You’d be forgiven if Chris Gotterup’s win at the Sony Open didn’t land on your desk in real time.
The PGA Tour’s new CEO, Brian Rolapp, will understand. Depending on his television setup, he might even have been in the same boat.
And that’s why he wants things to change. Because chances are Rolapp’s attention, like yours, wasn’t solely on Gotterup as he attempted to claim his third career PGA Tour title on Sunday ’64. It might not have been there at all.
Because just as Gotterup was putting the finishing touches to his season opening winsomething else was calling – something that was 4,700 miles away from Waialae Country Club.
There, in the frigid cold of Chicago, Bears sophomore quarterback Caleb Williams prepared for the final moment of divine intervention in an improbable season. While Gotterup was tapping and basking in the Hawaiian sun, Williams eluded Los Angeles Rams defenders and shouted a 40-yard prayer toward the Soldier Field end zone. Fifty-one yards later (slightly shorter than Gotterup’s last full swing of the tournament), the ball landed in the tight hands of Cole Kmet, sending the game into overtime and sending the entire city of Chicago into a state of delirium.
You may have missed that too. Because the Bears won the coin toss, postponed it and ultimately lost it.
Of course, Rolapp understands all this better than most. He knows you may not have seen all or part of Gotterup’s victory. There are countless things competing for our attention, pulling us in a number of different directions at once. Streaming services, text messages, emails, Slack notifications, push notifications, the list goes on. When the NFL is one of those things, Rolapp, who made a career as NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s No. 2, knows it’s hard to break away from the seriousness of “The Shield.”
Just like Tiger Woods, who together with Rolapp is responsible for shaping the future of the PGA Tour.
“That’s one of the reasons why we stopped playing in September and October and even early November, when I was playing on the Tour Championship in my early days,” Woods said during the Hero World Challenge, referring to the NFL. “There’s something about ‘The Shield’ that’s influential.”
Rolapp promised “significant change” when he took over, and the PGA Tour schedule – both in volume and cadence – appears to be at the top of the to-do list.
Rolapp is now in charge of a for-profit entity and his job is to generate returns for investors at Strategic Sports Group and ultimately pay out stock grants to players. To do that, Rolapp pledged to look at the whole picture and make the changes necessary to improve the PGA Tour product and increase growth.
“Look, the sports business isn’t that complicated,” Rolapp said. “You get the product right, you get the right partners, your fans will reward you with their time because they tell you it’s good and they want more of it, and then the commercial and the business part will take care of itself.”
A shorter PGA Tour schedule appears to be on the horizon. Harris English hinted at it during the RSM Classic.
Rolapp is interested in creating a league based on equality, scarcity and an easy-to-follow season that culminates in a postseason. The stories will be easy to follow and the stakes will be clear.
If that sounds familiar, it should. The NFL is something Rory McIlroy and others have long pointed to as a model for professional golf to emulate.
“I think the great thing about football is that it’s always in demand,” McIlroy said in 2014. “People can’t wait for football season to start again as soon as the Super Bowl is over. That’s the great thing about it.”
Eleven years later, Woods reiterated that point. Going from 38 spread events with the majors in the middle to a shorter, more streamlined season should increase interest in professional golf as it has in football. It is at least sound logic.
“The scarcity thing is something that I know scares a lot of people,” Woods said, “but I think if you have scarcity at some level, it will be better because it will attract more attention because there will be less time.”
Emulating part of the NFL is one thing, but not competing directly with it for the finite source of “attention” is perhaps a bigger driver behind the rumors of a schedule change.
The NFL has loomed over professional golf for years. The season used to last eleven months. It was then shortened and ended in September. Then the PGA Tour made changes to ensure the FedEx Cup Playoffs ended before the pigskins hit the air in September. Now Rolapp, Woods and the ‘Future Competition Committee’ appear to be heading towards a post-Super Bowl start to the PGA Tour season.
“Anyone who is in the sports world, their overall competition is for the segment of sports fans and for their time,” Rolapp said. “[Sports leagues want to capture attention] in a complicated world increasingly disrupted by technology, where you can do a million things with your time, a million alternatives.”
There is an argument that golf should not tuck its tail and flee football. Golf is a global game, and while America may be obsessed with the NFL, the rest of the world is not. That’s all true, but Rolapp left a league that commands attention and now leads one that’s looking for more. America is where those eyeballs and television deals are.
“I didn’t cheer for teams, I cheered for television ratings. So whoever is behind it, that’s who I’ll cheer for. How’s that?” Rolapp said of his fundamental interests in the Tour Championship.
At his old job, Rolapp would have done cartwheels while Williams’ swell found Kmet. With his new one, the latest Bear Wonder was probably just further proof of what he already knew.
There’s a PGA Tour schedule change coming – possibly in 2027 – and don’t be surprised if that happens.
Just remember, Williams launched into a prayer on Chicago night — because on Sunday that’s what almost everyone, including almost certainly Rolapp, was watching.
#PGA #Tour #schedule #change #Caleb #Williams #answer