Opinion & Analysis

The Case Against a World Golf Tour

Published

8 years ago

Nov 26, 2017

In late 1994, the No. 2-ranked player in the world, Greg Norman, dropped a bombshell on the golf world. In partnership with Fox, Norman announced that beginning in 1995 there would be a new tour on the block. The eight-event schedule, boasting a total purse of $25 million plus a $50,000 travel stipend and a $1 million bonus to the player of the year, was Norman’s attempt to globalize the game; he called it the World Golf Tour (WGT). At least that was the claim.

Criticism of the WGT was almost instant for several reasons, namely that Norman was trying to steal the top-30 players in the world (plus another 10 who would be offered sponsor’s exemptions) and his proposed event schedules were going to be in direct conflict with the PGA Tour. The other major criticism was that Norman was greedy because of the large purses he was claiming, as well as the shared TV revenue the players on the WGT would get. Remember, the largest first-place prize for a tournament in 1994 was $540,000 at the Tour Championship. The WGT, as it was going to be set up, would guarantee any player a minimum of $290,000 per year based on the last place earnings of $30,000 guaranteed (first-place prize for all eight events would be $600,000), plus the travel expenses and the TV revenue sharing. In 1994, that was a nice prospect. In a November 17th, 1994 article for the Washington Post, Thomas Boswell, wrote the following:

The WGT’s For-Stars-Only format would strip bare the fields of established events such as the Kemper Open and detract from major events such as the U.S. Open. It’s no accident the WGT plans events for the weeks before the four majors.

Potentially, the World Golf Tour — if it ever really comes into existence — could throw golf into an ugly Balkanized era of tennis-like chaos. Think of the strikes in baseball and hockey; then think of golf, ripped by litigation and bad blood between rival groups of players. Think of the Federal Trade Commission, jumping all over the PGA Tour on restraint of trade issues. Thanks, Greg. You’re a buddy.

The news of the WGT didn’t settle well with many players either. In another article for the Los Angeles Times from 1997, Ron Sirak quoted Norman: “’Everybody I’ve spoken to — Nick Price, Fred Couples, Jose Maria Olazabal — all the responses have been extremely positive,” Norman said. Within days, however, it was clear than no one was rushing to jump on the Norman bandwagon. Finchem had made it clear that anyone playing on the World Tour would be walking away from the PGA Tour. It will likely always remain unclear what Norman’s exact intentions were, but was it clear is that his attempt was poorly timed and Tim Finchem wasn’t having it. The tour never kicked off thanks to various legal battles and threats from the PGA Tour to suspend any player who teed it up in a WGT event. By 1997, Finchem had announced the birth of the World Golf Championship series sporting a $4 million prize pool, a full $1 million more than Norman promised with his WGT.

The question is, 23 years removed from Norman’s attempt at globalizing golf, where do we stand? Have the WGC events made men’s golf a more global game? We have two major golf tours competing week after week for eyeballs and rapidly increasing prize pools. The 2017 U.S. Open boasted a $12 million pot with more than $2 million going to brandishing bomber Brooks Koepka (his winnings alone were more than the entire prize pool for the 1994 Masters) after he made Erin Hills look like a municipal par-3. The European Tour has bolstered its prize money, revitalized tournaments like the Irish Open, Spanish Open and Italian Open, and yet the total Race to Dubai prize purse is only half of the first place bonus for the winner of the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup. It’s also $2.5 million less than it was in 2009, when the Race to Dubai replaced Order of Merit.

Rumblings of the need for a World Golf Tour have been circulating for a few years. Recently, it was brought up on the No Laying Up podcast in an interview with Rory McIlroy. Soly asked Rory a series of questions and they came to the topic of new storylines in the game. The following exchange happened:

Rory: You’ve got storylines from everywhere, ‘This young Spanish kid’, ‘This young Japanese kid’, you’re always going to have the strength in America because of just the numbers that play here and the system and it’s always going to be great, but it’s such a global game now. You know, even the PGA Tour now expanding to Asia, going to these places, you know it’s … World Tour. It’s happening one day I think.

Soly: Well, you walked right into that one. What do you think of the possibilities of that? How would that look? Are you in support of it?

Rory: I think it has to happen. You know, as time goes on, just to have all these tours competing against each other. Having to change dates and this and that, it’s counterproductive. I think everyone has to come together and say, ‘Alright, this is what we have to do’….I mean, jeez, I don’t know what the solution is.

Right, the problem is that we don’t really know what the solution would be or what it might look like, or at least nothing has been proposed. But part of the reason we don’t know the solution is because we don’t know the problem. So, what’s the actual problem?

Is the problem that there are too many options for players? That’s going to be a hard sell. Is the problem that it’s too hard for players to schedule the “best” events because so many great events conflict with others or fall in the sixth or seventh week of a playing stretch? Again, that’s a hard sell. Maybe the problem is that there are two really strong tours that the fans don’t get to see the top-30 or top-50 players more than eight times in a season? Or a little further, that the top-30 or top-50 or top-100 don’t get to compete against the other 29, 49, or 99 guys as often as they’d like. If that’s the problem, and it’s the only problem I can see that might need attention, then I think there is another solution, or multiple parts to a solution that could make a whole.

Rory goes on to say that he thinks the PGA Tour will eventually have to buy the European Tour. That’s an option, but before we do that, let’s take a look at the schedules of the PGA and European Tour by the numbers, because when you place the schedules next to one another, you realize that, yes, the PGA Tour trumps the European Tour in many ways, but I don’t know if that’s such a bad thing.

PGA Tour 2016-17 Schedule: By the Numbers

Tournaments: 51
Total purse of all tournaments: $358,800,000.00
Total purse without Majors: $315,550,000.00
Total purse without WGC Events and Majors: $276,800,000
FedEx Cup Prize Pool: $25,000,000
Weekends with dual events (events opposite WGC or Major): 4

European Tour 2017 Schedule: By the Numbers

Tournaments: 48
Total purse of all tournaments: $188,000,000.00*
Total purse without Majors: $145,000,000.00
Total purse without WGC Events and Majors: $105,000,000.00
Race to Dubai Prize Pool: $5,800,000.00
Weekends with dual events (one of those is the Australian Open/Alfred Dunhill): 3

*Currency converted to USD for easy comparison

It’s not surprising to see the prize pool for the PGA Tour nearly triple the European Tour without the dual events. But does that mean the tours should be combined? I understand where someone like Rory feels that it’s bound to happen or that it needs to happen, but such a solution as a World Tour will come at the expense of established tours. It’s like building a pyramid. If you create a new layer on top, all you’re doing is making it more difficult to grind out and make a living at the lower level because the money will rise to the top and the climb to the top is a little bit higher. The developmental tours, such as the Web.com Tour, PGA Tour Latin America, Sunshine Tour, Challenge Tour, and Japan Golf Tour will all suffer. The players on those tours already struggle to make a living if they aren’t rattling off top-10s week after week, and stacking another layer on top of that will only make it more difficult for those tours to survive. Let’s take a look at those developmental tours by the numbers.

Japan Golf Tour (2017)

Tournaments: 27
Total Purse of All Tournaments (converted from Japanese Yen): $76,000,000
Total Purse of All Tournaments NOT Including the Majors: $32,300,000

Web.com Tour (2017)

Tournaments: 26
Total Purse of All Tournaments (not including Q-School): $17,800,000
Winner’s Share: ~$100,000-120,000

PGA Tour Australasia Schedule By The Numbers (2017)

Tournaments: 18
Total Purse of All Tournaments: $16,800,000
Total Purse of All Tournaments NOT Including the World Cup of Golf: $8,800,000

Mackenzie Tour (2017)

Tournaments: 13
Total Purse of All Tournaments: $2,245,000
Winner’s Share: ~$31,000

PGA Tour Latin America (2017)

Tournaments: 20
Total Purse of All Tournaments: $3,365,000
Winner’s Share: ~$31,000

The combined prize pool for all of those developmental tours above (factoring in the majors on Japan Golf Tour) is less than the prize pool available on the European Tour without counting the majors ($116,000,000 for all of them).

I’m not saying there aren’t some broken cogs in the current model, but a World Tour would only exacerbate those issues. And what’s to be gained? That 40 percent of the players who try and play a global schedule get a few extra weeks off here and there? That they can earn more money over fewer events? In a world where golf is growing in fewer countries than it’s declining, it’s a slippery slope.

As it stands now in men’s golf, the European Tour is strong enough to not be considered a developmental tour. They are even experimenting with format, which seems such an obvious thing to do I can’t imagine why it isn’t happening more often. The prize pools are large enough and the course rotation is exotic enough that many players solely play the European Tour. The PGA Tour isn’t necessarily the only option to earn a superstar-living in the game. The more logical solution seems to be to simply expand the WGC series. These events are always a joy to watch and produce great drama (unless D.J. wins by four shots). Instead of playing four (as they did in 2017), expand to seven or eight. With eight WGC events plus the four majors, that’s 12 events one could consider “global” events. They already play one WGC in China and one in Mexico. Give us two more in Europe and another in Australia at Royal Melbourne and we’re set. In fact, why can’t the Australian Open be converted to a WGC?

The PGA Tour could swap three or four of their smaller tournaments like TPC Deere Run, Montreux, and Puerto Rico, and the European Tour would only have to cut two or three and they could run dual events. Or, instead of scrapping any, just play dual events. I get it, that’s a lot of work for tournament and tour officials, but creating a new tour is going to be no small feat either.

***

While we’re at it, is there any reason why the PGA Championship can’t be played in Europe every three years? I know, I know, it’s run by the PGA of America, but come on, let’s not get hung up on titles. In 2017, the PGA Championship drew a 3.6 Nielsen rating for the final round, the lowest since the final round of the PGA Championship since 2008. It’s not a dead event — it’s still a major — but it doesn’t always feel like one.

Think about the possibility of having the PGA Championship in Europe. It could basically be played on the same rotation as the Open Championship. The PGA has been swapping venues with the U.S. Open for decades. Why can’t we have a PGA Championship at the home of golf? Troon? Or even better, let’s have one at in South Korea. Korean golf has been on the rise for a couple of decades now. Imagine you’re a 10-year-old kid from South Korea and Si Woo Kim is playing in the first PGA Championship ever held outside the United States at Nine Bridges on Jeju Island. You’re that kid and you get to witness Si Woo Kim become not only the first player to win a PGA Championship outside the U.S., but the first Korean player to win a major championship. Korean children would grow up wanting to win the PGA Championship, not The Masters. The PGA Championship needs a spark, take it overseas.

The other piece to this puzzle, and likely the root of the issue with many of the European players, is membership. The current requirements for membership to the PGA Tour are as follows: must play a minimum of 15 events on the PGA Tour (majors and WGC events count toward that number) and if you play less than 25 events on the PGA Tour then you must add an event you have never played to the schedule next year.

The European Tour, on the other hand, only requires you to play in five events to be eligible for the Race to Dubai. The requirements for the PGA Tour are more rigid than the European Tour, which isn’t surprising. But this has caused some problems for a few players in terms of the Ryder Cup eligibility, namely Paul Casey. Casey hasn’t played a Ryder Cup since 2008 despite likely being eligible for at least two of the last three because he wasn’t a member of the European Tour. In Rory’s conversation with the guys from No Laying Up, he hinted that membership and schedule were the biggest concerns. Paul Casey talked about similar things on a podcast with Alan Shipnuck back in the summer. A World Tour might help the membership squabble, but so would adding a few more WGC events and hosting them around the world, you know, actually making them “World” Golf Championships.

Golf is already a global game. As it stands now, we have two great tours that provide amazing playing opportunities for players, a developmental system that provides multiple tours on multiple continents. I’m normally one to say “out with the old and in with the new” as quick as anybody. It’s all too easy to get hung up on tradition and handicap your problem solving, but before we run wild with the idea of this shiny new World Tour concept, let’s make sure we’re not trying to solve vanity problems at the expense of the developmental tours.

I agree with what Thomas Boswell wrote 23 years ago and think it still applies today, “Potentially, the World Golf Tour — if it ever really comes into existence — could throw golf into an ugly Balkanized era of tennis-like chaos.” Rory mentioned that he thought golf could mimic the tennis model, maybe for the top-10 in the world, but we want players to become more recognized, not play in obscurity.

Opinion & Analysis

Brandel Chamblee PGA Championship Q&A: Rose’s huge McLaren risk, distracted LIV pros and why Aronimink suits the bombers

Published

1 day ago

May 12, 2026

Gianni Magliocco

PGA Championship week is here, and Brandel Chamblee did not hold back in our latest discussion ahead of the season’s second major.

In our 2026 PGA Championship Q&A, golf’s leading analyst made the case that PIF pulling LIV’s funding has left its players competing in a state of confusion, called Justin Rose’s mid-season equipment switch a huge risk at 45, and explained why Aronimink will be a bombers’ delight this week.

Check out the full Q&A below.

Gianni: With the PIF confirming that they’re pulling funding from LIV at the end of the season, what impact do you expect that to have on the LIV players competing at the PGA Championship?

Brandel: I would imagine that they have all been thrown into a state of confusion, and will be distracted, not knowing where they are going to play next year and not knowing exactly their road back to either the DP World Tour or the PGA Tour. Or in Rahm’s case, being tied to a sinking ship for the next few years, likely playing for pennies on the dollar in events that no one cares about or watches.

I doubt this would put him in the best frame of mind to compete at his highest level. Keeping in mind, however, that majors are the only time that LIV disciples get to play in events that matter, so never disregard the motivation they have to prove to the world they are still relevant.

Gianni: Justin Rose switched to McLaren Golf equipment mid-season while playing some of the best golf of his career. What do you make of the change?

Brandel: I don’t really know what to make of Rose switching equipment. It seems a huge risk on his part, even though it is likely, in my opinion, that the clubs he’s playing are similar, if not the exact grinds, to what he was playing previously, with a McLaren stamp on them.

Having said that, at best, it is a distraction when he seemed to be as dialed in with his game as any 45-year-old could be and trending in the majors to perhaps do something that would definitely put him in the Hall of Fame. At worst, given the possibility that these clubs aren’t just duplicates of his old set stamped with McLaren on them, he’s made an equipment change that would take time, and 45-year-old athletes don’t have the time to do such things.

Gianni: Aronimink has only hosted a handful of professional events since it hosted the 1962 PGA Championship. What kind of test does it present, and does a course with less recent major championship history tend to level the playing field?

Brandel: Even though Aronimink has only hosted a handful of meaningful professional events, it has been fairly discerning in who can win there. When Keegan Bradley won the BMW Championship on the Donald Ross masterpiece in 2018, he was the 2nd best iron player on tour coming into that week. When Nick Watney won the AT&T at Aronimink in 2011, he was 2nd in strokes gained total coming into the week.

In 2020, Aronimink hosted the KPMG Championship, and Sei Young Kim won. On the LPGA that year, she was first in greens in regulation, putts per green in regulation, and scoring average on the way to being the LPGA player of the year. And then there is the 1962 PGA Championship won by Gary Player, who eventually became just one of a few players to win the career grand slam on the way to winning 9 majors. It is a formidable test, and if it’s not softened by rain, it will bring out the best in the upper echelons of the game.

Gianni: Is there a specific hole at Aronimink that you think will do the most to decide the winner?

Brandel: The hardest hole at Aronimink in each of the three tour events that have been played there since 2010 has been the long par-3 8th hole, with the par-4 10th being the second hardest, so most of the carnage will happen around the turn, but with the par-5 16th offering opportunities for bold plays and the tough closing holes at 17 and 18, the finish is likely to be frenetic.

Gianni: The PGA Championship has always sat in the shadow of the other majors. What does the ideal PGA Championship look like in your eyes, and what would it take for it to carve out its own identity?

Brandel: The PGA Championship, to whatever degree it suffers from the comparison to the other three majors, is still counted just as much when adding them up at the end of one’s career. Almost 1/3 of Nicklaus’ major wins were the five PGA Championships he won. Walter Hagen won 11 majors, five of which were PGA Championships.

Tiger Woods twice in his career won back-to-back PGA Championships, and those four majors count just as much as the other 11 he won. The PGA may not have the prestige of the other three, but it carries the same weight. Having said that, I preferred the identity that it had as the last major of the year.

Gianni: You nailed your Masters picks. Rory won, Scottie finished solo second, and Morikawa surged to a tie for seventh. Who are your top 3 picks for the PGA Championship and why?

Brandel: I am not a huge fan of majors played on golf courses that have been shorn of most of the trees, although I understand some of the agronomic reasons for doing so and of course the ease with which it allows members to play after errant drives. However, at the highest level, it all but eliminates any strategy off the tee and turns professional golf into an even bigger slugfest. That means that it will likely be a bomber’s delight this week, but fortunately, Scottie Scheffler is long enough to play that game and straight enough to play it better than anyone else.

The major championships give us very few surprises anymore, going back to the beginning of 2012, so the last 57 majors played, the average world rank of the winners has been better than 15th in the world. So look at the highest ranked and longest drivers who are on form coming into the PGA Championship who also have great short games as the surrounds at Aronimink are very challenging. That’s Scottie Scheffler by a mile and then McIlroy and Cameron Young with a far bigger nod towards DeChambeau than I gave him at the Masters.

Club Junkie

A putter that I love and hate – Club Junkie Podcast

Published

5 days ago

May 8, 2026

Brian Knudson

In this episode of the Club Junkie Podcast, we dive into one of the most interesting flatstick releases of the year with a full review of the new TaylorMade SYSTM 2 putters. After spending time on the greens, I break down what makes this design stand out, where it performs, and why it has me completely torn between loving it and fighting it. If you are into feel, alignment, and consistency, this is one you will want to hear about.

We also take a look at some of the putters in play on the PGA Tour last week. From familiar favorites to a few surprising setups, there is always something to learn from what the best players in the world are rolling with under pressure.

To wrap things up, I walk through the process of building a set of JP Golf Prime irons paired with Baddazz Gold Series shafts. From component selection to performance goals, this is a deep dive into what goes into creating a unique custom set and why this combo has been so intriguing.

Opinion & Analysis

From 14 handicap to pro: 4 things I’d tell golfers at 50

Published

6 days ago

May 7, 2026

Jaacob Bowden, PGA

This year my 50th birthday. Gosh, where has the time gone?

As a teenager in rural Missouri, some of my junior high and high school years felt interminable. Graduation seemed light years away. But the older I get, the faster life seems to fly by.

I’m also increasingly aware of my mortality. My dad died recently. Earlier this year, a friend and fellow PGA of America professional and I were texting about our next catch-up. The next message I received was news of his unexpected passing at 48. Shortly after, a woman I dated in college succumbed to cancer at 51.

Certainly, one can share perspective at any age. Seniors help freshmen, veterans guide rookies. But reaching this milestone feels like as good a time as any to do one of those “what would I tell my younger self?” articles.

I’ve had a uniquely varied career in golf. I started as a 27-year-old, average-length-hitting, 14-handicap computer engineer and somehow managed to turn pro before running out of money, constantly bootstrapping my way forward. I’ve won qualifiers and set venue records in the World Long Drive Championships, finished fifth at the Speedgolf World Championships, coached all skill levels as a PGA of America professional, built industry-leading swing speed training programs for Swing Man Golf, helped advance the single-length iron market with Sterling Irons®, caddied on the PGA TOUR and PGA TOUR Champions, and played about 300 courses across 32 countries.

It’s been a ride, and I’ve gone both deep and wide.

So while I can consult and advise from a lot of angles, let me keep it to a few things I’d tell the average golfer who wants to improve.

1. Think About What You Want

Everyone has their own reason for picking up a golf club.

Oddly, as a professional athlete, I’m not internally driven by competition. That can be challenging, as the industry currently prioritizes and incentivizes competition over the love of the game.

For me, I love walking and being outdoors. Nature helps balance my energy. I prefer courses that are integrated into the natural beauty of their surroundings. I’m comfortable practicing alone. I’m a deep thinker, and I genuinely enjoy investigating the game, using data and intuition to unearth unique, often innovative insights. I’m fortunate to be strong and athletic, so I appreciate the chance to engage with my abilities. Traveling feels adventurous. I could go on.

You don’t have to overthink it like I do. For you, it might be as simple as hitting balls to escape work, hanging out with friends, and playing loosely with the rules and the score.

The point is to give yourself permission to play for your own reasons, and let that be enough.

But if improvement is your goal, thinking about your destination—and when you want to get there—is important, because it dictates the steps you need to take. When I set out to go from a 14-handicap to the PGA TOUR as quickly as possible, the steps I needed were very different from those of a working golfer trying to break 90 in six months. That’s also different from someone who just wants a few peaceful hours outside each week, away from work or family.

None of these goals are better than the others, but each requires a different plan that you can work backward from.

2. There Are Lots of Things That Can Work

One of the challenges of golf is that, although there are rules for playing, there aren’t clear, industry-wide standards for how to best play the game. There’s a lot of gray area.

You might hear a top coach or trainer insist that a certain move is the best way to swing or train. Then you dig a bit deeper and, much to your confusion and frustration, another respected coach or trainer says something completely different. I don’t think anyone is trying to confuse you—at least I hope not. It’s just where the industry is right now.

You have to be careful with advice from tournament pros, too. They might be great at scoring, but they’re also human and sometimes just as susceptible as amateurs to believing things that don’t really move the needle. Tour players might describe what they feel, but that’s not always what they’re actually doing when assessed with technology.

I recently ran a test on my YouTube channel (which connects to my GolfWRX article “How to use your hands in the golf swing for power and accuracy”), and, interestingly, two of the most commonly taught hand actions produced the worst results in the test.

Coaches can certainly help. If you find someone you connect with to help navigate, that’s great. But there are many ways to get the ball in the hole. In the current landscape, you may need to seek multiple opinions, think critically, and use your own intuition to discern what seems true and whose advice resonates with you.

I’d recommend seeking someone who is open-minded and always learning, because things constantly change. Absolutes like “correct” or “proper” should raise a red flag. AI can be useful, but it tends to confidently repeat popular advice, so proceed with caution.

3. Get Custom Fit

If you’re serious about becoming a better player, getting custom fit is hugely important. There’s no sense fighting your equipment if you don’t have to. Most better players get fit these days and, if they don’t, they’re usually skilled enough to work around clubs that aren’t ideal.

If you plan to play for a long time, it’s worth spending a little more upfront to get something that truly fits you and your game, rather than continually buying and discarding equipment.

Equipment rules haven’t really changed significantly since the early 2000s. To stay in business, manufacturers keep pushing those limits. If you pull a bunch of clubs and balls off the rack and test them, you’ll find differences. I’ve tested two new drivers and seen a 30-yard total distance gap. Usually, the issue isn’t bad equipment; it’s that the combination of components simply isn’t the best fit.

It’s like wearing a new pair of floppy clown shoes. Sure, they’re shoes—but you won’t sprint your best in them compared to track shoes that fit perfectly.

Be wary of what’s called custom fitting, too. Sometimes the term is used as a marketing strategy rather than an actual fitting. In some retail settings, fitters may be incentivized to steer you toward higher-priced components. That doesn’t automatically mean it’s not the best fit, but you should be aware of potential biases.

I learned a version of this lesson outside of golf. Years ago, I bought a tennis racquet at a big box store from a seemingly knowledgeable employee who thought it would suit me best. The racquet gave me tennis elbow, and I spent months recovering with rest and acupuncture. The next season, I invested more time and money to find what actually fit me, and I walked away with something amazing that I still play with years later.

So if you’re going to get fit, be smart about it.

Find someone you believe has deep knowledge—possibly with certifications, but not necessarily. Make sure there’s a wide inventory across many brands. Check recent reviews for the individual fitter if possible. Make sure you trust that the fitter has your best interests at heart. If they’re wearing a hat or shirt with a specific brand’s logo, proceed with caution. Unless you specifically want a certain brand or look, be wary of upsells, especially if two options perform nearly the same.

Also, while golf is called a sport of integrity, there’s a thread of manipulation in the industry. I once drafted an equipment article for an industry magazine, structured just like one of their previous popular stories, with matching word count and great photos. The assistant editor loved it; it was useful to readers and required little work on his part. But the editor-in-chief nixed the story. When I asked why, I was told it was because I wasn’t an advertiser. It turned out the article I’d modeled mine after was a paid ad cleverly disguised as editorial content.

I really dislike games, clickbait, and fear-based manipulation. I hope this changes, but golfers deserve to know it exists.

4. Distance and Strategy Matter

There’s a real relationship between how far you hit the ball and your scoring average, even at the PGA TOUR level.

I experienced this early in my pro career. I started as a power hitter, swinging in the high 120s and breaking 200 mph ball speed with a stock driver.

Back then, some instructors advised swinging at 80%, so I tried slowing down for more accuracy. That worked fine on shorter, tighter courses. But on longer setups, I was coming into greens with too much club, and par 5s stopped being