In this week’s edition, we break down a contentious week both on and off the golf course and learn what keeps USGA CEO Mike Whan awake at night.
Made Cut
Legacy. Given what has been a grinding and, at times, grueling season, it would have been understandable if Rory McIlroy locked himself away somewhere quiet until the PGA Tour gets back in the signature-event business early next year.
Instead, he’s back at work this week on the DP World Tour at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship where he can clinch his sixth Race to Dubai title with a runner-up finish. That would tie the Northern Irishman with Seve Ballesteros at second on the all-time European season-long champions list and leave him two behind Colin Montgomerie, who won eight Order of Merit titles.
“I pride myself – I’m a European player. I would like to go down as the most successful European of all time,” McIlroy said. “Obviously, Race to Dubai wins would count to that but also major championships and, hopefully, I’ve got a few more Ryder Cups ahead of me as well. So that’s something that I would like to, I think is a goal that’s quite attainable over the next 10 years.”
Remembering Jon. Erik van Rooyen dedicated his victory at last year’s World Wide Technology Championship to his college teammate, Jon Trasamar, who had learned just before the start of last year’s event that his melanoma cancer, which had been in remission, returned.
Trasamar died less than a week after that victory and van Rooyen admitted that his return this week to El Cardonal at Diamante to defend his title has been “triggering.”
“For sure, being back here triggered it. I think about him often, but obviously coming up on Monday, it’s a year since he passed next week, so obviously being here, coming up on Monday, thinking about him a lot, thinking about Allie a lot, his wife,” said van Rooyen, who is marking his golf balls this week with the letters “JT” to honor Trasamar. “When I played the pro-am yesterday, I played the back nine and coming down 18 I got a bit emotional coming down there just with everything that transpired last year. Yeah, he’s absolutely on my mind.”
Despite those memories and the emotions of returning to Diamante, van Rooyen opened with a 4-under 68 Thursday and was tied for fourth.
Made Cut-Did Not Finish (MDF)
Politics. McIlroy stumbled, however inadvertently, into a political lion’s den when he was asked this week if Tuesday’s presidential election outcome could impact the ongoing negotiations between the Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
“Given today’s news with what has happened in America, I think that clears the way a little bit. So, we’ll see,” he offered before adding the obvious a few moments later, “But I think as the President of the United States again, he’s probably got bigger things to focus on than golf.”
McIlroy’s political faux pas aside, the idea that Donald Trump’s second term as president could fast-track a potential Department of Justice investigation ignores the facts. The current investigation is focused on the Tour, not LIV Golf or the PIF, and has been going on for a few years.
A potential deal between the Tour and PIF could lead to an expanded investigation, likely by another regulatory agency, but as we’ve learned after nearly a year and a half of wait-and-see, the challenges of a potential deal go well beyond a DOJ investigation.
Sustainability. No, not the kind of sustainability that keeps greenkeepers up at night. This type of sustainability keeps chief executives, like the USGA’s Mike Whan, awake.
In a sprawling interview with GolfDigest.com, Whan covered a wide-range of topics, but perhaps the most telling – and apropos, given the state of the professional game – came when he was asked what “other important questions” keep him up at night.
“Obviously, there’s a significant arms race with money,” Whan said. “When I took this job, our women’s U.S. Open purse was $5.5 million and now it’s $12 million. Our men’s purse was $12 million and now it’s $21.5 million.”
Whan went on to explain that those increases have been fueled by media rights deals which could possibly impact the USGA’s ability to keep pace with the outside economic forces that have led to recent increases.
“If those [rights deals and purses] are going in different directions, we’ve got tough choices ahead. If that doesn’t keep you awake as a CEO, you’re not spending time on the right stuff,” he said.
Missed Cut
Blow back. The Tour likely anticipated criticism from players when it unveiled its proposed plan to reduce the number of fully exempt members by about 20 percent beginning in 2026, but the level of push back has been surprising.
“It’s terrible, it really is,” Padriag Harrington said Wednesday on “Golf Today” of the proposed plan. “I can’t think of how bad it is. At the end of the day, the people who are on the inside are voting to keeping the thing tighter and more closed. Sure, why don’t we have 12 people involved if I’m included and everyone else can go home.
“The Tour was running just fine. I know there is certain pressure on time to get fields finished when they go to 156 during certain times of year, but players will deal with that. This is one way to solve one of the biggest issues in golf, pace of play, but you want to give everyone the opportunity.”
The plan would reduce nearly every field on Tour and drop the number of fully exempt members from 125 off the previous season’s points list to 100, along with a reduction in the number of memberships awarded to the Korn Ferry Tour to the top 20 (down from the top 30).
“I thought [the proposed plan] was asinine like most of our recent changes,” Lucas Glover said. “Limiting players doesn’t help competition. We’re the only sport that decreased the number of teams or players, every other sport has expanded their playoffs or expanded their fields. We are doing the opposite. The Tour’s job description is to do what’s right for the membership, not a few members.”
The policy board is scheduled to vote on the plan in two weeks and last week’s announcement felt like a trial balloon to gauge player reaction, which if Harrington and Glover are the standard, has not been the best. The plan will likely be approved but it won’t be overwhelmingly popular.
