With LIV Golf tactically poaching the biggest and brightest stars, no-name long shots winning on the PGA Tour seemingly every week and major championships and the Official World Golf Ranking having to pick sides, professional golf is more fractured than ever.
Fans are growing frustrated with the divide and how it’s affecting the product on television. Still, former big-time golfers are starting to voice their displeasure, too. Ex-NBC analyst Paul Azinger, a 12-time winner on the PGA Tour, recently spoke to Adam Schupak of Golfweek about the current state of professional golf and dropped a truth bomb on the PGA Tour.
“The best players aren’t all playing PGA Tour tournaments. That’s over,” said Azinger. “Suddenly, the LIV Tour, let’s just say it like this: The PGA Tour has fast become the qualifier for LIV and it’s a sad day for golf.”
Azinger has a point.
Due to the new PGA Tour schedule highlighting signature events, the most popular players aren’t showing up to play as much as they used to. It also doesn’t help that Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and other big names jumped ship to join LIV. That’s why players such as Grayson Murray, Nick Dunlap, Matthieu Pavon, Jake Knapp, and Austin Eckroat break through for wins this season on the PGA Tour.
Some fans enjoy the feel-good stories these players bring to the PGA Tour, but many only watch to see the best golfers in the world go toe-to-toe. That’s become impossible under golf’s new landscape, and Azinger wants no part of it anymore.
“I’d rather call the Senior Tour than the PGA Tour, to tell you the truth,” he said. “I’m over the PGA Tour. To call the best senior players in the world, at least they’re the best.”
source: yardbaker
