wrong play on 18. He could have hit a 2-iron off the tee. And then to hit his pitch too hard and be over the hole, it was a terrible putt.”
Els has tried to be a confidant and adviser to McIlroy; after the 2022 Open Championship, in which Rory was beaten by Cam Smith on the back nine, Big Easy invited his friend over for dinner to give him a quick chat. “I wanted to help him get his head in the right place,” says Els. But he is annoyed by McIlroy’s reluctance to address some of the holes in his game. “He needs to hit softer shots with his short irons,” Els says. “I’m sure I told him that. Take absolute control. There’s a reason why Tiger played best with a soft little cut. When you have that much power, you have to get control of the ball with a little bit of cut spin.”
So there you have it: course management, wedge play, self-belief… there are many explanations for why McIlroy keeps getting his heart broken.
What must Lydia do the rest of the year to beat Nelly and win the Golf Writers of America Player of the Year vote? @DREAMWeaver2784
It’s almost a dead heat now. Ko has the two crown jewels of this season, the Open at the Old Course and the Olympic gold medal, along with two other LPGA wins. Korda had a tremendous run this spring, with six wins including a major championship, but her play since then has been disappointing and occasionally disastrous. If I had to vote today, I’d go Ko. But there are eight other tournaments on the LPGA schedule; any of these mega-talents can make a run and create some daylight in a very lively POY race.
Billy Horschel should be in every team race for the next five years. He has more heart than most recent captain picks. The guy just doesn’t give up. Furyk will win the Prez Cup, but isn’t his mission to strengthen the bench for the Ryder Cup? @david_troyan
It’s kind of amazing that American captains have an army of pundits and vice-captains to weigh in on and yet they consistently fail to recognize the single most important quality for the Cups: the fight in the dag. Like Keegan Bradley and Kevin Kisner and Lucas Glover, Horschel has been overlooked for an American team when it’s clear he would add a much-needed dimension. Your point about the Ryder Cup is well taken. Horschel is exactly the kind of personality that can shine through the noise in Bethpage, and this Presidents Cup would have been a valuable dress rehearsal. Instead, we got safe and uninspired choices of players whose main qualifications seem to belong to the right clique.
What can be done to give some juice to the President Cup? Even with an international win, I don’t think it moves the needle. Please don’t tell me to go fight by myself. @ricksterps
I never will! But go to your room, you’re in timeout… because there’s simply no way to add juice to the Presidents Cup. It’s a Tour product so the costumes at Ponte Vedra will never allow the stage to be shared by LPGA interlopers, which would certainly make the whole thing that much more interesting. And they’ll never embrace a non-traditional format like a worst-ball fight that would be weirdly fun. The Presidents Cup is just around the corner. It will never have the intensity or history of the Ryder Cup, and it’s silly for that. Just enjoy Prez Cup as low level. It could be worse: at least you’re not watching football.
How many ricochets did the Presidents Cup have with LIV removing key players from the international team? PCup 2019 seemed to be a sign of great competition to come, but now it’s been ruined with Cam, Niemann, etc. who could not participate. @Twooters1
It’s definitely a bummer for the Internationals to be without Joaquin Niemann and Cam Smith, who would arguably be their two best players. LIV’s effect on Cups cannot be overstated. At the last Ryder, the USA was weakened by not having Bryson DeChambeau or Dustin Johnson, and Europe was strengthened by not having to give aging fighters Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood, Henrik Stenson or Sergio Garcia one last stand , opening places for new studies like. Ludvig Aberg and Nicolai Højgaard. If Jon Rahm fails to retain his eligibility for the ’25 Ryder Cup, it will be a huge blow to Team Europe. So yes, the International Team in this Presidents Cup has been injured, but that is now part of the cost of doing business in the new golf landscape.
If Rory never wins the Master, does he still become a normal member in the ANGC career after the game? @HoselBombs
Very suspicious, when you consider that even a beloved figure and two-time Masters champion like Ben Crenshaw has not become a paid member.
Alan, I fear we will never see a Ryder Cup on a links course. This is not what the Europeans want to do apparently. Do you think we’ll ever see a Ryder Cup on a link? @bobbytrunole
The problem with almost every links course is that they are bordered by the sea, wild terrain and often quaint little towns; there is precious little space for corporate villages, parking and other infrastructure needs of the Super Bowl of golf. The courses in the Open Championship rotation have solved these issues to a large degree, but they are old, proud clubs that are not inclined to raise the tens of millions of dollars required to host the modern Ryder Cup. So I doubt we’ll ever get the Cup in the right league. The good news is that course integrity is less important in match play, where you’re competing against another person, not an equal.
Which major will be the first to invite the top 5 from the LIV points list? @glennmcspadden
Neither the Masters nor the PGA should make such a commitment, as both are invitational and can already select the random LIV player, as each tournament already does. Mike Whan, who runs the USGA, fancies himself a quirky, strategic thinker and is more likely to hijack tradition than the tweedy agents at the R & A. So the answer is the US Open, but the top 5 seems ambitious; I think LIV’s main player not being kicked out otherwise makes sense and is justified. Maybe top 2. I doubt any major will make a commitment beyond that.
I hate hypotheticals, except this one has two parts: What do you think Adam Scott’s career would look like if 1) he was an average pitcher 2) He was a top 10 pitcher? @caia437
- Three major championship wins, 25 PGA Tour wins.
- Mickelsonian.
If Keegan automatically qualifies for the ’25 Ryder Cup team, then what do you think the chances are that he will play and captain at the same time? @Not311Drummer
100% First of all, Keegan has made it quite clear how much he is dying to play in another Ryder Cup and why should he penalize himself and not do so if he has earned his way into the team? Beyond that, the Ryder Cup is a fun product. It would be great theater for Bradley to wear both hats, his every shot chronicled by the cameras of NBC, USA, the Golf Channel (and Netflix!).
Is Tom Brady Tony Romo’s Notah Begay? @FakePoulter
No, he’s the Smylie Kaufman of Terry Bradshaws.
Top Photo Caption: Rory McIlroy will have to fight back to heartbreak to reach a fifth major. (Getty Images/Richard Heathcote)
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