Stop patronising golf fans – We didn’t ask for The Showdown

The last two years in golf have shown that its players and leaders enjoy making money while patronising golf fans.

Unluckily for us, both of these concepts will be encompassed this December when an unserious hit-and-giggle lands on your screens that the competitors and organisers say you asked for and that you might not be able to watch.

“At a time where the professional game has felt divided, we believe this event can bring fans an incredible day of entertainment,” Rory McIlroy said.

“It’s time to give the fans what they want to see, bringing the best players in the world together to compete outside of the major championships,” Bryson DeChambeau said.

I won’t bore you with the statements of the other two protagonists, Scottie Scheffler (McIlroy’s partner) and Brooks Koepka (DeChambeau’s partner). They convey the same message with the words moved around a little.

You’ve been delivered an event you definitely asked for anyway. So you might as well close this tab and wait for December 17 when all the fun starts.

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PGA Tour vs LIV Golf match only serves to enhance the majors, like most events in the sport

I can’t speak for other people but I’ve been a golf fan for about 15 years.

I’ve never asked for a meaningless pairs match, played in a city famous for gambling and excess, at a golf course that charges over $1,200 to play, on a platform with steep subscription fees (likely TNT), between four players who wouldn’t be participating unless it was worth their while.

And they are telling me this is what I’ve been waiting for.

I’m a fan of all four players to some extent, and I have maximum respect for their achievements. But what is completely unpalatable and cringeworthy is when they, and it is certainly not just them, act as if The Showdown at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas is a noble crusade to entertain golf fans and to fix the professional game.

Players shouldn’t be tasked with what golf fans like watching anyway. They are players who should pick their own schedules based on their own circumstances. It’s then up to the tour to utilise the personalities and the golf courses to grow the audience.

I know many people who love and are obsessed with golf. My brother, my dad, my uncle, my grandad to name a few. But I don’t know anyone who watches golf outside of the majors like me. Golf has only ever been about the majors, a bit like tennis. I don’t have an issue with that. They are the tournaments that golf fans remember people winning.

When Shane Lowry retires, he’ll be remembered as an Open champion, and Matt Fitzpatrick as a US Open champion. No one cares that they won the Bridgestone or the Heritage.

What I present here is a lose-lose situation for people like McIlroy who involve themselves in exhibitions like The Showdown and TGL Golf. He will never entertain anyone as much as when he is competing for a major. This isn’t McIlroy’s fault either.

But what he, Scheffler, Koepka and DeChambeau are contributing to is more self-indulgent, money-driven and exclusive content that golf fans do not relate to at all, but what has clouded the sport since the birth of LIV Golf.

It is no different to when several top players endorsed the PGA Tour’s Signature Events, some of which removed cuts and took fields to around 70 players, which obviously favoured players at the top of the food chain.

The LIV Golf League started in 2022 and began giving $4 million to every tournament winner. The PGA Tour entered panic mode and responded by dusting off the millions it kept in the cupboard to essentially do the same thing at the aforementioned Signature Events. Golfers, as much as I love and respect many of them, became the most heinously overpaid athletes on the planet overnight.

After DeChambeau and Koepka made their own lucrative switches, Jon Rahm reportedly accepted £450 million to join the Saudi-funded circuit. In football transfer speak, what on earth does that make Tiger Woods worth?

There have been rumours online to suggest The Showdown might be filling each player’s pockets with $4 million. Let’s just say that’s wrong and this information was inaccurate by $3 million, or more. We are still looking at a bonkers sum of money for 18 holes of golf.

I don’t care about the reasons for golfers doing anything. Just don’t tell me it’s for me.

Rahm didn’t join LIV Golf because the format is better for the fans to watch. Jay Monahan didn’t add more zeros to his PGA Tour purses for the fans. Greg Norman didn’t start a new breakaway league to give the fans something new to watch.

The Showdown could’ve tagged to the above paragraph. I’d love McIlroy to win another major, as I would his three pals but putting my admiration for their personalities and golfing superpowers aside, the new climate of greed and over-evaluation has led golfers to think they know what fans want.

This exhibition, and like many PGA Tour and LIV Golf events, only serves to distinguish the majors. They really are the gold standard. While pockets become more full, the memories of fans do not and every time another golfer tells me they are doing ‘x’ for the fans, they’re just kicking another ball in their own goal.

Please just read this line from the press release of The Showdown and try not to feel condescended:

“By blending elements of traditional international team golf like the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup – which routinely create some of the sport’s most dramatic and memorable moments – into a single 18-hole event, the unique format will ensure that high-stakes competition is at the heart of the contest, maximizing the stakes and delivering pressure on every shot.”

Does that say the Ryder Cup?

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What do you make of the LIV Golf vs PGA Tour match? Will you watch the PGA Tour vs LIV Golf match? Tell us on X!