Only two of the top 30 players in the world were on the Honda Classic 2023 at the weekend. That’s peanuts compared to the two previous PGA Tour tournaments: the Phoenix Open and the Genesis Invitational. However, due to the new structure of the Tour, all three events have their own identities and consequential contexts that often elude the tournament and, in fact, may be why it is in its current position.
Let me explain.
Tournaments in Phoenix and Riviera are title fights. First Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm and Nick Taylor fought to the end at TPC Scottsdale — the former for a chance to add to their historic resumes and the latter for a life-changing win. The following week at the Riviera, Rahm sparred with Max Homa and Keith Mitchell. Homa and Rahm will take their third win of the season (and the Player of the Year driver’s seat) while Mitchell is vying for the biggest win of his life.
While Phoenix and Riviera did not differ significantly in pitch strength or perception from the previous year, the Tour’s new mandate that all the top players must compete in the top 13 events has strengthened both. those two events into big ticket weeks.
The Honda Classic belongs to Chris Kirk, who hasn’t won in eight years, and Eric Cole, who ranks 330 in the Official World Golf Ranking. Hardly a heavyweight, but they played against the backdrop of something bigger than themselves. Regardless of the player, it’s extremely exciting golf.
The PGA Tour has a uniformity problem. Understandably, it wants every event to be the same. It pushes its leagues to look the same for nearly 50 weeks of the year. This has major (and pretty obvious) problems. A little humor, the arrival of LIV Golf motivated the members of Tour (ie the players) to try to solve them.
While it’s not obvious, the PGA Tour is really two tours: 13 advanced events and everything else. This may sound like a bad thing, but it really helps to contextualize the entire tournament. This fact, although implicit until now, does two things that are very important to the Tour.
provide identity
One thing the PGA Tour has sometimes lacked over the years is the identity for its tournaments. Sometimes Justin Thomas will win a Honda Classic. Sometimes Matt Jones will. Do you know what Honda Classic is now? A launch pad for someone’s career. You could argue that this always happens, but the reality is that events like Honda are always a combination of big stars and others trying to make their way. Ironically (and I can’t believe I’m saying this), it seems that the complete elimination of all the stars — because they were required to compete in many other events — helped Honda. and leagues love that.
This may not be true globally. Is it good in the short term for the Tour’s TV deals and sponsor partnerships? Sure is not. The Honda Classic’s ratings aren’t going to be very good, and Honda is leaving the sponsor role anyway after this year (possibly due to the fact that its field ratings have dropped off the planet). However, in the long run, Tour’s product is getting better for the following reason.
Background is king
You know what the PGA Tour’s most important asset is? Big Championship. Majors provide the context for the PGA Tour and vice versa. In a talent-driven sport like golf, context is everything, and that’s why LIV hasn’t evolved and likely won’t be like a golf tournament. Now you are starting to see an actual line. The Korn Ferry Tour takes on non-elevated events, puts on advanced events, puts on major championships. One provides context for the other. This is a good thing! Non-elevated events have a chance to be what everyone thought Korn Ferry Tours could be.
Things are not perfect for the Tour. It needs to provide more clear around how you go from non-enhanced events to enhanced events. That would give an even deeper context to tournaments like the Honda Classic. It needs to clean up its field qualification categories. It needs to fix its FedEx Cup points status to be able to reflect the wallet size. It needs to detail how its events will work together. Perhaps it is necessary to draw a sharper line to distinguish between non-rising and bullish events.
Again, there are downsides to all of this in the short term. But in the long run, it’s a great way to make a better product, which seems to be happening. Whether it is due to the existence of the LIV or the steps of the Tour itself does not matter at this point. Crucially, fans (especially those paying the most attention) are likely to benefit from the Tour’s overall product improvement.
