The 2023 Open Championship is over, and the LIV guys finally rose to their level of incompetence. Jack Holden offers his opinion on LIV Golf and what we saw unfold at Royal Liverpool.
None of the LIV golfers finished in the top ten or contended after Friday. And only Cameron Smith, the defending champion, recorded any television time – tapping in on eighteen for an unimpressive one over par.
Brian Harman was the perfect winner of the Open Championship for the PGA Tour.
A lesser-known, low-ranked journeyman who embraced the structure of the PGA Tour and its challenges and used that to motivate him to keep improving rather than take a big check and leave the major leagues.
The LIV Golf Tour is like a USFL, an ABA or a WFL, where guys either aren’t good enough, are on the downside, or just go for the check.
Nothing wrong with that, but it’s not the major leagues. I don’t see any player getting better there.
Brooks Koepka should have never left. He only went because he thought he would never recover from his injuries. Once he did, he was motivated again – the most PGA-like player on the LIV Golf tour.
Even on the PGA Tour, he treated all the non-majors as practice.
To me, it is just further proof that Jimmy Dunne and Jay Monahan panicked into making a deal with the Saudis.
Making financial commitments they couldn’t fund forced them to make a deal. Had they just waited and kept the tour as it was, this chaos could have been avoided.
But, at the end of the day, the PGA will probably emerge as a more robust financial enterprise from the process. LIV will go away, as it should – it’s a lousy product, and there will be a new worldwide golf tour with a few more players.
That’s not a bad thing with 125 guys is a tiny league.
As for the team concept, we have two great ones already: Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup. More than enough, and both are excellent venues.
Sorry, Phil Mickelson, please stop wearing that stupid team costume with the pirates’ logo or whatever that’s supposed to be. Nobody cares.
But, all in all, the LIV/PGA controversy provided a lot of additional drama to the majors in 2023.
It will be interesting to see the lay of the land before the next one at Augusta in April for the 2024 Masters. Never the cruellest month for golfers.
Jack Holden retired from business and returned to writing full time about his lifelong passion for the game of golf. He was introduced to the game as a caddy in Westchester County, NY, where golf clubs and great golf courses proliferate. He provides unique golf course reviews, commentary, opinions, tales and other interesting tid-bits about the game he loves.
