Bryson’s chase, Phil’s announcement, signs of pro golf’s larger shift

In the first week of the PGA Tour’s official offseason, a few items of note have filled the void in the professional golf world.

Look, it’s healthy for the Tour to have a proper offseason so that we can actually miss it. And reports relevant to pro golf’s future have been swirling, including big-picture news like LIV’s potential replacement for Greg Norman or its potential alliance with the DP World Tour. Still, Thanksgiving Week’s biggest golf-related headline probably came from the dramatic conclusion of Bryson DeChambeau’s ace chase, a 16-day quest that showcased his precision from 100 yards, the size of his new glass mansion and his unwavering belief that he wouldn’t skull a wedge through his living room window. He picked up a half-million TikTok followers along the way and zipped past two million followers on Instagram, the latest in a year of chart-topping content creation that also saw him cross a million YouTube subscribers and [glances at notebook] win the U.S. Open.

DeChambeau was busy this week; he also wrapped the first season of his YouTube series “Break 50” with Tom Brady, the most recent in a glitzy guest list that has included Tony Romo, John Daly, Phil Mickelson and President-elect Donald Trump. DeChambeau’s video with Brady has already amassed well over a million views less than 48 hours after its posting. Brady loves golf, which was certainly one motivation for his participation; another factor could be that he has also recently launched his own YouTube channel, which saw a boost from the DeChambeau collab.

Mickelson made headlines in the YouTube space, too; he and popular golf YouTuber Grant Horvat announced that they’re planning a 2-vs.-2 series of challenge matches against other golfers, athletes and celebrities, coming in January. Mickelson is no stranger to the content space — his Phireside chats made for a fascinating Twitter series — but while we’ve seen golfers featured on plenty of YouTube channels, pros as content creators is a more recent development. While Mickelson’s claims that the Tour is sitting on “multiple billions of dollars” in NFTs may have been aggressive, it’s clear he’s using the freedom of a LIV offseason to play a different type of team golf and potentially unlock some extra value in the process.

I’m not here to tell you how you should feel about all of this. It’s clear DeChambeau’s quest captured the attention and imagination of plenty of sports fans, and if you want to celebrate a new era of athlete access and clever content creation, this is the era for you and I’m thrilled on your behalf. On the other hand, if the idea of the greatest player in NFL history and the second-best golfer of his generation chasing YouTube followers by taking on golf challenge gimmicks makes you want to stare blankly into the abyss, well, I get that, too. But there’s no question that we’re in the midst of an ongoing shift in what it means to be a professional golfer and a golf fan, too.

Another headline, then, from this week: Crypto.com was announced as the title sponsor for The Showdown, a team match slated for next month pitting two PGA Tour stars (Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler) against two LIV Golf stars (DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka). The Crypto.com Showdown is not necessarily popular at PGA Tour HQ, where they’re used to having control or at least investment when their pros tee it up, and this match is seen as sidestepping the ongoing negotiations between the Tour and LIV’s backers at the Saudi Public Investment Fund. But that makes a bitcoin trading platform the perfect sponsor, doesn’t it? Golf’s top tour isn’t just negotiating with LIV but with a decentralized golf landscape in which being a “pro golfer” can mean more different things than ever before — a development that has outsiders taking risks and taking shots at the establishment and it’s tougher than ever to determine what’s authentic and worth your time.

The Tour establishment is not blind to this shifting landscape; it has been diversifying, too. It has a stake in the TGL, which is just weeks from launching, and this week, one of its franchises, New York Golf Club, made the rounds in an NYC media tour that included a stop on “The Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon. That wasn’t necessarily a dream fit for Cameron Young, to whom Fallon pointed out midway through, “you haven’t really said a word.” Young is more of a throwback clubs-do-the-talking type, and he has good company in that club like the no-nonsense World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler. But part of the promise of TGL is personality to go with all that golf skill. These days, there’s an expectation that your clubs won’t do all the talking.

Golf’s decentralization isn’t just arena golf, YouTube matches and TikTok challenges, though. This fall has brought golf to different tours in different corners of the globe, which is generally very cool. That includes Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry playing the Irish Open and the closing stretch of the DP World Tour season. It includes Cameron Smith playing state opens and national championships as part of his Aussie golfing summer. It includes Tom Kim returning to play in his native South Korea. There’s a beauty to their golfing freedom; there is all sorts of cool tournament golf that exists outside the boundaries of the PGA Tour. As golf leadership tries to sort out what a unified ecosystem would actually look like, it’s worth wondering how to serve all its various constituencies.

Much of [gestures broadly] this wave of new-school golf entertainment is what we, the golfing public, have asked for. Golf and its characters presented in more entertaining formats? Yes please! Still, Thanksgiving Week is as good a time as any to glance over at the NFL — centralized, intensely organized and appointment viewing for tens of millions of families — and feel some envy. We know who’s playing and when. We know the stakes and we know our allegiances. We know what the season is building towards. And we know we’re watching the best. The games take center stage.

In pro golf, by contrast, it’s hard not to wonder where all of this fits in the context of the game’s future. Scheffler-McIlroy vs. Koepka-DeChambeau is a nice one-off, but does it get us closer to a cohesive, meaningful top tour? When the PGA Tour comes back around in January, will it maintain the same cachet it had in a simpler sports world? DeChambeau has become golf’s official content king, but his highest-profile golf happens on social media and at the majors. Is that a sign of things to come?

In Thanksgiving terms, then: There are more side dishes this year than ever, but your aunt and uncle are in the kitchen, speaking in hushed tones about whether they can salvage the turkey. You’re hungry. It’s time to find out whether there’s a big bird coming or whether you should just dig in on what you’ve got.

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