PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — The wind that whipped off the Pacific Ocean was pushing close to 30 mph as it pushed sheets of rain into the faces of players trying to finish the third round of the Pebble Beach Pro-Am on Saturday.
In the nearby tunnel that awaited players once they putted out on the 18th green, one agent looked out onto the wet, windy panorama and quipped.
What appeared to the naked eye as some of the most uncomfortable weather for golf also became some of the most compelling action on the PGA Tour this season. As big names such as Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry and Tom Kim made their way up the leaderboard by relying on their shotmaking at one of the sport’s most iconic courses, the much-discussed “product” became must-watch TV.
“I think really good venues are a big part of the storyline,” McIlroy said Saturday. By shooting 66 on Sunday in much tamer weather, McIlroy secured his 27th PGA Tour victory — his first at Pebble Beach. “Sometimes on the PGA Tour that isn’t the case because whether you play a run-of-the-mill TPC or whatever it is, it just isn’t that interesting. If everything’s on the table for whatever this new look PGA Tour’s going to be, I think venues are going to be a big part of it.”
In some ways, the evolution of the Pebble Beach Pro-Am as an event over the past few years is a microcosm of how much the sport has been forced into change, and also how much it’s grappling with this very notion of compelling competition and entertainment.
Just a few years ago, the event did not feature the Scottie Schefflers of the world. It leaned into its pro-am identity as fans flocked to watch Bill Murray or their favorite NFL quarterbacks tee it up. Now, Pebble is a Signature Event without a cut and a $20 million purse. Twenty-seven of the top 30 players in the world played in the event over the weekend and the amateurs on hand are more CEO types than former or current celebrities. Macklemore is nowhere to be seen, but now McIlroy is here.
“It’s definitely more golfy,” said McIlroy, who had played this event only once until last year. “There’s pros and cons of both, right? What was The Crosby back in the day was a very cool event, but when AT&T steps up and pays the money that they paid for a Signature Event and the guys out here are playing for that sort of money, you sort of want it to feel more golf than entertainment.”
If there was a question that lingered on the Monterey Peninsula over the weekend as players competed for a $20 million purse, it was that one. While ratings for PGA Tour events continue to see a decline and the sport remains as splintered as ever, the topics of slow play, TGL, LIV Golf, the length of the schedule and smaller fields are all pointing at a crucial dilemma: How does the week-to-week product of the PGA Tour become more compelling? Can it? And what is a player’s responsibility in making the sport more entertaining?
“I never strived to be an entertainer,” world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler said. “If people want to watch and enjoy, then come on out and have a good time, but I’m not going to put on a show or do anything crazy to try to get more people to watch me. I think people like competition.”
TOMMY FLEETWOOD HAD just wrapped up his first round of the pro-am at Spyglass Hill. As he walked to find a shuttle that would take him back to the driving range, a young fan called out to him.
Fleetwood smiled. Shiels, the popular YouTube golfer who has nearly 3 million subscribers, often posts videos of him playing against tour pros. He also recently signed a deal with LIV Golf to be the league’s content creator.
“There’s just different forms of golf at the moment, including YouTube golf that is clearly very popular,” Fleetwood told ESPN. “[PGA Tour] ratings appear to have been going down and struggling. Obviously we miss Tiger Woods, but I guess the sport can’t rely on its one greatest superstar. So it’s tough.”
Some might call it fracturing; others might simply see it as diversification of the sport. McIlroy, for his part, said that though he hoped TGL was additive, the way golf has changed over the past few years had already diminished the PGA Tour product.
“I think there’s space for all of this,” McIlroy said. “I can see when the golf consumer might get a little fatigued of everything that’s sort of available to them. So to scale it back a little bit and maybe have a little more scarcity in some of the stuff that we do, like the NFL, I think mightn’t be a bad thing. … I think 47 or 50 tournaments a year is definitely too many.”
Billy Horschel argues that he has been preaching that less is more for years now. After his third round at Pebble Beach on Saturday, Horschel made his case again.
“We need to go away for a little bit,” Horschel said. “We need to go away, have some anticipation, let people be excited to get us back.”
Horschel, who debuted on Tour in 2009, said he has been around long enough to know the landscape has changed. It’s why he thinks there’s no point in competing with the NFL or college football in the fall and the PGA Tour schedule should go from January until before football begins.
“We shouldn’t worry about an old notion with the PGA Tour that if we’re not playing, it allows someone else to come in and take our space,” Horschel said. “Let’s get rid of some of that fatigue because I think maybe some of that entertainment value that some are worried about, the slow play, some of this stuff may go away if we get rid of it for 20 weeks out of the year, 22 weeks out of the year.”
On that topic of slow play, Collin Morikawa was definitive.
“Just start fining players,” Morikawa told ESPN after his second round. “Once people get fined, they don’t want to get fined again, unless you see this few NBA guys that just don’t care. But for the most part, we don’t want to lose our money on a stupid fine like that. So just slap the big fine, whoever it is, you got to take it.”
When pressed on whether a fine would be enough to actually fix slow play instead of a stroke penalty, Morikawa went one step further.
“Make it both,” he said. “Why not?”
Slow rounds at Torrey Pines the week before and critiques from TV announcers fueled the conversation around the topic. Players were asked for their opinions and fixes at every turn. Others were called out on the broadcast, while Tour officials took the opportunity to approach the topic head-on in a meeting with reporters last Wednesday, announcing a number of proposals or changes aimed at speeding up play and keeping players more accountable, in advance of smaller fields next season.
With the advent of TGL, the concept of a shot clock, which the league employs, was a hot topic this past week as questions about entertainment value became a focal point. The Tour, for its part, says it does have an internal shot clock that it uses to try to keep players accountable, and is considering publicizing some of the data as well as any fines levied.
“It’s brought about a change in behavior, which we really like to see,” said Gary Young, PGA Tour senior vice president of rules and competitions. “We have sat down with players to review with them their average shot time on tee shots, approach shots, putts, how can they improve? We don’t share at this moment statistics with the world and especially fines, but they’re taking place behind the scenes.”
As Morikawa pointed out, fixing slow play is not the be-all-end-all solution to making the product suddenly better but rather, it will go a long way toward making it feel more fast-paced and approachable. Wyndham Clark, for his part, called for more transparency on how golf broadcasts are constructed and what can be done to change them.
“I think the way people view golf on TV needs to be adjusted. I think every sport, including baseball, has adjusted with the times and I feel like golf has stayed in its same lane for a long time,” said Clark, who added he would welcome a shot clock. “I would love to figure out how to solve it. If that’s the players giving up some, if that’s the Tour, if that’s the broadcast, if we all come together and collectively say what’s the best thing for golf, I think that people are at that point with all of this.”
Whether it’s a shot clock, smaller fields, fewer events, or the opposite, the split opinions shed a glimpse into the difficulty of what golf is being asked to, or in some ways, forced to do in the middle of this current landscape: evolve.
“I think we don’t really know what we want right now. Do we want scores near par? Do we want really hard golf courses, do we want interesting golf courses, do we want fast pace of play?” Maverick McNealy said. “I feel like there’s a give and take. One side we say we want playing opportunities, the other side we want stronger fields. That’s not something where we can have both.”
TWO WEEKS AGO, Justin Thomas sent a letter to the PGA Tour membership asking players for their cooperation on being more open to in-round interviews, extra TV opportunities with broadcast partners and increased media availability with the hopes of increasing fan engagement. Charley Hoffman followed suit with a letter of his own, addressing pace of play and similar issues.
“If I want something different, to be perfectly honest, I can’t bitch about it if I won’t do anything about it,” Thomas said of the letter after his first round last week.
For some players, the concept of trying to be entertainers at the same time as trying to be the best player over the course of 72 holes is, at first glance, incongruous.
“My job is to hit golf shots,” McNealy said after his opening round last week.
“There’s definitely different forms of golf now aside from that competitive tour life,” said Fleetwood, who is part of TGL. “It’s somebody else’s job at the top to try and make it all work and try and see how we remain current, I guess. But for the time being, I’m just a professional golfer.”
Thomas is not naive to the fact that an extra player interview or media interaction will not suddenly change the way golf is viewed or bring in thousands more fans. He also added that he’s not worried about the PGA Tour, but he is trying, and asking his fellow Tour players, to try to view it as an investment in the future of the sport.
“It’s just more of we have to be a little selfless and kind of think of the future,” Thomas said. “There’s only so long we’ve got Tiger. … And just think if we almost kind of started the trend, if you will, then maybe it’ll just get better and better. Like anything, I just want it to get better.”
Morikawa said he agreed. He credits players who took part in the Netflix show, “Full Swing” for trying something new and pointed out there’s also a certain kind of stubbornness involved in all of this.
“We’re all so used to being stuck in our own ways but just because that was the past doesn’t mean you can’t change and try to be more entertaining,” Morikawa said. “Golf’s hard for it to be entertaining, I fully understand. We’re not tackling anyone, we’re not dunking on anyone. But I think it’s an overall thing, from the broadcast team, the people interviewing us on the course to ourselves. Everyone kind of needs to do a reset and say, ‘How do we take all of this and try to make golf more entertaining, but still keep the essence of what makes it golf?'”
Though the “what” might be simple — more player access, better broadcasts, more competitive fields, faster play — the “how” remains most crucial.
“To a certain extent, golf is golf,” Horschel said. “Obviously the other sports are different. There’s so much fast pace and there’s stuff happening all the time. Golf, there’s not always that going on. We are out here competing. I don’t know what we need to do to make it more entertaining.”
What better entertainment actually looks like is up to interpretation. According to the Tour’s fan survey, golf fans in the 18-34 age demo listed their three most important factors in assessing fandom which were, on-course personality, off-course personality and finally, competitive success in that order. Players cited interactions they’ve tried to have with fans while out on the golf course, while others reverted to their game as being the way they think of entertaining. Some are hyperfocused on slow play or players equally supporting every event on the schedule. Others, like Clark, think this unique time in the game should be used to try things, to not stick to what professional golf has been but rather try to find what it will be.
“I would love if the Tour did forward thinking instead of some reactive thinking and said, you know what, let’s try to be the best we can in the next 10, 20 years,” Clark said. “Let’s do something unique and new and try to really bring that fan engagement back to professional golf.”
The Tour, for its part, says its fan survey yielded results that are making officials rethink not only pace-of-play ideas but how to show more of the kinds of golf shots fans want while potentially changing formats for the Tour Championship, which has received backlash for its staggered strokes format.
“Fans are telling us that they want to see consequential play,” said Tyler Dennis, chief competitions officer. “They want to see more drama, they want [the sport] to pull them more every round into the engagement.”
For all the consternation about the state of the game, the way the week at Pebble Beach transpired exhibited a simple recipe that players kept pointing to, but one that felt increasingly difficult to create unless it occurred at major championships: the best players in the world playing one of the best golf courses in the world. It helped, too, that the one raising the trophy by Sunday was McIlroy, one of the sport’s most popular players and one of its leading voices.
“When we’re growing up dreaming of professional golfers and trying to get the best out of ourselves, the last thing on our mind is being an entertainer,” McIlroy said earlier in the week. “We’re competitive people at the end of the day, we want to play against the best players in the world and we want to try to come out on top. I think that in itself should be entertaining to people.”
And yet despite the high mark that the tournament appeared to strike with its star-studded field, its historic playing ground and its compelling conditions, it was also a reminder that not every week on Tour can measure up nor should it.
“I think every week is important,” Viktor Hovland said. “You can’t just hope that one week out of the year is going to save the rest of the Tour.”