🚨 PGA Tour Shakeup: New CEO, Tiger Woods Committee & Why the PGA Championship Must Move 🚨
So, the new PGA CEO or grand pua of master and space and time and dimension, Brian Rolap, has already come out swinging. You know, for those people that don’t know, Brian spent 22 years in the NFL. A lot of people thought Brian was going to be the heir apparent to Roger Goodell as the next commissioner of the NFL, but Roger has no intentions of leaving. I don’t blame him. And so, Brian went somewhere else, and he’s already swinging a big bat. In a press conference before the Tour Championship at East Lake, he basically said, “We’re going to have significant changes to the tour’s current schedule, the current model.” He says, “The goal is not incremental change. The goal is significant change.” And to that, I say, “Thank God, because Brian is a guy that I’ve known for a long time in the NFL. He knows how to get things done. He knows how to market a product. He knows what you need to do to make the product more marketable.” And let’s just start with one of the first things he’s done. He’s hired a competition committee. For anybody that has any association with the NFL, there is a competition committee in the NFL of coaches and general managers and front office people that look together and decide what can we do every year to modify things. This is why you get things like uh the dynamic kickoff or you know moving the PAT back, which one of the greatest rules of all time. It made the PAT a real play again. So Brian is not willing or is willing to mess up what has been in standard position in golf to make the product better. And you’ve heard me say this on my social channels before. I as soon as Brian got the job, I said, “Brian, you’ve got to move the PGA Championship back to August.” It is ridiculous for all golf fans to watch what Scotty Sheffller did at the Open and see the fact that he won his four majors 1,197 days apart. The exact same time frame it was from Tiger Woods first major, his fourth major, 1,197 days. And we don’t get to see where Scotty can go for nine more months uh until the next major in Augusta in April. That is patently ridiculous. Okay, the PGA Championship in May has been in some places where it’s freaking cold, man. 2019, it was up at Beth Page Black 2023. It was up at Oakill. How much better would those places be if that tournament or that championship was played in August? And oh, by the way, here’s another brilliant thing Brian Rolap did. You know who’s running or basically the chairman of the competition committee? It’s Tiger Woods. He has tapped in to the greatest golfer in my opinion all time. Some will say others that’s your that’s your prerogative to be the guy that says we need to do this we need to do that and Tiger’s already tweeted about it. Honored to serve as chairman of the future competition committee. This is about shaping the next era of the PJ tour for our fans, players and partners. So in other words, listen to what the big cat says and I guarantee you he’s going to say we can’t have the majors end in July. Like this idea of one event from March to July every month sounds great, but in reality it doesn’t really do the players a lot of good. I think we move the uh we keep the the tour the players championship in March. We have Augusta, the Masters stay in April. Then we have a little light-hearted month in May where people can prepare for the next big run of major championships. US Open in June, Open Championship in July, PGA Championship in August. And if we’re real golf fans, let’s be honest. Look, they all count. They’re all four majors. But are you going to tell me you can find a a plethora or even a high percentage of players that will say the PGA Championship is on the same plane as the Masters, the US Open, and the Open Championship. If they say that, that’s the only major they’ve won, okay? Because they’re not being truthful. Look, it’s a major, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not on the same level as the other three. What makes it on the same level as the other three if it’s your last chance, if it’s your last chance to grab a major, suddenly it becomes a lot more elevated and a lot more interesting. So, the idea of moving the PGA Championship back sounds like a great idea to me. Now, some people say, “Well, what’s going to happen then with the FedEx cuff FedEx playoffs, which we have the Tour Championship coming up this weekend or, you know, middle of August at East Lake?” Figure it out. Okay. People are so terrified of the NFL ratings, which by the way, they should be. 77 of the top 100 rated TV shows last year were NFL games. 77 out of the top 100 rated TV shows last year were NFL games. But, you know what? I’m not sure a golf audience is really a football audience. I I think they don’t cross-pollinate as much as people think. Golfers want to watch golf. They’ll find a way to watch golf. Now, I don’t want you to play uh a tour championship into October like they used to back in the day, but you can go into early to midseptember and you’re fine. And that would allow the the PGA championship to go back to August. And it would also elevate some of these other events that have sort of been lost in the wash by not being u elevated events. you know, the Texas Two-Step, the Colonial in Fort Worth, the Byron Nelson in Dallas, those used to be really big events, but because they’re sandwiched around those four straight months of those majors, uh, and not elevated events, the fields have been so watered down for those events. Let’s restore some of that history to some of those events by reworking the schedule and making sure you guys you have Tiger Woods in charges, guys. He’s not gonna, you know, he’s not a significant figure on the tour in terms of competition and ability to win anymore, but everybody respects him. You know, Justin Thomas was just talking this week about how he thought he was cool, two years ago, facetiming Tiger when he was at the Tour Championship, and Tiger didn’t make it. And then Tiger acted like his phone was cutting up, called it right back, and he put on his green jacket at the Masters, basically saying, “I just dunked on you, bro. You have two PGA championships. Call me when you get one of these.” And Justin admitted it. That was my mistake. That’s the kind of cache Tiger still has with these players. They know who he is. They know who he was and they know what he brought to the game. And Brian embracing that might be the smartest thing he has done in less than a month that he’s been on the job. If you get Tiger on your side, every other top player will say, “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea to me.” And then there’s the whole issue with Liv. I mean, does Liv even live anymore? Does it exist? I mean, look, let’s be clear. There’s a ton of people that make a lot of money and live and they have really good players, but as a product, is it any good? Nobody watches it. Can’t really find it. You know, I I think they average like 150,000 viewers at an event and the the regular tour stops are getting over three million. It’s kind of been dunked on. And when this whole fracturing of professional golf started, Liv had the upper hand. They were throwing money around. They got guys like Brooks Kepka, Bryson Dashambo, Dustin Johnson, big big names. But then the product never went anywhere. The product has to be good. John Rom just won the Liv seasonl long championship by winning zero live events. We Neman I think won five. How How does John Rom get the $18 million bonus for being the best player on live by not winning? That’s how ridiculous Live Golf is. Okay. So now because nobody’s really caught on to live, this merger between the PGA Tour and Live Golf that was supposed to be set a couple years ago, PJ Tour is like, “Hold on a minute. PJ Tour is thriving. Numbers are up. Scotty Sheffller is doing Tiger Woods type things. People are more interested in the PJ tour live. Oh yeah, you guys do some stuff with shorts and flash mobs, right? Good for you. Grow the game.” John Ro’s career has been decimated by him going to live. When he was first approached in 2023, he said, “No, no. I’m about legacy. I’m about championship. I’m about competition.” And then they slid a piece of paper that had about $250 million on it. Suddenly, he was okay with it. Have you ever seen John Rom in a live event? He looks like he would rather be somewhere at a knitting circle at a nursery home. Okay, that’s how bad he looks like he doesn’t want to be there. It has cratered his competitive career. He was the best player in the world. Uh my friend Justin Ray called him John Rom destroyer of worlds. The things he was doing when he was winning those two major championships and in contention for every one of them. Three rounds at live, no real competition, music blaring. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere else. And I think a lot of those live players, well, let me be clear. Guys like Rahm that know they can still play at a high level, they regret, they won’t say it, but they regret it. They absolutely regret going there. Now, they don’t regret the money. It’s life-changing money. I understand that. But John Rom said, “I’m about legacy. I’m about competition.” Legacy and competition do not live on the Live Tour. The only thing that lives on the Live Tour is money. And here’s to Brian Rollup taking that hammer and swinging it and finding a way to fix the PGA Tour because we cannot end our major season on July 20th. And that’s Straight Facts only.
The PGA Tour’s new CEO Brian Rolapp is not here for incremental change. After 22 years in the NFL, Rolapp is bringing big ideas to golf and one of his first moves is creating a competition committee led by Tiger Woods.
In this episode Trey Wingo explains why moving the PGA Championship back to August could elevate golf’s major season, what Tiger’s role really means, and why LIV Golf continues to struggle despite big names and big money.
From TV ratings battles with the NFL to restoring historic events like Colonial and Byron Nelson, this is what the future of the PGA Tour could look like and why fans should be excited.
⛳ Key topics covered:
1. Brian Rolapp’s NFL background and bold plans for golf
2. Tiger Woods shaping the next era of the PGA Tour
3. Why the PGA Championship belongs in August
4. The reality of LIV Golf’s struggles and Jon Rahm’s regret
5. How to restore tradition and make golf more watchable
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