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Message: [QUOTE="jncuse, post: 4280602, member: 1969"] I have to disagree here. The LIV and even the initial modest LIV field scares the **** out of the PGA. About 5 or 6 months ago a number of names were mentioned (largely the ones that joined now minus DJ and Dechambeau IIRC). It seemed around March these rumours were squashed and the narrative switched that it would all be garbage players -- guys like Robert Garrigus who was the first to seek an exemption from the PGA would be amongst the best in the field. In the end Robert Garrigus wasn't even granted an invite by LIV, and the first field was better than expected even if modest. Apparently LIV plans to continue to add on to players on a piece-meal basis,. PGA, as a non profit member operated group, is trying to run like a business of sorts (can't lose money), while LIV's business plan has nothing to do with making money or any sort of financial return (at the golf level anyway). That is extremely hard for the PGA to compete against. Furthermore, the PGA's goal is not to beat the LIV -- its to make its approximately 40 events it fully owns better products (it does not own the majors or fully own the WGC's). Beating LIV does not help the tour in its goal of bettering its product if its own product is diluted in the process.. Losing 20 of your better players to LIV will hurt the quality of those 40 events you own. They already have issues with modest fields in some of those 40 events. That problem will only get much worse. Might not be a problem for the majors (who will likely still invest the best of LIV), but for the PGA tour owned event it will. And that is going to be a problem when it comes time to negotiate TV rights. Was the first LIV field that great. Certainly not, but it was better than anticipated. LIV now has 20 of the top 100 players in the world, which is about as many as some PGA tour events. It certainly is an older product, with more Euros and South Africans, but its going to keep adding. And it has names with some brand recognition or heat (like DeChambeau). The initial quality of field was about a "32" in terms of World Ranking Points if Reed and Dechambeau had played, which is on par with some low tier PGA events. It will be hard for the World Ranking board to justify not granting these events some points. Could be lawsuits there. [/QUOTE]

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