How to fix professional golf

Rory McIlroy and Wyndham Clark have recently been advocating for limited field, super elite events but how do you keep pro golf open while catering to the elite? How do you reconcile the 150th player in the world with the 5th? Maybe more importantly, how do you bring more value to the sponsors and the media? How do you make it more relevant to the mass of amateur players? How do you build a compelling schedule with a balanced mix of US and international events to make for a true global tour? Well, hear me out..

One thing tennis got right is that the Majors are played in a specific format, longer than regular tournaments, 5 sets for majors, 3 sets for regular tournaments. It reinforces the uniqueness of these events and quite frankly makes them even better. Why don't we do that in golf? Golf purists will probably want to bury me for the upcoming lines but.. Maybe—just maybe—LIV got something right with the 54-hole tournaments. One advantage I see: you could be playing two tournaments in one, all in the same week. Intrigued? Then keep reading!

So my idea is this, every week you play two tournaments on the same course. The main event, for the top 70 players, would span Friday to Sunday. We could call it the FedExCup Series. Then a second tournament, the "Qualifying series", would gather players 71 to 140 from Tuesday to Thursday. I'd keep the Mondays open for TGL and practice rounds.

The top 10 players from the Qualifying event would be eligible to play for the main event and in case they made the Top 10 of the main event they would remain eligible for the next FedExCup series event the following week.

The qualifying series would have a pro-am format, every week, but instead of the traditional pro-am scoring, amateurs would be playing a different competition on their own but concurrently with the pros. That would create more value for the sponsors and I believe 10+ spots could also be reserved for "regular" amateur players who could qualify locally with spots tickets? available per handicap, let's say 2 spots for +30s, 2 for 20s to 30s, 2 for 10s to 20s and 4 for single handicaps. That would finally bring the world of regular hackers closer to the world of pro golf. It solves a big issue, participation in golf is growing while pro golf is struggling, we absolutely need to reconcile those two worlds what for?. The Top 10 amateurs would be eligible to play in the main event as well, only during the first round, along with a selected number of amateur players chosen by the sponsors, 30 seems about right to have 1 amateur with each group.

Of course, all those numbers would need fine tuning in regards to the complex tournament scheduling and various eligibility rankings with also potentially bigger pro ams where golfers can play two courses, and smaller ones to accommodate potential bad weather and shorter days but you get the overall idea... In case a top 70 player doesn't play that would make the 71st eligible and the 141st on the qualifying series eligible as well, even making players ranked outside of the 200 spot eligible for certain weeks. Additionally to the 71 to 140 spots, 10 or so spots would go to qualifiers from other tours: Top 5 from previous week on DP World Tour, winner from Korn Ferry etc, for instance.

The goal of my system is to have an elite tour that would be appealing to the top players but absolutely open to allow almost anybody to have a shot at playing and potentially winning.?

That system would also be appealing to sponsors and media. Sponsors get to have VIPs to play in actual events and not before the event while also having two more days of golf, potentially three. For the tour, it allows for new media rights to be sold with the Qualifying series, rights that could go to a streaming platform on top of the traditional media deals around the main events.

30 of those events would be played all year with a 20/10 split between US and international venues. International events would be based around historic courses and legacy tournaments like the Australian, Canadian, and French Opens. The event not chosen to be part of this new elite tour would be split between DPWT and KFT and could be played with the same rules. There would be no "signature" must-play events but all eligible players would have to play every tournament on the calendar within a 5-year window. Again that would reconcile the "independent contractor" side with the need for big names for sponsorship appeal.

The 4 Majors and the The Players would still be played in the traditional 4-round format. 5 team events would also be played throughout the year, bringing together the LPGA and PGA players for mixed match play events. The Presidents Cup would also become a mixed event that could be huge for the pro golf market in Asia. PGA/US Open and Open Champ should allow every year for men and women's events to be played back to back. Likewise, the Solheim Cup and Ryder Cup could also be played back to back, on the same course. That would make those big events more sustainable while bringing women and men together more often.

On the business side, a global “Tour Players Association” would bring together all professional golfers, men and women, worldwide, under the same umbrella organization that would represent players for all business and sports related decisions. That association would be the one sitting on all boards. The goal would be to have experts in the sports business, former players along with, of course, current players sit in those boards with a clear mandate to represent ALL the players and their business interests. The TPA would also have roles within OWGR, Majors, USGA and R&A and would be involved in all important moves from rules changes to Majors qualification criteria. I believe that pro golfers should be widely involved but at the same time that involvement should be controlled and funneled through an organization.

Elite but open, US based but worldwide, with a shorter season, bringing more value to sponsors and media while also offering space for the regular amateurs. It might not be the absolute blue print for the pro tour of tomorrow but it could be a strong blue print for actual discussions on how to build a global pro tour that would make sense for everyone tomorrow.