McCARTHY: Greg Norman gambling again on world golf tour … Optimism for RBC Canadian Open

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The broadly speculated Saudi-backed breakaway world golf tour is again making information, and it’s persevering with to gather a few of the prime straw hat expertise within the trade.

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After luring Greg Norman off the seaside as CEO of the yet-to-be named tour, on Tuesday it employed former PGA Tour guidelines guru Slugger White out of retirement.

Norman, whose dream of a rival world tour started a long time in the past, was not too long ago tapped by LIV Golf Investments to go up a possible deep-pocketed challenger to the PGA Tour (though the corporate’s publicly said mission is to “holistically enhance the well being {of professional} golf.”) This week the group added White and his trademark panama hat, in addition to a number of sports activities media execs with lengthy and spectacular resumes. Throughout Norman’s announcement it was additionally defined that the group is partnering with the Asian Tour and committing $200-million over the following decade to fund 10 annual tournaments that can be on that tour’s schedule starting 2022.

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After years of hypothesis that is actually the closest we’ve been to this enterprise turning into a actuality, however now the exhausting half begins.

To launch a worldwide golf tour you want gamers. To rival the PGA Tour, you will have prime stars. There have been stories of conferences with roomfuls of brokers, as a result of when you find yourself speaking about cash, brokers are paid to pay attention. Touchdown a handful of PGA Tour stars remains to be extremely unlikely; touchdown the handfuls essential to be a viable world-class tour nonetheless appears inconceivable.

And bear in mind, the PGA Tour is but to fireside a single bullet.

The closest the parents in Ponte Vedra have come to reacting is the $40-million Participant Affect Program, a bonus fund break up between the highest ten Tweeters on tour, or one thing to that impact. However that doesn’t imply PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan hasn’t taken discover.

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This could-be tour has undoubtedly recognized some weaknesses within the meritocratic construction of the PGA Tour. The notion that each participant is equal on Thursday morning is romantic however falls a bit flat on this age of sport superstar, particularly when the tour markets its prime gamers virtually solely.

One of the best golfers see athletes such because the Raptors’ Goran Dragic making $20 million to take a seat on the bench within the NBA and desire a larger slice of the PGA Tour pie. That is likely to be apples to oranges however attempt convincing that to a roomful of your finest staff.

Certain, the breakaway tour’s thought of no-cut occasions with solely prime gamers sounds promising, however the almost definitely situation remains to be the PGA Tour merely stealing the format. Golf followers wish to see extra of the sport’s finest enjoying head-to-head. The tour already has the gamers, already has the tournaments, already has relationships with deep-pocketed sponsors. The tour probably wouldn’t have a tough time convincing its companions to pony up — even considerably extra — for a restricted collection of annual occasions that includes solely the world’s finest in a fan (and sponsor) pleasant format.

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Norman’s unique gamble on a world tour greater than 1 / 4 century in the past ended with the PGA Tour flexing its muscle groups and the event of the World Golf Championship occasions. In the end, the Shark is probably going going to search out historical past repeating itself.

CANADIAN OPEN AT LAST

Golf Canada CEO Laurence Applebaum expressed nice optimism that after two years misplaced to the pandemic, the RBC Canadian Open and CP Ladies’s Open can be all programs go subsequent June.

“All indications appear to be we’re trending in the precise method,” Applebaum stated throughout a state of the golf trade roundtable on Wednesday.

Applebaum was requested in regards to the potential hurdle of vaccinations amongst PGA Tour gamers, and whether or not it might result in issue attracting the robust discipline that the Canadian Open is hoping can be an annual incidence in its new spot on the PGA Tour schedule immediately earlier than the U.S. Open.

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“We have now an distinctive grouping who has traditionally performed this occasion, together with our companions at Workforce RBC,” Applebaum stated. “I don’t really feel that concern or fear for numerous causes, together with that we now have seven or virtually eight months forward of us earlier than the championship.”

Applebaum additionally talked about that representatives from the PGA Tour have been in Toronto in October for a website go to at St. Georges and to work on the plan for subsequent 12 months’s occasion.

CHIP SHOTS

Not all holes-in-one are equal. LPGA participant Austin Ernst made an ace throughout a apply spherical for this week’s Pelican Ladies’s Championship and gained a two-year lease on a Lamborghini … Canadian LPGA participant Brittany Marchand not too long ago introduced her retirement. I bear in mind the Orangeville, Ont., native as a tiny junior golfer after I was a member at Brampton Golf Membership. Seemed it up and I’m blissful to see that Marchand is simply 29 years outdated, as a result of for a second I used to be fearful I had gotten outdated … As Canadian golfers we’re all the time hoping for heat fall days, however my golf membership is closed now so the solar is simply annoying. What number of days till spring?