Competition? The PGA can't compete with the SAUDI billions!

Ya they probably can't. That's why the eventual merger and/or bans lifted is inevitable.

Team Aussie, I wonder when Hedeki announces.

Learned something interesting about LIV during the hearing so far. Per the plaintiff’s attorney, in some LIV contracts all prize money is recouped by the tour. So in other words assuming that’s accurate, it doesn’t matter financially what they shoot.

Crazy.

Liesh seems like your prototype Liv player.

Cam and Hidecki will hurt though.

This is why I think the PGA is in the right to ban them. Their best players leaving clearly hurts the PGA Tour, that much is obvious. And if they can still come play Tour events whenever they want, what is the incentive to stay?

Meanwhile the players who leave are not harmed at all, they are making 10x more money than they were making before.

Oh man if they snag Matsuyama its gonna hurt. He's been one of my favourites to watch for a long time now.

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Greg Norman: zero

Jay Monahan: 1

Kinda like what everything other tour has been dealing with the past few decades, specifically the DP tour. They even had to change the Ryder Cup qualifying because so many players were leaving.

SRM from the Tigah thread

so any tourney winnings (which they shower upon everyone, including caddies) are simply deducts from money you already have?
seems reasonable the contracts also include a minimum number of tournaments
also seems reasonable this is a focused cash flash at the beginning to give the impression of limitless funds, but their money is already spent (including the trump fundraisers)

The contract thing is very interesting. Granted we don’t know the full contract terms, but doesn’t this really disincentive a quality golf? Are players really going to work as hard on their game (which we know is an obscene amount of hours) when where they place really doesn’t matter?

How hard are Danny Chopra and Ben Crane working on their games? How many fans are tuning in on a Thursday to see these two? If the tour addressed these issues (and others) then LIV wouldn't be a threat no matter how much money the Saudis throw at them.

I mean the whole thing is a joke anyway. Quality golf is barely a consideration.

The entire way they are marketing this, is that these players are living the dream of easy riches. It sure ain't about grinding on the range.

Hey, slow pony. Post #554.

I have seen the lawyers are trying to backtrack this somewhat, but their attempt doesn't make much sense and there were some snippets caught of the legal team at the hearing whispering about it.

At one time there were probably notes on this from the legal team, but they've probably been flushed down the toilet by now.

Greg Norman is known for taking care of any young Aussie golfer coming onto the PGA tour the past 20 years so it’s not surprising to see the Aussie boys switching to LIV, he’s an icon to them.

Plus the announcement of three LIV tournaments in Australia.

Sure, and the contact thing just reinforces that. They’re throwing out so much money that this might not even be a factor, but there has to be some consideration to the fact that all the “good” players have huge guaranteed payments offset by winnings, and in theory one of those guys is going to be the winner a high percentage of the time, so for any given tournament LIV isn’t *really * out the $4 million. If LIV persists, and I think it will, it will be interesting to see the point where one of the guaranteed money players actually starts winning prize money (reality being we will probably never know since it won’t be public).

the pseudo competition that is LIV golf exhibitions certainly won't help their application with the governing board of the OWGR. one would think the application would be rejected out of hand if this is proven to be true

Certainty didn't see Cameron Young joining LIV. Going to be interesting see the wave of players going after the playoffs. Almost starting to feel bad for the PGA.

The thing is, the PGA will be fine. Plenty of talented young golfers waiting for their chance. I just hope the players going over to LIV get completely blocked out of majors and can't come back to the PGA tour. Honestly, that was the choice they made, so to let them off the hook seems a bit unfair to those who opted to stay on the tour.

If the best talent is on liv then people will start to value winning them and not majors. Magic aura only goes so far.

LIV gonna need to drain a LOT more top talent before that happens.

Not saying it's impossible, just that they're not close.

Also, if the stakes aren't real on LIV (per the contracts that have been see thus far) how real is the competition? Even if it has the "best talent", what does that matter when no-one is incentivized to try?

The other interesting thing is that it answers my question about why no one seems to care how the teams are divided up. You would think putting all the best players on 1 or 2 teams would cause some outrage among the other players. But since the winnings just come out of their guaranteed amount anyway, no real reason to care I guess.

Just bizarre to me, I've never seen a sports league where the number one selling point to potential fans seems to be "look at this ridiculous money our players are making for doing so little, isn't it awesome!"

The entire charade of pro sports is to convince fans that the players care about more than the money, even though they are unimaginably wealthy win or lose.

I find it fascinating that you have no idea who won any of the LIV events while simultaneously knowing what every LIV player thinks of their team.

This would be the worst if true.

I can't stand meaningless sports. If you're not punished or rewarded for not putting in the time to get better or you have done then what's the actual point. It was a bit like when the Euro footy teams try to create a super league. Everyone knew it was a money grab but we also knew especially in England where any team can grind their way up from the lower divisions and play the best, This super league was essentially locking everyone out and guaranteeing teams who joined this league a status for x amount of years regardless of how they performed.

They also made it seem like we wanted to see the best vs the best every week which in turn will just make it a bit meh. When you have Bayern Munich vs Liverpool once every couple of years it makes it more special if you played them kind of teams every week then it's just becomes the same old.