The fans. The fans. The fans. That is who Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler, Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka will be playing for later this year in Las Vegas in the latest rendition of made-for-TV exhibition golf dubbed “The Showdown.” The four players will bridge the divide between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf for one night only showing golf fans a glimpse of what may be possible in the future.
Or was it the past? I keep forgetting.
While the meticulously worded quotes in the press release exuded excitement straight from the horses’ mouths, let’s not lose track of what this event is a race towards. (Hint: It’s not entertaining the fans.) It’s what helped fractured the sport and remains the item those within the game cannot stop talking about.
It’s money.
All four players reportedly received equity in the venture, which has plans to go international in the coming years with the next stop being the Middle East where one of the major investors is based. Competitors will also receive appearance fees for playing.
This is not to say money is bad or this exhibition will be boring. There will be viral mic’d up moments when DeChambeau brings up the U.S. Open to McIlroy … or when Koepka brings up having five major championships to McIlroy’s four … or perhaps when Scheffler apologizes for making more than DeChambeau and Koepka last season despite the lack of upfront guaranteed money.
Those will be entertaining clips that will have 24-48 hours of shelf life. But the entire announcement ultimately begs a single question:
Was anyone really asking for this?
If this was truly about “the fans,” which all four players mentioned, wouldn’t it be most ideal to put this on DeChambeau’s YouTube — north of 1.5 million subscribers — for us to stream at our own convenience?
This is more or less mimicking “The Match” — which, for the record, I did not buy into from the beginning — the name is literally a synonym.
That first match between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson was generally alright — considering it was the two best players of this era and perhaps two of the top 10 ever engaged in a rare battle – even if it did need some tinkering.
Add in Tom Brady and Peyton Manning for a spin, and sure, you had my attention once as background content while I scrolled through my phone. Since then, the exhibition golf phenomenon has lost its luster with athletes like Charles Barkley, Travis Kelce, Aaron Rodgers and Stephen Curry trying hands at it.
That is where “The Showdown” believes it has found an edge. Whereas others went too far in the direction of celebrities and non-golfers — a similar shift has happened in boxing — this consortium is going to focus on golfers who recently are only playing each other four times a year and often not head-to-head.
Between international exhibition golf, three different professional circuits (on basically three different continents) and the indoor simulator TGL set to debut in January, fans don’t have time to breathe between bites. Just look at the declining viewership for the exhibition matches as proof.
It’s as if golf is a buffet at which the patrons have determined they’re full yet the manager keeps coming out anyway shoving plates of reheated fettuccine alfredo in front of them.
Instead of fans being allowed to fill their bellies with a full plate of the best cuisine imaginable at a time when it can be prepared more expertly than ever before, we are left with players and businessmen — under the guise of meeting fans’ needs — filling their pockets while driving overconsumption of a meal that tastes all too familiar.
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