Rory McILroy suggested that the PGA Tour could reduce the number of tournaments it stalls each year to fight “fatigue” among golf Fanbase.
Speaking before AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, which is disintegrating Thursday, McILroy thought about the state of golf and the way it could become more attractive for consumers, in particular with a certain number of different competitions now available.
It comes one day after the Northern Irishman played in the new trained The Golf League of Tomorrow (TGL)An event based on the stadium co-founded by itself and Tiger Woods. The competition sees golfers hitting the t-shirt and approaches shots in a simulator before moving on to real green in the center of the place.
“I can see when the golf consumer could be a little tired of everything available to them,” McILroy told journalists at Pebble Beach on Tuesday. “So, on a scale (the PGA Tour) back a little and perhaps have a little more rarity in certain things we do, like the NFL, may not be a bad thing.”
The regular calendar and the playoffs of the Fedex Cup of the PGA Tour is offering 39 tournaments this year. Each NFL team, on the other hand, plays 17 games during an 18 -week regular season between September and December.
The PGA Tour is now faced with competition from Liv Golf supported by Saudi, which presents some of the best players in the world – Dustin Johnson, Bryson Dechambeau, Brooks Koepka and Jon Rahm to name a few. The next Golf Liv season begins in Riyadh on February 6 and offers 14 events, ending in August.
McILroy said that the PGA Tour had been “reduced” by the launch of Liv and the rise in the climb of YouTube golf – a content shooting, edited and presented by online creators – while discussing the way Golf can better market with fans, both as a sport and an entertainment product.
For example, he said that the average age of viewers of his inaugural TGL event in Florida was about 50 years, about 13 years younger than the average audience for a PGA Tour event. But at the same time, the world No. 3 warned against golf moving away too much from its roots.
“It’s a balance,” said Mcilroy. “When we grow up by dreaming of becoming professional golfers and trying to get the most out of ourselves, the last thing in our minds is to be an artist.
“We are competitive people in the end. We want to play against the best players in the world and we want to try to go out in mind. I think that that should be entertaining for people.
“First and foremost, we are professional golfers, we want to go there and mark the best possible score that we can and try to fight,” he added. “I hope people find it entertaining and, if not, so I don’t know what to say to them.”
McILroy will play in his first PGA Tour of the Year event in California this week. He will face competition from N ° 1 World Scottie SchefflerWho comes back to the action after undergoing a bizarre injury when preparing the Christmas dinner.
Scheffler needed surgery to eliminate small glass fragments from his hand after the incident, but said on Tuesday that “everything feels good” before playing Pebble Beach.
McILroy, meanwhile, had wise advice for his rival: get a chef.
“I think he has made enough money to hire a chef,” joked McILroy. “Why are you cooking yourself?” I was hoping that it was going to be a little more a fun story than that … It is good that he does it this week. »»
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