Pat Burke:
Thank you for joining in. You offer a very different perspective than most to this debate.
Thank you Bruce.
I’m not without opinion and like the great quote
“Often wrong, never in doubt”.
This is an interesting time for professional competitive golf. Not the game of golf, professional golf.
The US Tour has held control over much of the pro golf landscape, and while playing, I often heard “the players are the tour” which was usually uttered by someone like Finchem or one the clique and greeted with many chuckles or rolled eyes. It’s tough for me, the pga tour was a stupidly good opportunity for me to play and chase dreams, but as largely a hockey fan who was lucky to know a lot of great athletes from other sports, the bureaucracy of the tour was taking advantage of the players and for many (not all) it was a one way street.
We played for a smaller % of revenues than the other main sports (my era) and there was, in my opinion, a lot of deflection from the tour when we asked pointed questions about retirement/bonus pools/ and other issues.
Many times the very direct answer was “just play better when you brought up concerns.
When I started to see some success and traveled a lot, you could experience the power the tour held and impacted other tours. The tour loved to create challenges that kept players from their home country tours and wanted to really control players.
I’ve always felt the tour sat high on the hill with little concern for those below them, which made them ripe for a challenge.
Financially, LIV is a giant threat, but Saudi Arabia is a pretty easy foe to stir opposition to.
Some feel that way about Norman, I don’t. My opinion of the Norman situation is it was created in the first world championships where Finchem rallied the good ol boys and really did a number on the IDEA Norman was presenting all while going around creating the same thing in WGC events, the only difference being it was pga tour controlled. Sounds familiar.
So I’m happy to see the tour challenged, and once again not surprised at all they were able to find millions more suddenly, they always do when challenged. I wish the challenge came from backers you could get behind more.
So, my opinions to a point. I understand all who hate what LIV is doing, it’s very difficult