Is it Fun to Be a Golf Fan Right Now?
I had an interesting exchange with a Twitter follower this morning.
In response to a tweet I sent comparing LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed upstart professional golf tour, to that of an alternate dystopian reality where Tiger Woods did not exist and was therefore not entertaining, this user suggested that if I “love the sport [he couldn’t] see how [I] could objectively say it wasn’t entertaining.”
Hilarity ensued — as is the typical cadence on social media — where I pointed out his subjectivity on my objectivity was ironic… but the exchange made me think:
For the casual golf fan, is any of this LIV Tour vs PGA Tour stuff of any interest whatsoever? Is it actually fun to be a golf fan right now?
Later this afternoon I am playing in a golf outing to celebrate the life of a family friend who tragically died last year in a freak medical emergency. Most of my wife’s family is playing in a field that, by last count, nears 140 players on a golf course our late friend/family member loved. My wife, who has her own medical struggles but still loves golf, is also playing today. Many others haven’t played golf once this year… or last year.
They are simply choosing to pay an entrance fee, scrounge up a few sets of golf clubs, and play awful golf for upwards of five hours on a day that calls for rain. All because they cared so much for our the event’s late honoree.
All of my family and friends know I run this website, which means that I will undoubtedly be asked my opinion about LIV Golf at some point. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if the topic never comes up, either.
In fact, in the days leading up to today’s outing, many of the aforementioned family and I prepared at Cog Hill’s driving range. While they toiled over ways to get a 7-iron airborne, question why they couldn’t use tees in the fairway and laugh at each other’s banana-slice drives, the topic of LIV or the PGA Tour never came up. Not once.
It was almost as if… shockingly… there was an aspect of golf that exists outside the headlines and social media. Weird!
It was in that moment I realized that I’m simply too wrapped up in my own head about all of this professional golf nonsense that I was completely missing the game of golf itself. In a way, it was passing by right before my eyes while I spent more time thinking of a lame joke to tweet than acknowledging something truly special:
This afternoon will mark the first time, in my 18-year relationship with my wife, that all of us will be on the same golf course at the same time.
Is it fun to be a golf fan right now? The question is much simpler than any answer I can settle on.
As someone who writes and talks about all aspects of golf on a daily basis, I unabashedly believe that one aspect of the game — the professional side — is no fun at all. Professional sports are often sought out to distract us from the drama and nonsense in real life, yet one could argue that American society is so bad right now that divisiveness and arguments are unavoidable, even in pro golf. LIV Golf picked the perfect time to make its debut, because we have never been more primed to take sides and combat those who disagree with us.
On the other hand, the sport itself — the game that you and I can go play right now — is stronger than ever before. The initial COVID surge of new players is dwindling, but it also allowed more new players to catch the golf bug (pun intended). Metrics are normalizing as any normal bell curve does, but the game of golf is better off for it.
LIV Golf and the PGA Tour, with all of their faults and marketing campaigns, are not for the fans. We are secondary consumers of products that are going to happen anyway. In the case of the PGA Tour, fans are needed to attractive sponsorship dollars to increase the scale of the Tour’s product, but we are not the primary customer. The sponsors are.
LIV Golf? They are only appealing to the players themselves and nobody else. It’s a country club men’s league that allows us to watch (or not). That’s it.
But despite all of that nonsense, a game remains unfettered and willing to accept more fans and participants. We just have to open our eyes and realize it.
