THE NEXT ONE’S GOOD
when he tried to usurp the USGA’s rules- making authority over square grooves, so it’s another word of cau- tion for the CEO who gets too involved in the
PARTNER IN TROUBLE Woods’ future roles for the PGA Tour are uncertain.
ball rollback controversy.) The other thing Rolapp needs to worry about is the DP World Tour. It comes at a great cost to continue to subsidise, but the risk in walking away is that LIV will swoop in – just as it might do in those US middle markets he departs. I played in a pro-am recently with a top young player who told me Rolapp’s lack of golf knowledge is an advantage because the tour has traditionally been too beholden to golf’s old power structure, meaning the majors and the governing bodies. When Rolapp came in and cleared out the gray golf heads, replacing them with non-golf-types, the players cheered. Ig- norance gives you freedom, but it’s risk in disguise. The Tour seems to offer a lot of mutu- ally exclusive alternatives. The players like being independent contractors, but they want guaranteed income. The Tour needs to coddle its stars past their sell-by date but still offer a runway for up-and- coming young players. The pros claim a world tour, but they don’t want the hassle of traveling overseas. The US tour thinks its needs all the top players competing against each other every week for validation, but interna- tional tournaments need only five or six top players to satisfy sponsors and fans. This is why LIV is a roaring success in Australia and South Africa but fails in America. Rolapp is looking at the post- season – October through January – as a time for global golf. He’ll require all Beman’s marketing muscle, Finchem’s thick skin and Monahan’s good counsel to make that field goal. There’s no doubt Rolapp will bring new ideas and more money to the pro game, but he needs to keep in mind the words of the late USGA iconoclast Frank Hannigan, who once told me, “If you don’t have at least three conflicts of interest, you’re not in the golf business.” It’s the messiness of golf that holds the game together. You just need to be a golfer to understand that.
base towards player-directors on the Tour Policy Board, pushing purses, lim- ited fields and equity participation for the stars, pacing the schedule to avoid player fatigue and discouraging further defections. Rolapp has been smart in speaking about the direction he wants to take the Tour rather than specific outcomes because, as one former tour official told me, “The more he talks to people, the more he realises just how restricted his next steps are.” That’s the messy nature of golf with its checks and balances shared by all the organisations that run the majors. That’s why he’s now point- ing to 2028 for changes in the schedule. His big concept is creating scarcity by reducing the number of tournaments to about 21-26 (from 45), having full fields of 120-ish players with a Friday cut, opening the tour after the Super Bowl on the West Coast so that it finishes in prime time on the East Coast, playing in big markets (hasn’t anybody told him pro golf goes to die in metropolitan New York?) and building to a more impactful playoff season. A reduction in the number of tourna- ments will risk abandoning middle-size markets that have been loyal to the tour for decades. The Tour’s new mantra is “The best players compete against each other more often,” but that takes away a lot of hours from network TV coverage. I remember Woody Allen once saying it’s the ordinary movies that keep theatres open between the big hits. We need week-to-week tournaments to keep pro golf going between the majors. An underlying challenge will be how Korn
Ferry and other young players can fight their way up the ladder. Tour partners I talk to – both media and tournament sponsors – are all sceptical that he can pull it off. The real test will be when the NFL renegotiates its TV and streaming contracts (it was Rolapp himself who gave them the early opt-out flexibility), and whatever’s left will be the scraps that all other sports will duke it out over. In every appearance Rolapp makes, even in his prepared remarks, he ne- glects to mention the two C’s that have been the foundation of pro golf since the First World War – that is, commu- nity and charity. Oh, yeah, he says when asked, “No one should expect us to take a backward step in charitable causes.” But his heart is not in it when he says that, and it’s clearly not a priority in the new for-profit venture of the private-equity invested PGA Tour. Thousands of volun- teers show up for their communities and charities, and it’s the protective cover for America’s CEOs and publicly traded corporations to support a minor sport like golf. Sponsoring tournaments has always been justified not by how many watch but by who plays. Unlike the NFL, pro golf isn’t audience driven; it’s B-to-B marketing. Pro golf does more than sell balls and shoes. It achieves business ob- jectives through brand exposure, client engagement and measurable return on investment. The Tour’s first commis- sioner Deane Beman understood this better than anyone. He invented golf’s non-profit status – “501(c) (6)” was his middle name – and coined the slogan, “Charity is the leading money-winner on tour.” (Beman’s end was hastened
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 13
MAY 2026
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