Tag: Signature events

Lucas Glover still hates the signature events — ‘it’s a money grab’ — and poses questions for Jay Monahan

“Nothing that has happened in the last two years in golf, in my opinion, will help the game.”

ORLANDO — Lucas Glover didn’t like the PGA Tour’s signature events when they were announced, he didn’t like them when he won twice late last season to become exempt for all of them this year and he still doesn’t like them after having played in the first four, including at this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill Club & Lodge.

“I don’t like the idea at all,” he said of the limited field, mostly no-cut events with purses of at least $20 million and elevated FedEx Cup points. “It’s selfish and it’s a money grab.”

Glover understands the Tour has been facing an existential threat from LIV and that’s the primary reason for many of its knee-jerk reactions to protect its place as the premier tour for men’s professional golf. But he still claims they didn’t need to hit the panic button.

“Nothing that has happened in the last two years in golf, in my opinion, that will help the game,” he said. “I’ve yet to figure out what’s so bad out here that we had to do all the things we’ve done.”

When someone joked facetiously that it’s really terrible out here, where a record 139 pros earned more than $1 million last season, Glover deadpanned, “I know, it was terrible, we’ve got a bunch of millionaires running around driving three cars and eating really good food.”

He still can’t wrap his head around why the Arnold Palmer Invitational field has been reduced from 120 players a year ago to 69 this year with a cut to the top 50 and ties.

“I’m 44 and I’m getting towards the get-off-my-lawn dad,” he said. “I just don’t see what was so bad out here that we had to do all this. Let’s raise some purses to make sure we keep some guys around but now we’ve eliminated a lot of playing opportunities for some really good players.”

And he suggested what he termed “a smart-ass question” that someone in the media should ask PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan next week during his Tuesday State of the Tour press conference

“Why are the signature events (max) 80 players and only 50 make the cut but our biggest signature event next week is 144 players with a full cut. THE signature event,” Glover emphasized. “It’s very mind-blowing that our biggest signature event has the most players and the biggest cut.”

Glover isn’t passing judgment yet on the Tour’s recent deal with private equity firm SSG that could pump as much as $3 billion into the Tour. He said he’ll sit down and watch all the videos the Tour sends to players at once before forming an opinion. He’s more interested in how it all fits rather than how it’s going to line his pockets. Then he offered another question that he suggested should be posed to Monahan.

“Now that we have a second entity, PGA Tour Enterprises or whatever it’s called, with a new board, does that eliminate the regulations in place that the Tour has or had to ban certain people?” he wondered. “My answer to that immediately would be no, so, there’s your way back.”

While the Tour and PIF continue to take their sweet time negotiating – or perhaps more like not negotiating – Glover can sense the eventual end game.

“I think we’re going to end up with 12-16 events around the world with the top players for the most money and wherever that money comes from – who knows whether it’s private equity or PIF – clearly, that’s where it is headed,” he mused.

Ultimately, he pictures the landscape will look like this: “A few of our big (PGA Tour) events are probably going to fit into that. You’re looking at eight PGA Tour/DP World Tour-style events around the world, three or four LIV-style events around the world and four majors and you’ll have a Tour of the who’s who. I’m very happy I’m close to being done. That’s how I see it,” he said.

Glover has watched the game he loves change — and not for the better — and he doesn’t like the direction that the career he’s invested more than 20 years of his life is headed. But, come on, there has to be something positive that has come from all the turmoil, right?

Glover paused and pondered the question before delivering his answer. “Food’s better,” he said.

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Lynch: Signature events are trying to engineer outcomes that the PGA Tour’s stars can’t guarantee. It’s time for tweaks

Signature events rely on a formula designed to artificially engineer outcomes.

The ambition that underpins the PGA Tour’s signature events is supposed to be apparent at the glamorous end of the leaderboard – popular stars locked in thrilling battles – but the shortcomings undermining these tournaments is evident at the other end of scoring at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Fridays on Tour are about who gets sent home; Friday at Bay Hill is about how many go home, or more accurately, how few.

Just 69 competitors started the week, and deep in the second round 61 of them were inside the cut, which covers the top 50, ties, and anyone within 10 strokes of the lead. Bay Hill is typically among the most demanding courses on Tour, so it was always unlikely that anyone would stretch a lead sufficiently to render the 10-shot rule irrelevant. Which means everyone who misses the cut might be able to share one of the tournament’s courtesy Cadillac SUVs to the airport. Granted, a decent percentage of starters will be cut at day’s end, but this is an unnecessary diversion.

While far short of a constitutional crisis for King Jay, quibbles about the cut speak to a broader dilemma with how the signature events are structured and marketed. Tournaments billed as all-star showcases are an automatic loss in the eyes of many if those all-stars don’t show up, which for the most part they haven’t in 2024. Since individual form is beyond the control of Commissioner Monahan, he might consider the words of business theorist W. Edwards Deming: “Eighty-five percent of the reasons for failure are deficiencies in the systems and processes rather than the employee.”

And signature events rely on a formula designed to artificially engineer outcomes that simply cannot be guaranteed.

Winners of signature tournaments this season are a worthy bunch, albeit not barn-burner personalities: Chris Kirk, Wyndham Clark and Hideki Matsuyama (the latter a superstar on distant shores, but beyond a language barrier for a U.S. audience). That list has been unfavorably compared with champions from elevated events in ’23, guys like Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler and Viktor Hovland. It’s convenient cherry-picking. Last year’s winners also included lower-wattage players like Kurt Kitayama, Lucas Glover and Clark (before he was a major champion). What’s different is that the leading men won early last year and established a narrative that signature events were delivering on their intent, while the supporting cast is stealing scenes this year and fueling a narrative that the Tour has lost its luster.

Building tournaments around Goliaths while trying to exclude most of the Davids isn’t indefensible, but it does have consequences, because every little reduction in competitiveness dilutes what makes things compelling for fans. At 9:30 a.m. on the morning of the second round, the practice range on Tour is usually a hive of comings and goings, pure tournament theater. Friday morning at Bay Hill, there were six players preparing for their rounds. Spectators in the stands behind them must have felt like they came for a feast but found a famine. One metric that matters for fans can’t actually be quantified: the vibe. You know it when you feel it, you know when you’re not feeling it. And not many are feeling it this week, in part because of the size of the field.

The field might be nominally stronger in that a greater percentage is made up of the Tour’s best players, but there’s simply less activity around the grounds, less action to follow, less spectacle to absorb. Just less, period. A tee sheet of 69 does no favors for the tournament, for fans or for the PGA Tour. If the old standard for the invitationals on the schedule (120) is thought too many, then why not 100? And if there’s no appetite to spread the purse among that many – which is the real reason for small, lucrative events – then dispense with the customary formula for distributing the prize fund and pay less for mediocre finishes. This ain’t LIV Golf.

With the exception of Tiger Woods, golf has never been a sport in which the top dog leaves with the trophy most times he competes. The loss percentage for even the best is way higher than other major sports. The signature events are an attempt to strengthen the Tour’s product by helping the VIPs get more Ws. What we are seeing so far in ’24 is that desired outcomes can’t be made to order, that in the pursuit of robust ratings, fan engagement and player preferences, we are instead sacrificing potential Cinderella stories and the vibrant bustle of tournament week for paying spectators. One cannot predetermine something that is inherently capricious: elite professional golf.

The Tour’s top stars have spent two years telling us they deserve greater rewards and the sport’s economy has been distorted to grant that request. Surely it’s not too much to ask that they play better, and play better against a few more guys.

PGA Tour player questions sponsor exemption recipients into signature events: ‘Seems suspect’

Getting into the signature events on the PGA Tour means more now than ever.

Getting into the signature events on the PGA Tour means more now than ever.

Elevated purses. More FedEx Cup points. More chances for someone to have a life-changing victory.

However, trying to get into those events, if you’re on the outside looking in, is difficult.

Sure, a player can play their way in through the Aon Swing 10, the top-10 players not already exempt from the FedExCup standings, or the Aon Swing 5, the top-five FedExCup points earners not already exempt from the swings of full-field events leading up to each signature event. And then there’s sponsor exemptions.

However, the players who have been given sponsor exemptions seem to be ruffling some feathers.

Dylan Wu, a 27-year-old PGA Tour pro who has made three cuts in six starts this season, said the selection process seems suspect for how players get chosen for sponsor exemptions. He posted his thoughts on social media on Saturday in response to a post saying Adam Scott was receiving his third straight exemption into a signature event, and Webb Simpson was receiving one, too.

Both Scott and Simpson are Player Directors for the Tour.

“Great players and major champions,” Wu wrote in his post. “I can’t say much because I missed the cut hard this week but getting more than one sponsor exemption into elevated events doesn’t seem fair. Seems like if you’re a player director, you’ll get an invite into an elevated event. Seems suspect…..

“And trust me, they’re both great players that probably deserve it but this new model is all about meritocracy. Sponsor exemptions going to the same players every elevated event doesn’t seem to follow the “play better” saying. Seems like “be more famous” or “know the right people.”

Scott has made three starts this season, his worst finish being a T-20 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. He finished T-8 at the WM Phoenix Open.

Dating to last March, Simpson in the same span has one finish in the top 30, a T-5 at the Wyndham Championship. He’s ranked 235th in the world.

As Wu mentioned, he hasn’t played well enough this season to play his way into the signature events, but he’s likely not the only PGA Tour pro who has these thoughts, including some who may be just on the verge of possibly receiving an exemption.

There have been plenty of discussions about the Tour trying to serve its stars first and then focusing on those who make up a majority of the Tour.

As Wu states, Scott and Simpson have done enough throughout their careers, and in Scott’s case a strong performance this season, but the question is whether past performance should be awarded more than current form.

For Wu, his thoughts are clear. And it’s likely others in his position think the same way he does.

Peter Malnati defends being given sponsor exemption to AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

“I don’t think there’s ever been an amateur play with me who didn’t have the time of their life.”

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Peter Malnati understands why some of his fellow competitors might take issue with three of the four sponsor exemptions into the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am being granted to members of the PGA Tour’s player directors on the Policy Board — namely Adam Scott, Webb Simpson and himself — who happened to be among the six players who voted unanimously to approve the Tour’s billion-dollar deal with Strategic Sports Group.

As Golfweek reported this week, multiple players described the choices for exemptions into the first-time signature event with a limited field of 80 and playing for $20 million with no cut as “shady,” “fishy” and “collusion.”

“You don’t even have to be looking at it to see that that could look bad,” Malnati said. “I get that.”

But Malnati also defended his selection as one of the four invites.

“I know why I felt worthy of writing a letter to get an exemption here.  It’s not because I’m on the board. It’s not because I vote. I felt worthy writing a letter because I come to this event every single year that I’ve been on Tour, and I don’t think there’s ever been an amateur play with me who didn’t have the time of their life. That’s why I felt comfortable writing a letter asking for an exemption,” he said. “If the reason I got that exemption is because I’m on the board, that’s not right. If the reason I got the exemption is because this is my 10th year, I would say six of the nine I’ve played with Don Colleran from FedEx, but those other three years I played with three different amateurs, and there’s always two amateurs in your group, not just one, and I take pride in making sure that those guys or gals have the time of their life. I think that gets back to Steve John and the Monterey Peninsula Foundation that if you come to this tournament, if you’ve never heard of Peter Malnati, he might be the guy that you want to play with.

“That’s why I felt comfortable asking for one. That’s why I feel comfortable having gotten one. If I got one because I’m a board member and that’s the only reason, I’ll fully admit that’s not right, but I don’t think that’s why I got one, and that’s certainly not why I asked for one.”

Dennis Roberson, who has been the longtime tournament manager of the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial CC in Fort Worth, Texas, wrote on social media that the complaint by players over the AT&T exemptions is “way overblown by people with sour grapes.”

He continued, “If a player has supported your event for many years and proven himself to be a great pro-am partner, that is EXACTLY the kind of player you give an exemption to.”

Malnati finished T-4 at Pebble last year and opened with 3-under 69 on Thursday. Asked why he plays well at this event he said, “I play well here because I’m happy here.  Like I’m happy everywhere, but this is my favorite place, and the golf is almost secondary to just the most — this is the most amazing place. Then secondly, it’s fun for me to give to others, and we don’t get to do that during a PGA Tour event because nobody gives a shit about you during a PGA Tour event. This week there’s a partner that you’re playing with who only does this once a year. It’s fun for me to give to them. That takes pressure off me. If I fail at golf but I make them have a good time, it’s still a good day, whereas a normal week, if I fail at golf, it’s like, what am I doing? That helps me. I think attitude-wise, you get bumpy poa annua greens sometimes. You get bad weather sometimes. That stuff doesn’t bother me. I just love it here. And I’m also good at golf. I don’t always prove it, but I’m also good at golf. I’m going to play good anywhere, but here brings out the best in me.”

Which LIV Golf events will be held the same week as PGA Tour tournaments in 2024?

LIV will host four events the same week as PGA Tour signature events in 2024.

When LIV Golf held its debut, eight-event invitational series in 2022, the upstart circuit said it wouldn’t host events opposite the PGA Tour’s heritage tournaments like the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Memorial. The same held true for its first 14-event LIV Golf League season in 2023.

As the league enters its 2024 season without a framework agreement deal, the gloves are off once again. Players like Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton have been poached and four LIV events will now run the same week as PGA Tour signature events, starting with this week’s LIV season opener at Mayakoba’s El Camaleón Golf Course in Mexico and the PGA Tour’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

LIV has yet to announce dates or a venue for its regular season finale, which will decide the season-long individual champion, and the same goes for its team championship event. Check out what 12 LIV Golf events will be held the same week as PGA Tour tournaments in 2024.

These PGA Tour golfers are playing the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am for the first time

It doesn’t mean they’ve never played Pebble Beach Golf Links or the other golf courses in the rotation.

Scottie Scheffler? Nope. Collin Morikawa? Not him either. What about Hideki Matsuyama? Negative.

Believe it or not, those three are among the 10 golfers in the field of 80 at the second signature event of 2024, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, who have never played the event. That doesn’t mean thoese golfers have never played Pebble Beach Golf Links or the other golf courses in the rotation, but they will be making their maiden voyage in this particular tournament.

The Pro-Am being elevated to a signature event in 2024 is certainly one factor. A year ago, the tournament had a $9 purse and a $1.62 million first-place prize. Those numbers are now $20 million and $3.6 million, certainly enough to spark the interest of those who never made their way to the Monterey Peninsula in January.

Here’s a closer look at the golfers making their first appearance in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Bye, bye Bill Murray, hello best field ever: AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am to showcase several changes next month

Get ready for an AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am unlike any other.

Get ready for an AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am unlike any other.

Bye bye Bill Murray, Ray Romano and Steve Young, hello world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, former major champion Rory McIlroy and reigning FedEx Cup champion Viktor Hovland.

The old Crosby Clambake, in its 87th year, will have a reduced field from 156 two-man teams down to 80, with amateurs playing just two rounds instead of three or possibly four, on only two courses with Monterey Peninsula CC cut out of the equation, and the weekend reserved simply for the best pros in the game.

It’s all happening as a result of the PGA Tour selecting the tournament as one of eight signature events offering a purse of $20 million at a limited-field, no-cut event with elevated FedEx Cup points (750 for the winner compared to 500 at regular events).

Prize money payouts for the 38 tournaments on the 2024 PGA Tour schedule

“If you turned it around and we were never a pro-am and the Tour said, hey, guys, guess what? We’re going to give you two days of a pro-am, Thursday and Friday. We would be elated,” said Steve John, CEO and tournament director of the Monterey Peninsula Foundation, the non-profit that runs the tournament at Pebble Beach Golf Links and Spyglass Hill. “Yes, we’re two days instead of three, possibly four, but it’s going to be a darn good two days. The experience for the amateurs will be the best ever.”

In recent years, the tournament has struggled to attract an elite field, and something needed to be done to restore the luster of a once-beloved event: just 21 of the top 100 in the Official World Golf Ranking were in last year’s field and more than half of it was ranked outside the top 300.

“For years I’d hear I’d love to come to Pebble, but it just isn’t working for me,” said John, who is in his 12th year overseeing the tournament.

Of the Tour’s efforts to breathe new life into the event by making the star-studded field the attraction rather than the celebrities of music, the big screen and the sports world, John said, “It worked. They are coming.”

He’s no longer recruiting; he’s enrolling. He boasted that 48 of the top 50 in last year’s FedEx Cup standings already have committed, and he expressed confidence the other two would soon join, too. Ticket sales reflect the appetite to see the tournament’s best field: John said sales are $200,000 ahead of last year’s pace.

“To see nearly every person that is eligible come, that is a statement,” John said. “This is as close as you’re going to get to a major.”

But John recognizes that change is never easy. The size of the field dropped from 180 to 156 in 2010. To trim it to 80, the tournament needed a financial commitment from its title sponsor and secondary partners.

“Not everybody can play,” John said. “It was really difficult to determine who gets the golden tickets. To give at the level we have given before, people have to step up, and they did in a big way. Of that we are deeply appreciative.

The notable amateurs in the field will be strictly athletes: Tom Brady, Alex Smith, Aaron Rodgers, Pau Gasol, Larry Fitzgerald and Buster Posey. The Celebrity Shootout on Wednesday is no more. With fewer amateur competitors, the sky suites at the 18th have been reduced  As a result, the 18th green will be surrounded by grandstands and open to the public, doubling the number of seats available for general admission customers. Moving from three courses to two means a reduction of some 300 volunteers. There will still be 1,600 volunteers, including close to 100 who have volunteered for more than 40 years.

John is adamant being a signature event is the future of the pro-am, telling KSBW Action News 8 the plan is for the AT&T to be a signature event “in perpetuity.”

“The feeling, belief and mindset of the PGA Tour is to keep this event as a signature event, not knowing what our future holds for us,” John told Golfweek.

Despite the reduced field, which many feared would have the potential to slice charitable donations, John confirmed that the Monterey Peninsula Foundation still expected to give out more than $18 million, as it did last year.

“I think there’s no reason we won’t give out that number if not more,” he said.

To do so, AT&T has agreed to bear the cost of the purse rising from $9 million to $20 million, with a winner’s share of $3.6 million. Sources say the golden ticket for amateurs to play alongside one of the pros skyrocketed from $38,000 to $70,000 this year to offset the loss of nearly half the field. John wouldn’t confirm those numbers, saying only they were within the ballpark.

“It’s hard to really put a number on it because they’re tied to different assets. Some have tickets and upgrade venue, some come by contract, some by relationships. It makes it impossible to put an exact number on the entry fee,” he explained. “I’ll tell you this: it’s worth every penny and whatever the entry fee is no one balked.”

Time will tell if an iconic course and the deepest field ever to play the AT&T will produce a TV-ratings bonanza the way seeing Clint Eastwood, Murray and other A-listers did back in the day, especially when much of the country was blanketed in snow.

“My crystal ball broke years ago,” John joked.

Official World Golf Ranking updates will impact PGA Tour’s signature events in 2024

One of the updates will see a greater percentage of points to top finishers in events with less than 80 players.

The Official World Golf Ranking has been a major talking point in the professional game for the last two years as LIV Golf has fought for inclusion within the system. While the league with 54-hole and no-cut events still isn’t eligible for points, the OWGR announced two updates to the system on Thursday, and one of the amendments would impact a league such as LIV (as well as the PGA Tour).

Two months after the OWGR rejected LIV Golf’s application for points, the governing board announced a change that would include a new points distribution curve for fields of 80 players or less which would award a greater percentage of points to top finishers in those events. In addition, points will no longer be distributed to players finishing in the bottom 15 percent of events that do not have a cut. When it comes to match play events, players who lose their first-round match or lose all matches in a pool format will no longer earn points.

The update will have an impact on the PGA Tour’s eight signature events in 2024, where fields will range from roughly 70-80 players. The three player-hosted invitationals (Genesis Invitational, Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Memorial Tournament) will feature a 36-hole cut to the top 50 and ties and any player within 10 shots of the lead. The other five signature events – The Sentry, AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, RBC Heritage, Wells Fargo Championship and Travelers Championship – will not have a cut.

In short, top finishers in all eight events will earn more points, while the bottom 12 or so players in the five no-cut events (15 percent of 80) won’t earn points.

OPINION: The ranking points row exposes what powers LIV Golf beyond Saudi cash — naked entitlement

The second update introduces a new multi-win benefit that provides a 60 percent bonus to players who win for a second time within a 52-week period, while a 70 percent bonus will be awarded to players who win three or more times.

“Based on extensive analysis following the changes implemented in August 2022, we recognized these two opportunities to further enhance the OWGR and to accurately evaluate performances of the world’s participating players on all eligible Tours,” said Official World Golf Ranking Chairman Peter Dawson via a release. “Adjustments to the Ranking are made after careful consideration, and we are confident that today’s updates will better position the OWGR for the future.”

The changes will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2024.

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Q&A: Lucas Glover unplugged on Ryder Cup snub, why signature events are ‘terrible’ and whether LIV players should be allowed back

“I’m to that point where I’ve become the old, get off my lawn guy. I’m kind of there.”

LOS CABOS, Mexico — The PGA Tour retired its Comeback Player of the Year award after Steve Stricker won it twice in a row, but Lucas Glover would be the hands down winner this year after he overcame his demons with the putter and won twice in a row, including a FedEx Cup Playoff event.

Always one of the Tour’s more introspective and reflective pros, Glover is never shy with his opinions, and after the second round of the World Wide Technology Championship, where he made his first start of the FedEx Cup Fall, he touched on a wide-range of topics such as the selection process for the U.S. team events — he thinks Keegan Bradley deserved to be picked —whether the Tour’s signature events are still a terrible idea now that he’s exempt for them all and if LIV players should be allowed back on the Tour.

These PGA Tour players are in position to earn a spot in first two signature events of 2024

It’s a race to finish 51-60.

Only three events remain in the FedEx Cup Fall, and there’s plenty of incentive for those who finish 51-60 in the FexEx Cup Standings.

While everyone who finished the 2022-23 regular season in the top 70 qualified for the playoffs, only those who made the BMW Championship, the top 50, earned spots in every signature event for the 2024 season. Those finishing 51-70 were guaranteed spots in all full-field events, but it’s going to be harder to earn spots in signature events next year.

However, players who finish 51-60 after the FedEx Cup Fall earn spots in the first two signature events of the 2024 season: the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and the Genesis Invitational.

Here’s a look at which players are on the verge of punching their ticket into the first pair of 2024 signature events.