The Merger of ’23

If you’ve seen Disney’s “The Lion King” raise your hand. Remember the scene where Scar brings all of the hyenas to “Pride Rock” to live in harmony after Simba’s untimely wildebeest stampede? It seems like we’ve just witnessed the golf equivalent.

History, it really does offer us a way to see into the future. Which is in a way very much an oxymoron. What’s the old adage? “What’s old is new again?” or at least something to that effect. Yesterday, the news of a PGA TOUR/DP World Tour/LIV Golf (PIF) merger sent shockwaves around the golf world. Or was it more of a ripple?

If history has shown us one or two things it’s that all too often our pasts can reflect our future. For example, look at the 1980’s when the era of “Glasnost” was at its peak. Mr. Gorbachev did in fact tear down that wall and it was imminent that East and West Germany would no longer be and a reunified Germany would emerge. Something that wasn’t seen since the Second World War. And then, there’s the world of sports.

American Football. The NFL. What would that league look like now had the AFL (American Football League) and the NFL (National Football League) not merged in 1970 to become one partisan league? For fans of “that” kind of football, we’re currently experiencing it by watching (or not) the USFL and XFL. More can be said of the WHA-NHL merger of June 22nd, 1979. An NHL without the likes of the Edmonton Oilers (no Wayne Gretzky), Winnipeg Jets, Quebec Nordiques (Colorado Avalanche), or the New England Whalers (Hartford Whalers/Carolina Hurricanes franchise). Professional basketball? The 70’s was a wild decade for mergers in professional sports as they too had their merger as the ABA and NBA also joined forces.

So, why should professional golf be any different? In a word or two, it shouldn’t and isn’t. It really is peculiar, in a way. Somehow, the 119 year-old RBC Canadian Open finds itself in the middle once again. A year ago almost to the day I was lamenting about LIV Golf. The only reason for my grievance was that “The Shark” smelled the proverbial blood in the water and launched the first LIV Golf event (London, England) directly across from with the third oldest golf tournament. The Canadian Open. I wrote then that unless you have maple syrup running through your veins, in all likelihood, you couldn’t have cared less. But, I was angry at the timing. Otherwise, I was all for what LIV was offering. A new product that was fresh albeit quirky which would offer golf enthusiasts a chance to watch more golf.

Unfortunately, it seemed like I was in the minority and millions of golf fans, observers, and golf media were anti… what did they call it? “Bonesaw Tour” or was it “Blood-money Tour”? All the while sharing their sentiment and outrage on platforms richly-invested with Saudi money. There was strong opposition from Golf Digest, GolfWeek, Brandel Chamblee, Kyle Porter, and Dan Rapaport just to name a few. The list of professional golfers on both sides of this “Blood Feud” was a laundry list long. Both sides acting like elementary schoolchildren in a schoolyard lashing out insults at one another.

The reality of the “Merger of ’23” is that it was imminent. It had to happen like the sports leagues above. In less than a year LIV Golf proved that they weren’t going anywhere (untapped resources) nor were they going to be no longer competitive as they were only playing three rounds of “exhibition golf”. Quite the contrary. Why would players who left for the money be motivated by winning as little money as possible? To think otherwise would be naive and misinformed.

If you have any ability to read a room the first sign of this merger becoming a reality was when the staunchest of PGA TOUR players (Rory McIlroy) started to walk his comments back, in March. Suddenly it was more about trying to find a way to co-exist than a matter of being more divisive. McIlroy led the anti-LIV charges with the highest number of “potshots” directed towards the opposition starting with, his reference to more wins than Greg Norman upon winning the 2022 RBC Canadian Open. The tea leaves were aligned and the breezes were picking up signaling the winds of change.

So, where do they/you go from here? Purses larger than ever. Fans incensed about the merger. Honestly, I always wondered why people invested so much time and energy on this fight. Was it a “vicariously living through” sort of thing? All of the outrage was all for not.

It’s just too bad that the millions of fans and media personalities fought so hard for the mega-millionaires of men’s professional golf over the last year instead of channeling that same energy towards women’s professional golf.

Until The Next Tee!!

#fightandgrind #seeuonthenexttee