Phil’s announcement, Bryson’s ace marks golf’s biggest change

In the first week of the official PGA Tour season, a few things of note filled the void in the world of professional golf.

Look, it’s healthy for the Tour to have a decent season for us to miss. And reports surrounding the future of professional golf have been swirling, including big-picture news like LIV’s potential replacement for Greg Norman or a possible alliance with the DP World Tour. Still, Thanksgiving Week’s biggest golf-related headline likely came from the dramatic end to Bryson DeChambeau’s ace chase, a 16-day campaign that showcased his accuracy from 100 yards, the size of his new glasshouse and his dogged belief that he wouldn’t. a skull in his living room window. He picked up half a million TikTok followers along the way and surpassed two million followers on Instagram, the latest in a year of chart-topping content creation that saw him surpass one million YouTube subscribers once again. [glances at notebook] won the US Open.

DeChambeau has been busy this week; he also hosted the first season of his YouTube series “Break 50” with Tom Brady, the latest in an impressive guest list that has included Tony Romo, John Daly, Phil Mickelson and President-elect Donald Trump. DeChambeau and Brady’s video has already amassed more than a million views in less than 48 hours after it was posted. Brady loves golf, which was certainly one motivation for his participation; another reason could be that he recently launched his own YouTube channel, which has seen an increase in DeChambeau’s engagement.

Mickelson has made headlines in the YouTube space, too; he and popular golf YouTuber Grant Horvat announced that they are planning a 2-vs.-2 series against other golfers, athletes and celebrities, coming in January. Mickelson knows the content space – his Fireside chats have made for an interesting Twitter thread – but while we’ve seen golfers featured on many YouTube channels, professionals as content creators are a recent development. While Mickelson’s claims that the Tour is sitting on “multi-billion dollars” in NFTs may have been aggressive, it’s clear that he’s using the freedom of the LIV offseason to play a different type of club golf and potentially unlock more value in the process.

I’m not here to tell you how you should feel about all of this. It’s clear that DeChambeau’s passion has captured the attention and imagination of many sports fans, and if you want to celebrate a new era of athlete outreach and brilliant content creation, this is your time and I’m so happy for you. On the other hand, if the idea of ​​the greatest player in NFL history and the second-best golfer of his generation chasing YouTube fans by adopting golf challenge gimmicks makes you want to stare blankly into the abyss, I get that too. . But there’s no question that we’re in the midst of an ongoing transformation of what it means to be a professional golfer and golf fan, too.

Another headline, from this week: Crypto.com has been announced as the title sponsor of The Showdown, a team match scheduled for next month pitting two PGA Tour stars (Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler) against two LIV Golf stars (DeChambeau and Brooks. Koepka). The Crypto.com Showdown is not really popular at PGA Tour HQ, where they tend to have control or at least invest when their experts put it together, and this game seems to interfere with ongoing negotiations between Tour sponsors and LIV supporters at the Saudi Public Investment Fund. But that makes the bitcoin trading platform the perfect sponsor, right? The top golf tour is not just a conversation with LIV but a decentralized golf environment where being a “top golfer” can mean very different things than before – a development with outsiders taking risks and taking shots in the area and stronger than ever. to decide what is true and worth your time.

The Travel Agency does not recognize this changing situation; it has been varied, too. It has a stake in TGL, which is just weeks away from launching, and this week, one of its companies, New York Golf Club, is making the rounds on a NYC press tour that includes a stop on “The Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon. . That wasn’t exactly a dream come true for Cameron Young, to whom Fallon pointed midway through, “you really haven’t said anything.” Young is the talkative type, and he’s in good company at that club like the no-nonsense World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler. But part of TGL’s promise is the personality that goes along with all that golfing ability. These days, there are expectations that your teams won’t live up to everything to speak.

The division of golf is not just golf courses, YouTube games and TikTok challenges. This fall has brought golfers on different tours in different parts of the world, which is often a lot of fun. That includes Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry playing the Irish Open and the final episode of the DP World Tour season. Including Cameron Smith playing state opens and national championships as part of his Aussie summer of golf. Including Tom Kim returning to play in his home country of South Korea. There is beauty in their freedom to play golf; there are all kinds of cool tournament golf that exist outside the confines of the PGA Tour. As golf’s leadership tries to figure out what a unified ecosystem will look like, it’s worth wondering how it will work for all of its various constituencies.

a lot of [gestures broadly] this wave of new school golf fun is what we, the golf community, have been asking for. Golf and its characters are presented in more exciting ways? Yes please! Still, Thanksgiving week is as good a time as any to look at the NFL — it’s central, heavily syndicated and watched by tens of millions of households — and feel envious. We know who is playing and when. We know the stakes and we know our loyalty. We know where the season is headed. And we know we’re watching the best. Games are in the middle.

For pro golf, by contrast, it’s hard not to wonder where all this fits into the context of the game’s future. Scheffler-McIlroy vs. Koepka-DeChambeau is a great off, but does it get us closer to a more cohesive, meaningful tourney? When the PGA Tour returns around January, will it retain the same cache it had in the world of light sports? DeChambeau has become the king of official golf content, but his best golf takes place on social media and at the majors. Is that a sign of things to come?

With words of thanks, then: There are more dishes to eat this year than ever, but your aunt and uncle are in the kitchen, talking quietly about whether they can save the turkey. He is hungry. It’s time to find out if a big bird is coming or if you should just hold on to what you have.