The Majors have an important decision to make on the eligibility of LIV Golf players

Could Augusta National ban former champions from competing because of their LIV Golf affiliation? What would Bobby Jones think?

Rob Schumacher/USA Today

It wasn’t too long ago that the Big Four were furious at the decision by Greg Norman and his LIV Golf Tour to take on professional golf – or more accurately, the PGA Tour.

Golf is generally a fraternity and not everyone is welcome to join.

Now, with LIV Golf’s inaugural event on the books and the list of top-tier players growing (Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed and Pat Perez the latest), the majors have a decision to make: support- they the tradition or do they invite the aberrant LIV? Tour to join the club?

The PGA Tour has made its feelings known about the LIV Tour and while the DP World Tour has been relatively quiet, with its financial health tied to the PGA Tour acquiring a minority stake in European Tour Productions and PGA Tour Commissioner Jay With Monahan receiving a seat on the European Tour board, it’s clear his European stance will follow the PGA Tour’s lead.

The majors – the Masters, the PGA Championship, the US Open and the British Open – are first and foremost businesses and excluding the Masters, the PGA and two open probably could not survive and clearly would not be able to provide amateur golf services or other programs to support and develop the game.

Even the Masters, which seems to have more money than the others, would be affected over time.

As a business, the relationship between the PGA Tour and the majors makes perfect sense. But as defections mount, with 20 PGA Tour players now on the outlier tour, as a business the majors need to seriously consider what makes sense to them individually.

When the war started between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, the belief was that the four majors would have the back of the PGA Tour and that players who jumped onto the rival tour would lose their access to the majors.

But that has changed, first with the US Open reiterating that it is an open championship, allowing exempt LIV players to compete next week at the Country Club outside of Boston.

At the same time, the USGA left the door open for what could happen next year with its qualifying process that would clearly take into account LIV golf, but not in a positive way.

“Our decision regarding our home ground for the 2022 US Open should not be construed as endorsement by the USGA of an alternate hosting entity, or endorsement of individual player actions or comments,” the USGA said in its statement. communicated. “Rather, it’s simply a response to whether or not the USGA is considering playing in an alternate event, without the consent of their home tour, an infraction that should disqualify them from the US Open.”

Would the USGA really want to jeopardize the quality of the US Open?

If they turned down players, what would their TV partners and sponsors say when the pitch, interest and ratings started to suffer?

Wouldn’t turning down LIV players send the wrong message and be the bigger story and ultimately eclipse its own event?

These are just a few of the issues facing all majors.

In the end, you come back to the overwhelming majority that this is a business.

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Is the value of the Masters exhausted if five or 10 of the previous champions aren’t invited to the Champions Dinner on Tuesday night or lose their lifetime exemptions because they left the PGA Tour?

Everything at Augusta National is measured by what Bobby Jones would do.

“I hope he would be proud,” Augusta National President Fred Ridley said in April when asked how Jones would feel about the situation at Augusta National under his tenure. “I hope he will feel that we continue to carry the tradition and the values that he thought were so important in the game. I think he would be amazed.

It’s unclear what Jones would think of the LIV Golf insurrection, but you’d think the game’s biggest fan wouldn’t be happy if the Masters became political football. Actions of not inviting former champions to dinner or excluding them from competition can do just that.

Augusta has shown that she isn’t really concerned with what others outside of Magnolia Lane think. They fought the issue of women’s membership for years, even though they didn’t deliberately deny women’s membership, they were just unwilling to do what others told them to do and to make a statement by expanding their membership to include women.

The tournament even went to extraordinary lengths of broadcasting their event without sponsors or advertisers for all four rounds in 2003, giving IBM, Coca-Cola and Citigroup political coverage of women’s groups.

Eventually, on its own schedule, Augusta National expanded its membership to two women, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina financier Darla Moore.

This situation may be more difficult for Augusta than women’s membership. With many C-suite members from multinational corporations and Jones’ legacy, the Masters may not be able to ignore the LIV Tour or its players.

PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh is a businessman, former CEO of Deutsche Bank Americas and managing director of investment firm Silver Lake.

Waugh has two issues to deal with, the PGA Championship next May and the Ryder Cup in Rome next September.

At last month’s PGA in Southern Hills, Waugh, who has been extremely close to Monahan since the days when Deutsche Bank sponsored the PGA Tour event in Boston and Monahan was the tournament director, supported the Tour.

Waugh has taken the position that the PGA is a big proponent of the ecosystem as it is and believes the league’s structure is somewhat flawed.

“The Tour belongs to the players, which means it’s all ultimately up to the players,” Waugh said, emphasizing his position that bringing outside money into golf would be a mistake. “As soon as you put money into it, it’s going to create a need to come back, a need to exit, and a lot of things that change the dynamics of that, which we don’t think is necessarily good for the ecosystem. .”

Waugh admitted they would have plenty of time before the next PGA at Oak Hill to see where everything goes but said according to their bylaws you can only play in the PGA Championship if you are a member of a recognized tour .

When it comes to the Ryder Cup, it’s as simple as you need to be a member in good standing of the PGA of America. Usually that means paying your dues, but that’s not something the PGA of America is willing to define.

Ultimately, Waugh is a businessman and understands the potential financial exposure his organization could face with a membership of over 24,000 PGA professionals to support.

The PGA Championship and Ryder Cup are the cash cows that keep the organization afloat, and banning players from either event is like the problem Whan would face at the USGA, Ridley at Augusta National and Martin Slumbers at R&A – the potential to release an inferior product and potentially roll the dice on their future.

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