KAPALUA, Hawaii — PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan described a panorama Sunday of two rival leagues taking place completely different paths, even because the PGA Tour remains to be attempting to formulate plans for a revamped construction in 2024.
“We’re at some extent now the place it is product versus product,” Monahan mentioned.
He spoke in a proper setting for the primary time for the reason that Tour Championship in August, when he outlined a 2023 schedule of elevated tournaments that common $20 million in prize cash.
The PGA Tour started its yr at Kapalua for the Sentry Event of Champions. LIV Golf, the Saudi-funded league that Greg Norman launched in June, completed its inaugural yr with eight tournaments.
LIV Golf doesn’t resume till Feb. 23-26 at Mayakoba Golf Resort in Mexico, which had hosted a PGA Tour occasion yearly since 2007. The prize fund at every LIV occasion is $25 million, with $5 million directed towards a staff competitors.
Together with bonuses, Dustin Johnson made simply over $35.6 million in eight occasions.
For the reason that Tour Championship, the PGA Tour suspended six extra gamers — together with British Open champion Cameron Smith and Joaquin Niemann — for signing offers to play with LIV Golf. Smith would have been the defending champion this week at Kapalua.
Outdoors the ropes, there’s the matter of LIV’s antitrust lawsuit in opposition to the PGA Tour, and the tour’s countersuit in opposition to LIV. The unique lawsuit filed in August isn’t set for trial till January 2024, with a deadline to file for abstract judgment on the finish of June.
Monahan mentioned he can solely take note of what the PGA Tour is doing.
“We now have our schedule. We have laid it out and we will maintain getting higher and higher and higher,” Monahan mentioned. “They’ve theirs. And we will proceed to be probably the most pro-competitive, aspirational tour in males’s skilled golf.
“What they’ve may be very completely different from what now we have,” he mentioned. “We’re taking place our path, and so they’re taking place theirs.”
LIV Golf is understood for its 54-hole occasions with no cuts and a shotgun begin, combining particular person scores with 12 four-man groups. The circuit remains to be awaiting phrase on whether or not it’ll obtain factors from the Official World Golf Rating.
Outdoors of the problem from LIV Golf, the tour is engaged on a restructured schedule that gamers hope may have some endurance of a decade or longer. Key gamers have referred to this yr as a bridge to 2024.
The primary thought is to deliver the very best gamers extra usually and to offer followers a greater sense of understanding who’s enjoying and the place. LIV Golf, for instance, requires its gamers to be in all 14 occasions on its schedule, every time that’s accomplished.
There is also a push for smaller fields. The Sentry Event of Champions is the primary of 5 occasions this yr with no minimize. The opposite is the Match Play in Texas, which may very well be on its final leg, and the three FedEx Cup postseason occasions.
Even when the elevated occasions in 2024 have restricted fields, Monahan mentioned he felt it was vital that there nonetheless be a minimize.
“I’ve at all times felt a minimize is vital to the game,” he mentioned. “Relying the place we find yourself within the subject, that is completely a consideration.”
Monahan mentioned he expects to announce a fall schedule as early as March throughout The Gamers Championship. Will probably be an opportunity for some gamers to safe their standing for 2024, and he expects even the highest gamers may need to compete.
