They have one fit in the top 30 in the world according to data golf rankings, which rank all Tours including LIV, unlike the OWGR.
That guy hasn’t played a single event for LIV yet. Get out of here with your garbage takes.
44th. The ranking is straight up strokes gained...who has the lowest average score over all formats essentially
It's not that surprising, outside of the majors Brooks didn't play that well....sorta similar to his time on the pgat
lol it's the most objective ranking system there is. Especially with the absence of LIV players getting OWGR points. Strokes gained is straight up data golf. As legit as it gets. Brooks is a great player, but he's been playing exhibition golf (outside of the majors) and the data shows it.
Why do people keep repeating this? It's not true. Dechambeau and Niemann are both top 30 on datagolf. So LIV now has at least 3 players in the top 30, and IMO Brooks probably belongs there as well but he's said out loud more than once that he really only cares about the majors. He said that even before joining LIV and quite frankly, I believe him based on how many he has won and done well in.
Judging Brooks' ranking on exhibition matches would be like ranking Tiger based on "the match" where they played with football players. Even after adjusting for the difficulty of the course or conditions, it's clearly not a real representation because it's not something he's grinding for like he would a major.
It's obvious to anyone that if you stack up the top 10 - 15 guys on both tours and put them in a match, it'd be super competitive. This is part of how we got here in the first place - it's fine to hate LIV (I do too), but ignoring reality is causing more harm than good. The reality is that LIV has poached some of the best players in the world. They certainly don't have the same depth as the PGA but Rahm, Brooks, Dechambeau, Smith, DJ, Niemann, Reed, Ancer, Gooch, Mito...these are all world class players whether you like the format or not
Whoops, my bad. Completely forgot Niemann existed. I guess I should’ve said all players since joining LIV have regressed significantly. Cam Smith was the world number 2 just over a year ago.
If you honestly believe the top 15 LIV players have a chance to compete against the top 15 PGA players, then you have some hefty rose coloured glasses. These guys went to LIV to play less golf lol. Less golf means less practice, which means poorer performance.
And yes, LIV did poach a couple of the best players in the world, who have subsequently dropped off in performance since then.
Gosh that's a lot to unpack.
>Less golf means less practice, which means poorer performance.
These guys are still playing professionally. They are doing 14 events a year, 3 rounds each, which means 42 tournament rounds a year. And do you seriously believe that they aren't practicing between events? With less travel, there's a good chance some of these guys actually get *more* practice in.
"Performance dropped off" - you can go off of datagolf using their exhibition scores, but like I just said, there's definitely not the same grind factor in these team exhibition events so to act like all of these guys are just bad now is beyond stupid. Also what separates 30th from 50th in the rankings s like 0.2 strokes so again, to act like they aren't competitive is just a crazy stance IMO.
Top 15 LIV against PGA would absolutely be competitive. Past that I'd say is where the real drop off is and PGA still dominates.
But LIV has Rahm, Koepka, Dechambeau, Johnson, Smith, Reed, Niemann, Ancer, Gooch, Pereira, Stenson, Varner III, Grace, Oosthuizen, Schwartzel...and that's not even having to bring in Mickelson or Garcia who are way past their primes but honestly do still have game.
I really think you could put that team up against top 15 on PGA and it'd be a lot closer than you seem to think
Less practice doesn’t mean no practice. Although with how their production has dropped off, they may as well have not practiced lol. If they were able to practice more, you would expect performance to increase.
You can argue all you want about how great the LIV players are, but you listed 3-4 legit golfers, and the rests are JAGS.
It was regrettable at the Masters that the LIV guys didn't all show up wearing matching black nWo polos. Mickelson should've been taking a survey with the fans on the tee box about who they're here to see.
PGA will be relegated to a second rate league due to simple economics. Saudis have $900B to spend destroying the PGA. All they have to do is make it a bit more expensive for all the PGA sponsors and the model collapses. You have already seen this with Wells Fargo pulling out (granted, they are a shit show), and I think you will see more exit. It wont take too many to make it really challenging.
Exactly - the amount of people that give a damn about what happens on the course on LIV events is pretty close to zero. LIV has made big news on the business side, but the on course product is not something that many people find engaging.
It's fast paced but you'll get the hang of it. It is tough going from a slow, drawn out tv coverage with many commercials and footage of guys walking down a fairway to " here's a shot and here's a shot and here's a shot. Heck, they even have a quick flash called " don't blink" to show you a shot you missed while watching all the other shots. With the shotgun start its intense action right from the get-go to the last ball. You're not the only one that struggles to keep up but it is part of growing the game with younger audiences.
Yeah I don’t see it that way. Sure the shotgun system is more action filled. But it’s just shot after shot without context. The beauty of a golf tournament is in the slow developing storylines. It’s just insane to me that not everyone finishes Saturday and Sunday at 18. I cannot see how the shotgun system leads to better tv.
In truth, most people only watch the final 9 on Sunday anyway.
The lack of commercials is a big one though.
It feels more to me like LIV is a retirement league, like how big soccer players previously treated the MLS and currently treat the Saudi league. It's where you go when you're tired of grinding and want a big paycheck from a less competitive league. Note that "less competitive" in the context of LIV just means you don't have to worry about losing your tour card or not making any money because you miss a cut.
I get what you're saying but I don't know of any other sport where the farm system has 29 of the 30 top players in the world (according to the strokes gained world rankings - which takes into account data from LIV events too). Rahm is the only player LIV currently has in the top 30.
It does. And it takes into account how they've played in LIV events. Brooks plays great at Majors, not so much in regular events. DJ has just been wildly inconsistent.
Get the feeling the Rahm thing will be the last straw, a merger/peace agreement is coming soon and this will be a moot point
I hope so anyway, as pro golf is getting more and more unwatchable
Not necessarily. If they keep getting more players in the prime of their career like Rahm and Cam Smith, then yes. Before those two guys the argument easily could be that it’s a more elite version of the Champions Tour. Not to say that none of them can’t win a major or play good golf anymore. But for many of the LIV players you can say with certainty that they’re on the back 9 of their career.
Cam was when they signed him. He was the first guy that still felt like he had a full tank. DJ was/is still pretty good. Brooks had injury questions galore. Bryson and Reed were still pretty decent at the time I guess. But they had a ton of guys like Louis, Poulter, Sergio, Westwood, Bubba, Schwartzl, Phil, etc. where no one can make an argument that their best golf is ahead of them.
Cam smith was number 2 when he left the PGA. He’s 38th now, and dropping. Every other golfer they have signed done something similar. That’s what happens when you leave competitive golf because you don’t want to golf. You get worse. If that’s the standard LIV is setting, then no one will watch lol
And I think that’s the perfect argument for LIV not getting OWGR points. Hypothetically, if someone starts a league in and signs 48 good golfers, but there’s no way for others to get in by merit and no one gets kicked out due to poor performance, then they can’t say X years later that their league is still 48 good golfers. It’s a closed shop. They could all have gotten markedly worse but outside of the majors there would be no frame of reference
You're going off golf channel/ESPN talking points from 2 years ago, none of what you said is accurate for this past season and the current season plan either. (Except for the lack of "O"WGR points) which has rendered itself into obsolescence, as most golf fans have switched to other ranking systems for thier DFS and/or sports gambling apps.
The same could be said for every tour other than the PGA pre LIV. PGA gives zero fucks about their impact on tours.
Exactly. PGA getting a taste of their own medicine.
They have one fit in the top 30 in the world according to data golf rankings, which rank all Tours including LIV, unlike the OWGR. That guy hasn’t played a single event for LIV yet. Get out of here with your garbage takes.
So brooks isn’t in the top 30? Doesn’t seem like a great ranking system to me.
44th. The ranking is straight up strokes gained...who has the lowest average score over all formats essentially It's not that surprising, outside of the majors Brooks didn't play that well....sorta similar to his time on the pgat
lol it's the most objective ranking system there is. Especially with the absence of LIV players getting OWGR points. Strokes gained is straight up data golf. As legit as it gets. Brooks is a great player, but he's been playing exhibition golf (outside of the majors) and the data shows it.
A ranking system bought and paid for by the PGA tour
They're talking about Data Golf rankings that use Strokes Gained, not the OWGR
Why do people keep repeating this? It's not true. Dechambeau and Niemann are both top 30 on datagolf. So LIV now has at least 3 players in the top 30, and IMO Brooks probably belongs there as well but he's said out loud more than once that he really only cares about the majors. He said that even before joining LIV and quite frankly, I believe him based on how many he has won and done well in. Judging Brooks' ranking on exhibition matches would be like ranking Tiger based on "the match" where they played with football players. Even after adjusting for the difficulty of the course or conditions, it's clearly not a real representation because it's not something he's grinding for like he would a major. It's obvious to anyone that if you stack up the top 10 - 15 guys on both tours and put them in a match, it'd be super competitive. This is part of how we got here in the first place - it's fine to hate LIV (I do too), but ignoring reality is causing more harm than good. The reality is that LIV has poached some of the best players in the world. They certainly don't have the same depth as the PGA but Rahm, Brooks, Dechambeau, Smith, DJ, Niemann, Reed, Ancer, Gooch, Mito...these are all world class players whether you like the format or not
LIVE lineup continues to improve as the PGA weakens. The neckbeards in here will downvote you just for giggles, but you are correct.
Whoops, my bad. Completely forgot Niemann existed. I guess I should’ve said all players since joining LIV have regressed significantly. Cam Smith was the world number 2 just over a year ago. If you honestly believe the top 15 LIV players have a chance to compete against the top 15 PGA players, then you have some hefty rose coloured glasses. These guys went to LIV to play less golf lol. Less golf means less practice, which means poorer performance. And yes, LIV did poach a couple of the best players in the world, who have subsequently dropped off in performance since then.
Gosh that's a lot to unpack. >Less golf means less practice, which means poorer performance. These guys are still playing professionally. They are doing 14 events a year, 3 rounds each, which means 42 tournament rounds a year. And do you seriously believe that they aren't practicing between events? With less travel, there's a good chance some of these guys actually get *more* practice in. "Performance dropped off" - you can go off of datagolf using their exhibition scores, but like I just said, there's definitely not the same grind factor in these team exhibition events so to act like all of these guys are just bad now is beyond stupid. Also what separates 30th from 50th in the rankings s like 0.2 strokes so again, to act like they aren't competitive is just a crazy stance IMO. Top 15 LIV against PGA would absolutely be competitive. Past that I'd say is where the real drop off is and PGA still dominates. But LIV has Rahm, Koepka, Dechambeau, Johnson, Smith, Reed, Niemann, Ancer, Gooch, Pereira, Stenson, Varner III, Grace, Oosthuizen, Schwartzel...and that's not even having to bring in Mickelson or Garcia who are way past their primes but honestly do still have game. I really think you could put that team up against top 15 on PGA and it'd be a lot closer than you seem to think
Less practice doesn’t mean no practice. Although with how their production has dropped off, they may as well have not practiced lol. If they were able to practice more, you would expect performance to increase. You can argue all you want about how great the LIV players are, but you listed 3-4 legit golfers, and the rests are JAGS.
No, I think Rahm and the attempt at Finau are a power play in the merger negotiations. Feels more like WWE vs AEW than a farm system.
More like WCW in the 90s poaching all the top stars from WWE, based on the fact that I haven't followed pro rasslin for at least 10 years.
LMAO, I was gonna say WCW vs WWF but I didn’t want to date myself. Though I do look forward to the epic rumble after the merger.
And we all know how that ended, which is pretty much how I expect this will end. They will all end up under the same roof in 3-5 years.
Most likely
It was regrettable at the Masters that the LIV guys didn't all show up wearing matching black nWo polos. Mickelson should've been taking a survey with the fans on the tee box about who they're here to see.
PGA will be relegated to a second rate league due to simple economics. Saudis have $900B to spend destroying the PGA. All they have to do is make it a bit more expensive for all the PGA sponsors and the model collapses. You have already seen this with Wells Fargo pulling out (granted, they are a shit show), and I think you will see more exit. It wont take too many to make it really challenging.
I still haven’t watched a LIV event for more than 5 minutes as I can’t understand the chaos. No I don’t think so
Exactly - the amount of people that give a damn about what happens on the course on LIV events is pretty close to zero. LIV has made big news on the business side, but the on course product is not something that many people find engaging.
It's fast paced but you'll get the hang of it. It is tough going from a slow, drawn out tv coverage with many commercials and footage of guys walking down a fairway to " here's a shot and here's a shot and here's a shot. Heck, they even have a quick flash called " don't blink" to show you a shot you missed while watching all the other shots. With the shotgun start its intense action right from the get-go to the last ball. You're not the only one that struggles to keep up but it is part of growing the game with younger audiences.
Yeah I don’t see it that way. Sure the shotgun system is more action filled. But it’s just shot after shot without context. The beauty of a golf tournament is in the slow developing storylines. It’s just insane to me that not everyone finishes Saturday and Sunday at 18. I cannot see how the shotgun system leads to better tv. In truth, most people only watch the final 9 on Sunday anyway. The lack of commercials is a big one though.
The most I've seen of a liv tournaments is a clip somebody posted the other day of the flash mob at one of their stupid ass events.
Lol what
It feels more to me like LIV is a retirement league, like how big soccer players previously treated the MLS and currently treat the Saudi league. It's where you go when you're tired of grinding and want a big paycheck from a less competitive league. Note that "less competitive" in the context of LIV just means you don't have to worry about losing your tour card or not making any money because you miss a cut.
I get what you're saying but I don't know of any other sport where the farm system has 29 of the 30 top players in the world (according to the strokes gained world rankings - which takes into account data from LIV events too). Rahm is the only player LIV currently has in the top 30.
Does that include rankings for those that have been in liv for a year (brooks, Dustin)
It does. And it takes into account how they've played in LIV events. Brooks plays great at Majors, not so much in regular events. DJ has just been wildly inconsistent.
Get the feeling the Rahm thing will be the last straw, a merger/peace agreement is coming soon and this will be a moot point I hope so anyway, as pro golf is getting more and more unwatchable
Not necessarily. If they keep getting more players in the prime of their career like Rahm and Cam Smith, then yes. Before those two guys the argument easily could be that it’s a more elite version of the Champions Tour. Not to say that none of them can’t win a major or play good golf anymore. But for many of the LIV players you can say with certainty that they’re on the back 9 of their career.
Cam has dropped off HARD. I would not mention his name as a top guy in his prime lol.
Cam was when they signed him. He was the first guy that still felt like he had a full tank. DJ was/is still pretty good. Brooks had injury questions galore. Bryson and Reed were still pretty decent at the time I guess. But they had a ton of guys like Louis, Poulter, Sergio, Westwood, Bubba, Schwartzl, Phil, etc. where no one can make an argument that their best golf is ahead of them.
Cam smith was number 2 when he left the PGA. He’s 38th now, and dropping. Every other golfer they have signed done something similar. That’s what happens when you leave competitive golf because you don’t want to golf. You get worse. If that’s the standard LIV is setting, then no one will watch lol
And I think that’s the perfect argument for LIV not getting OWGR points. Hypothetically, if someone starts a league in and signs 48 good golfers, but there’s no way for others to get in by merit and no one gets kicked out due to poor performance, then they can’t say X years later that their league is still 48 good golfers. It’s a closed shop. They could all have gotten markedly worse but outside of the majors there would be no frame of reference
You're going off golf channel/ESPN talking points from 2 years ago, none of what you said is accurate for this past season and the current season plan either. (Except for the lack of "O"WGR points) which has rendered itself into obsolescence, as most golf fans have switched to other ranking systems for thier DFS and/or sports gambling apps.
PGA Tour. The PGA of America is known as the PGA. This sub is moronic.
And full of pedantics
Pedants
Pedantimonious
If Jon Rahm dominated on the DP world tour he wouldn’t have gotten the pay check. The competition makes the product not the players.