GAJTKA: Golf’s Biggest Names Can Save the Sport From Itself

For the third straight September, I’ll be headed around the southern shores of Lake Michigan to cover LIV Golf’s Chicago-based event, which begins Friday.

While it will be a new location in Chicagoland — Bolingbrook Golf Club instead of Rich Harvest Farms — the placement in the LIV calendar is similar, as it’s again one of the final events of the startup league’s season.

Actually, this time Chicago is the final event in terms of LIV’s season-long individual competition, with the innovative team finale scheduled for Dallas the following weekend.

But, bottom line is, the golf season is winding down yet again, with the Solheim Cup and Presidents Cup team competitions pulling up the rear before September is out. I’m hopeful we get some more dramatics out of the month, and with the added intrigue of a heavy dose of team play, I’m optimistic we will see some highlight-reel moments yet in 2024.

I have to admit I’ve felt somewhat dissatisfied with the back portion of the golf season, with all of it feeling a bit rushed since Xander Schauffele claimed his second major of the year at Royal Troon. Part of that was unavoidable with the Olympics being part — a welcome part, from my view — of the summer golf activities, but some of that was also self-inflicted.

Particularly, I have a problem with how certain segments of the golf world are in such a rush to get the meaningful golf over with before Labor Day. The PGA Tour specifically has been explicit in its desire to avoid crossing paths with the NFL. (Never mind that the Tour has been a beneficiary of having TV broadcast windows adjacent to the NFL’s biggest games once we flip the calendar to January and February.)

That avoidance of football has rubbed me the wrong way for a couple of reasons.

Number one, for me it’s such a loser mentality to run and hide from King Football. I don’t think playing the FedEx Cup playoffs and the Tour Championship ever got significantly damaged by going up against an early-season NFL tilt.

There’s such a thing as counterprogramming, first of all. And also, I’d rather be playing when people are already committed to watching sports on TV. Don’t know about you, but on August weekends I’m typically looking for a way to enjoy the weather, not gluing myself to the couch.

The second reason I’ve been left cold by the ’24 calendar is the cadence of major events felt rushed. They slam together the (British) Open, the Olympics (men and women) and the PGA Tour crescendo in six weeks … because they’re scared of the NFL.

I realize this sounds odd in a discussion about a sport that basically has no offseason, but PGA Tour’s hustle to get to the finish line seems unnecessary. It devalues the product, in my view. Especially in a non-Ryder Cup year, let’s just take a breath.

At any rate, LIV has the luxury of operating outside the sphere of conventional thinking. Its third season — second as an actual league and not a series of invitationals — has rumbled along with a few wins as it pertains to the on-site product but nothing distinctive enough to make it really stand out in an ever-crowded sports landscape.

One thing I think the league continues to have going for it is managed scarcity. With 14 events across eight months, the schedule remains pleasingly non-bloated. It appears LIV will continue to boast a measured pace in 2025.

I also have come to enjoy the increased urgency of 54 holes. For me, it’s always seemed arrogant for pro golf tours to expect people to stay engaged over four days of play. That’s more than half the week, in case you’re keeping track. Unless there’s a major championship on the line, I’m going to have a hard time carving out the time and energy. And I consider myself an avid golf fan! Imagine what a casual follower thinks.

But despite the success of the Jon Rahm-led Legion XIII team, giving the league a shot of novelty, the biggest moments for LIV this year have arguably come at the majors. Bryson DeChambeau’s thrilling win at the U.S. Open, paired with his valiant runner-up finish at the PGA Championship, arguably gave LIV more juice than anything that happened in its actual tournaments.

There’s still time for something remarkable to happen in the final two tournaments, but the reality remains that the number of eyeballs trained on the individual and team championships will pale greatly compared to the exposure Bryson gave LIV by sporting the skull and crossbones of Crushers GC on the sport’s grandest stages.

The best avenue for LIV to garner love — in the near future, at least — will likely remain external. Along those lines, the recent Golfweek report that DeChambeau and LIV frenemy Brooks Koepka are set to challenge PGA Tour studs Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy in a made-for-TV match this winter is a promising sign that the best players in the world are determined to ensure that league rivalries don’t keep them from matching up on a semi-regular basis.

Good for them. And good for all of us. The road to pro golf reunification might still stretch ahead for many miles, but it’s still possible to get the best of both worlds once in a while.

“Look, I think all of us know we want to get this game back in good standing,” DeChambeau said at a pre-tourney media conference in Chicago this week. “We want to bring this game back to a place where I would say everyone has the opportunity to see the greatest play a lot more than four times a year. I think it’s a great opportunity to showcase how we evolve that over the course of time.

“Remember we always wanted to have a PGA Tour and LIV sort-of battle a couple years ago. We always thought that would be pretty cool and whatnot. But I think it’s going to develop over the course of time and hopefully give the people what they want.”

By the way, the PGA Tour has had no comment on two of its premier performers venturing out to take on representatives of its nemesis league. Maybe this is a glimpse into the future of golf, with star players taking more control of how their talents are showcased for the public.

In an individual sport such as this, maybe that’s for the best. LIV still has a ways to go to draw level with the PGA Tour, but the undeniably big names in its stable continue to give it traction.