Either Tom McKibbin’s representatives know a lot more than the rest of us about the direction men’s golf is headed or money is fast becoming the number one incentive for the game’s rising stars.
That’s certainly the impression I get from news that McKibbin is expected to confirm a three-year deal with LIV Golf, turning his nose up at a PGA Tour card despite dedicating his life’s work to get it.
His life-long mentor and fellow Holywood GC man Rory McIlroy cut a fairly disconsolate figure in his Dubai press conference this week when quizzed on the rumoured LIV switch, confessing his disappointment while all but confirming that his young protege was out the door.
It’s a move that’s raised more than a few eyebrows in golf, although it should be said that the 22-year old has also garnered his fair share of support. After all, it’s McKibbin’s life to live. The rumoured $8 million signing bonus is a mighty carrot to have dangled before you.
If I’d been given half that at 22, I’d be dead.
Yet McKibbin’s incredible talent would’ve paid out in fortunes on the PGA Tour anyway, which says one of two things: Either the young man is confident the divided world of men’s pro golf will soon unite, or else a career collecting golf’s top prizes, including Major championships and Ryder Cups, matters a lot less than the Northern Irishman has ever let on.
For those of us on the outside, it seems McKibbin has now sacrificed such opportunities anyway, bar the upcoming Open Championship in Portrush for which he’s already qualified, and a possible PGA Championship place. And while I agree that this is McKibbin’s decision to make, I can’t help but feel sad that such a talent is set to opt out of golf’s traditional tours to swing himself into obscurity on LIV.
There’ll be many who disagree with me on this. People who’ll fight harder for McKibbin’s pocket than he will. But when it comes to McKibbin’s bank balance, I couldn’t care less. And the same goes for any player lucky enough to have made it on tour.
What I care about is the sport. I care about meaningful competition. I care about the few tournaments a year that I’ve grown up watching, and I care about that context being preserved.
If my beloved Liverpool suddenly opted out of the Premier League to play 11-a-side exhibition matches in the Middle East, I’d cut the cord without hesitation. The same goes for players turning their backs on a sport that rewarded them greatly, long before the Saudis distorted their idea of self-worth.
For me, golf’s most alluring feature is its jeopardy. It’s watching how players react to pressure. Whether their vulnerability blossoms or bursts under the cut mark. Or their hands play ball or betray them over a three-foot putt. And sometimes it’s looking at a player with their tour card on the line needing to find a final fairway through a narrow chute of spectators and imagining the amount of people I’d kill trying to do the same.
Often such moments are met with the weight of history. And it’s this context that remains the status quo’s unique selling point in the eternal battle with LIV.
As of today, the PGA Tour and DP World Tours are on life support with the former content to sync their model to LIV’s exclusivity, reducing fields and eliminating cuts, instead of leaning into the tradition that helped shape a triumphant past: Tournaments steeped in history. Trophies etched with the names of golf’s torchbearers. Titles still with ample space for more names to emerge. And more history to be made.
Or you can join LIV. Golf but louder, as if the world isn’t noisy enough already, where the relegated Branden Grace and Bubba Watson get reinstated to their rosters because there’s no one else. Stinger GC and the Range Goats reunited, much to the joy of the primary school kids who came up with their team names.
If that’s your idea of golf’s future, then you couldn’t have invested in golf’s past. A sport that stood the test of time for more than a hundred years before the modern player got greedy. A sport that had its place, dripping in rivalry and competition, and one that inspired countless generations to take up the game, with the only expectation in return being to ensure they’d leave it in a better place than they found it.
The modern player has clearly missed that memo. And it won’t be forgotten.
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