One yr in the past — getting into the Arnold Palmer Invitational — it might have been honest to say that Chris Kirk was the least-exciting winner the PGA Tour had amongst its first occasions of the brand new season. Quick ahead 12 months, and Kirk is likely to be the most-exciting on the similar juncture.
Kirk had simply received the 2023 Honda Basic, which ended an insane run that noticed Jon Rahm, Max Homa, Justin Rose, Si Woo Kim and Scottie Scheffler emerge as match winners. Kirk just lately received the 2024 The Sentry, which kicked off a run of … Grayson Murray, Nick Dunlap, Matthieu Pavon and Austin Eckroat as champions.
Positive, Hideki Matsuyama and Wyndham Clark have additionally received tournaments this yr, however Kirk (No. 55 within the Knowledge Golf rankings) is a minimum of of their ballpark.
The dialog undergirds the broader level: This season on the PGA Tour has lacked compelling victors, and outdoors of 1 Sunday at Riviera, there’s been a critical lack of top-level drama, too.
Why is that?
A part of it’s as a result of stars have left for LIV Golf, after all. Rahm received 3 times between Jan. 1 and the Arnold Palmer Invitational final yr. He is gone, enjoying with Legion XIII in Hong Kong this week. A part of it’s unhealthy luck with climate, which shortened the Pebble Seaside Professional Am to a few rounds. A part of it’s that there has by no means been a clearer differentiation between the signature occasions and the occasions that, properly, will not be signature occasions.
Nearly all of it, although, is just stars not stepping up and being stars.
You possibly can body that nevertheless you need, as Patrick Cantlay did Tuesday at Bay Hill.
“It is more durable to win out right here than it ever has [been],” he mentioned. “Guys play extra aggressively, and the scores, as you may see, are decrease and decrease, seemingly yearly. I all the time marvel initially of the yr what number of below par guys shoot on the Sentry. It is basically the identical golf course, however guys hold capturing decrease and decrease.
“Yeah, I feel successful, you bought to maintain placing your self in place time after time, and a few of these weeks you get the precise break on the proper time. You hit a pair putts that, as an alternative of happening the lip, they go in. Often these are the weeks that you just win.”
If that is true then not sufficient of the PGA Tour’s finest gamers — Cantlay included — have put themselves round sufficient leads so far. No person within the Knowledge Golf prime 25 has received a PGA Tour occasion in 2024. Most of them haven’t been all that shut, both.
The place are all of the shootouts between the very best gamers on this planet? The place are the head-to-head duels which have so typically marked the PGA Tour’s West Coast swing?
This is able to all be advantageous if the PGA Tour was a league that would relaxation on (and market towards) parity.
Parity is okay within the NFL as a result of the fan base of every crew is sufficiently big that you do not want informal followers gravitating towards whether or not a crew can go undefeated. In a person sport like golf, although? It’s miles much less compelling to tout depth with names like Pavon, Eckroat and Murray than it’s when Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler are rolling. That is the way it’s all the time been, and certain, the way it will all the time be.
The PGA Tour wants a pair huge weeks to search out some degree of momentum with main championship season approaching.
The excellent news is that the league has two of its largest tournaments over the subsequent 10 days — Bay Hill this week and the crown jewel Gamers Championship subsequent week at TPC Sawgrass. Loads shall be forgotten if names like Homa, Spieth, McIlroy and Collin Morikawa discover the winner’s circles.
These are fragile occasions for skilled golf and its assorted leagues. What won’t seem to be that huge of a deal proper now might create ripples we is not going to see for months and even years into the long run.
Amid negotiations with the Public Funding Fund of Saudi Arabia, the PGA Tour is now backed by $3 billion from the Strategic Sports activities Group. It wants to come back to the desk with a world class product proper now, too.
What has occurred over the primary three months has been advantageous for the sickos and first rate tv at occasions, but it surely’s not what the PGA Tour envisioned and never essentially what followers wished. It is time for the celebrities to step up. All of them can be nice, however even only one can be sufficient.
