ROCHESTER, N.Y. — PGA CEO Seth Waugh had some fiery takes — literally — about LIV Golf ahead of this week’s PGA Championship.
“Their logic about the team play being something significant that people can get behind I think is flawed,” Waugh told The Times. “I don’t think people really care about it. And I don’t see how it’s a survivable business model.
“They can fund it for as long as they want to, but no matter how much money you have, at some point, burning it doesn’t feel very good. I don’t see they are accomplishing much. It seems logical to me, then, that you would work towards some sort of agreement. I hope the game comes back together in some form.”
On Tuesday, Waugh spoke during the PGA’s annual state of the association press conference ahead of the 105th PGA Championship at Oak Hill, and he didn’t exactly walk back his previous comments.
“We don’t think division is in the best interest of the game,” Waugh said. “As a former businessman who looks at things, I think disruption is a good thing. I think good things have happened from that. Certainly, the players are better off in a lot of ways from what it was. I think having more the fans deal with — get to see more of the great players together more often is a good thing. I think there’s more interest in the game frankly as a result of all this disruption.
“But when asked, I struggle and I have since the beginning, even before the beginning, with understanding how it’s a sustainable business model.”
Waugh and PGA’s Kerry Haigh, chief championships officer, addressed a wide assortment of questions. Here are five more things to know from their press conference.
On the process of LIV Golf getting world ranking points
Seth Waugh: “What I’ve said and what I’ll say now is there has been healthy back and forth. It has not been acrimonious. There’s been collegial back and forth of them making an application as other tours have done. We’ve responded; they’ve responded. The ball, from my understanding, is in their court from our last response at this point.
“This is not an ‘us versus them.’ I think the OWGR, if you take a step back, the whole point is to create a level playing field, a yardstick by which to measure the game. Our job is to measure tours. Not players but tours and how they perform on those tours to come up with that yardstick. That’s what we’re all attempting to try to do.
“We’ve been, I think, very responsive to them in terms of their requests, and they’ve been responsive to us. It isn’t some battle.”
On the USGA proposed model local rule that would potentially roll back distance at the elite level
Kerry Haigh: “It’s too early to speculate what we would do in that it wouldn’t even come into effect until 2026. We’re not rushing to make a decision until we know what actually is going to take place.”
Seth Waugh: “I would just say it’s not an us-against-them sort of thing. This is very interactive, and the ruling bodies have been great about reaching out and having conversations and listening.
“We’re glad they’ve left the recreational game alone because we think now is not a time to make it harder or less fun for — while we’re finally growing in a way that we want to grow.
“We’re struggling with bifurcation case, like a lot of folks are, in the sense we think that’s an integral part of the game that we can all test ourselves against others. And frankly, where does it stop and start?”
On internal out of bounds on the sixth hole at Oak Hill this week
Kerry Haigh: “In playing the 6th hole, the fairway on hole 7 is out of bounds. That is the same rule we played at the (2019) KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship. With the redesign, the trees that were no longer there, sort of if you go down that way, take the water out of play, which is the architectural design of the 6th hole.”
On potential chilly conditions this week at Oak Hill
Kerry Haigh: “There is the possibility of a frost again on Thursday morning. We had a frost Monday morning. We had a couple of frosts last week. That may delay the start. Hopefully, it won’t. But if it does, we’ll adapt.
“The wind right now, we’ve got different direction winds, northeast I think day one and warming up, chance of rain on Saturday and hopefully clear on Sunday. That’s sort of the fun of golf. It’s an outdoor game, and we can’t wait to see what Mother Nature brings.”
On the continued strong performance of golf as a business post-COVID boom
Seth Waugh: “It’s never been in better shape. It continues to grow. We thought we’d see a downturn post-COVID. It’s really leveled off. It’s over 41 million players now. That’s on course and off course.
“If you can think about what percentage of golfers today are under the age of 35, and the number is 48 percent, I would reckon to say that it was 75 percent over 50 not so long ago.
“That’s the most exciting stat that I’ve seen in a long time about the growth of the game.”
