LIV Golf: Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy reveal rebel routing TMRW Sports
Tiger Woods’ leg injuries have restricted his golf in recent years but a new event he has launched with Rory McIlroy may be the answer to seeing more of Tiger on primetime TV.
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Rory Mcilroy and Tiger Woods will launch a new series of stadium golf events in which players will hit their drives and approach shots on to a giant screen as the PGA Tour announced its most significant fightback against the Saudi-backed LIV Golf series.
In the new format, which will allow 18 holes to be squeezed into a two-hour slot, players will shift from the giant screen to a short-game area in a stadium.
It will be known as TGL (team golf league) and will involve six teams of top players playing each other in a round-robin format over 15 Monday nights between January and April, with semi-finals and a final to follow. It is scheduled to begin in 2024 and has the backing of the PGA Tour. Many of the details of venues, television coverage, sponsorship and prize money have yet to be worked out.
It has been conceived partly as a means for Woods - still the biggest draw in golf - to continue to showcase his skills to the sport’s audience despite the debilitating leg injuries he suffered in a car crash last year. Woods, 46, struggled to complete two rounds at last month’s Open Championship at St Andrews and withdrew from the PGA Championship in May - his first event since his crash 15 months earlier.
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As he introduced a raft of measures designed to stop the exodus of players to LIV, the PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said that those who had already defected would not be welcome back. LIV is expected to announce a new raft of signings on Monday, with the Open champion, Cameron Smith, among them, and when asked if the rebels who were impressed by the proposed changes and wanted to return would have their suspensions lifted, Monahan said: “No.”
The PGA Tour has also gained commitments from top players to face each other in a minimum of 20 events each year - comprising the four majors, the Players Championship and 12 “elevated” tournaments - with an average purse of dollars 20 million (about pounds 17 million) - and three other events chosen by the players.
The Player Impact Programme (PIP), which measures the public profiles of individual players, will also become more influential in setting the fields for top events. The total sum distributed from the PIP fund is to double from dollars 50 million to dollars 100 million. There also will be a minimum salary of dollars 500,000 which can be taken up front by rookies, while lower-ranked players will receive a travel stipend of dollars 5,000 for each missed cut.
Leading players seemingly agreed to the deal in principle at a meeting hosted by McIlroy and Woods in Delaware last week.
McIlroy and Woods launched their TMRW Sports partnership with the former NBC executive Mike McCarley this week. On the eve of the season-ending Tour Championship in Atlanta, McIlroy and McCarley explained that their made-for-TV series would involve players hitting drives and approach shots into a giant screen, after which balls would be placed in a short-game area for them to complete the hole.
Asked about Woods’s involvement, McIlroy said: “Who knows where we’re going to see Tiger Woods play golf next? We don’t know what his schedule is going to be. We don’t know how his body is going to be.
“But to be able to see him still showcase his skills on primetime TV, and provide people with a glimpse of his genius without really any wear and tear on his body, I think is a really good use of his time.
“I couldn’t be more excited to partner with Tiger and Mike on this project. We’ve been working on this for two years. When someone comes to you and says, ‘I’ve got something to show you, I think it will be really cool, it will enhance the fan experience, it will be additive and complementary to the PGA Tour season - oh, and by the way, Tiger Woods is involved,’ it’s like, yeah, I think that would be pretty cool.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for PGA Tour players to show a different side of themselves [in] primetime on Monday night. It’s great for brand exposure to try to engage a different audience. We’ve all heard about the fact of how old the golf audience is, [so we are] trying to get younger eyeballs on to it.”
Monahan has been under pressure to produce a more aggressive response to see off the threat from LIV. “This is a remarkable time for the PGA Tour,” he said. “We have, and always will have, the ultimate platform for a player who wants to compete for the trophies and the titles that matter most. To now have our top players rally around this organisation and commit to a portfolio of tournaments like never before, our fans, our partners, our players are going to love it. There’s more to come.”
Monahan also made it clear that there could be no easy way back for players who have already agreed to join Greg Norman’s LIV project. “They’ve joined the LIV Golf series and they’ve made that commitment,” he said. “For most of them, they’ve made multi-year commitments. Every player has a choice, and I respect their choice, but they’ve made it.”
This article originally appeared in The Times.
Tiger and Rory team up to tackle Greg Norman
Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, the two most high-profile and outspoken opponents of Greg Norman’s LIV Golf project, have joined forces in a new commercial venture that has been clearly designed to be a counter attraction to the Saudi-backed rebel series.
Under the banner of “TMRW Sports”, the two players, who boast a combined 19 major titles and 789 weeks at the top of the world rankings, have promised that their partnership will focus “on building pioneering ventures that feature progressive approaches to sports, media & technology”.
While no details have been provided, it has been widely reported that Woods, 46, and McIlroy, 33, will be the figureheads for a series of one-day events that will feature many of the world’s top players, will be stadium-based and will run in conjunction with established PGA Tour events rather than compete against them.
Woods and McIlroy hosted a players’ meeting last week where they explained the broad outline of their plan to 23 fellow players, an audience that is said to have included 20 of the world’s top 30 ranked golfers and nine of the present top ten. It is understood that their proposals were warmly received.
Woods is believed to have resisted overtures from Norman and his Saudi backers to become involved in LIV golf.
"Man, I built this, and you guys are screwing it up."@AlanShipnuck on Tiger Woods' message to fellow PGA Tour members amid LIV Golf controversy pic.twitter.com/oyP9jSdCyy
— Outside The Lines (@OTLonESPN) August 21, 2022
Speaking before last month’s Open Championship at St Andrews, Woods took aim at Norman, when he said: “Greg has done some things that I don’t think is in the best interest of our game,” McIlroy has also been a consistent critic of the LIV innovation.
Woods said: “I am excited to work with TMRW Sports in bringing people more access to sports. So many athletes, entertainers and people I meet from all walks of life share our passion for sports, but they also share our desire to build a better future for the next generation of sports fans. Together, we can harness technology to bring fresh approaches to the sports we love.”
McIlroy added: “For the last few years off the course, I’ve been focused on helping to lead golf into its digital future. In a world where technology provides us with so many choices, we want to make sports more accessible for as many people as possible.”
News of the McIlroy/Woods project has emerged ahead of this week’s prestigious and lucrative Tour Championship event in Atlanta. It is expected that Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner, will give his backing.
The indications are that the TMRW Sports events will mostly take place early in the year, with some kind of grand final held later in the season.
This article originally appeared in The Times
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