Bradley Hughes - former player and now coach. Won 2 Australian Masters tournaments in the '90s.
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This is amazing actually. Pro sports is all about money these days, I get that. But I feel like the PGA tour’s half hearted attempt at “play for the history and legacy” fell short because they didnt want to change their current model at all.
I’ve often wondered why they do not have a classic tour, play classic courses, actually travel the globe to places of the past like the NEC world of golf, all over Australia, South America, Canada, etc. I know everything is made for tv now but that stuff was cool. I’m sure Bradley would tell you the prestige of winning a masters or the Australian Open in his home country compared to some cookie cutter PGA tour event thats the same every week. You have great history in the Canadian Open, Argentine Open thats an after thought on the PGA Latinamerica tour, many great national opens in europe, South Africa, Singapore, Japanese tour, etc. A truly global tour highlighting those events would make people tune in. But if its just skipping from one florida course to another, or the California swing, texas, whatever. Boring.
Dont get me started on LIV either. Grow the game or grow some bank accounts? What a joke. Golf but louder, didnt know wearing shorts was loud but sure lol. Watched two minutes of the Chicago event which was Bryson lipping out a 6 footer and proclaiming “are you F&^King kidding me” which the mic picked right up. Cool guy alert. I know players get hot under the collar but thats hardly role model material from a guy kids are supposed to look upto.
Justin
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I will say, I dont know about the others in this forum but my default when it comes to watching actual pro golf these days is the European Tour. I know they are stuck in the middle here and have formed a strategic alliance with the PGA tour, which is gonna water down the Euro tour product even more but poaching all the top talent with the carrot of a PGA tour card, offering more money for some of their bigger events and then giving exemptions for PGA tour players into those euro events, etc.
Wish they would have stuck to their guns and truly stayed the old world tour. Playing and winning at places like the Old Course, Crans sur Sierre, Valderrama, even Emirates GC in Dubai is a great track with plenty of history even if it is modern. If they would play more links events also rather than playing at modernized links like renaissance club. They have many national opens that have rich heritage that could be highlighted. Also have basically dropped the Australian and South African leg from the tour. What a treat it would be to play at some of these places all over the globe rather than just the same old cookie cutter stadium course in disguise of a “european” course. Good example was the italian open this week at Marco Simone, the ryder cup venue for next week. If you would have told me that was Erin Hills or any other similar non-descript midwest track I wouldnt have said you’re wrong.
We will see where Euro tour goes from here but it would be sad to see it relegated to the 5th best tour in the world like Sergio claims it will.
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