The PGA Tour needs this week’s Phoenix Open to work. Here’s why

There’s a big-time change taking place on the WM Phoenix Open this 12 months.

Players have been knowledgeable by way of bulletin of the next:

“All alcohol service on the 16th hole will be served in a plastic cup — commemorative cup for Beer and Seltzer drinks and normal plastic cups for mixed drinks.”

That’s the type of shift we’ve gotten used to at this event. It’s a smart one, too, after aluminum showers dominated TPC Scottsdale’s iconic par-3 final 12 months. But these are the singular challenges of Phoenix Open week. Players marvel how they’re supposed to putt when all of that is happening. Fans marvel if they need to make a mid-morning transition from tequila to High Noon. Tournament organizers marvel if they need to add one other bleacher and one other beer tent to go along with it.

Boiled down: How large is the occasion and the way a lot larger can it get?

But this week’s occasion catches the PGA Tour answering even larger, extra existential questions. What’s the aim of our existence? What are we doing right here? How can we be higher? (Enthusiastic event attendees could also be asking yourselves those self same questions when Sunday morning hits. Hang in there.) This WM Phoenix Open represents the Tour’s reply to these questions. It marks the Tour’s first full-field “designated event,” which implies the WM has its strongest discipline ever. It’s providing its largest prize ever, too, a $20 million payday that may have wowed professionals a 12 months in the past.

The Super Bowl is kicking off simply down the highway, providing untold celeb/athlete crossover hype alternatives. And Sunday marks the debut of Netflix’s new docuseries, Full Swing, which the Tour hopes will increase curiosity from current followers and entice new ones, too.

In different phrases, it looks as if a very good time for the Tour to launch its new product. How’s it gonna go?

If you construct it, will they arrive?

Let’s begin with this thought of “designated events.” The Tour has chosen to collect as a lot of its high gamers as doable for its 17 greatest tournaments, which embody the majors (that will get us to 4) the Players (5), the invitationals (Riviera, Bay Hill and Memorial will get us to 8), the playoff occasions (three occasions will get us to 11), the season-opening Sentry (12) and the remaining World Golf Championship (the Match Play in Austin) which will get us to 13. Four extra occasions have been added to that checklist, together with this week’s WM Phoenix Open.

“When we started talking about trying to elevate or designate some events, I think this was one of the first ones on the list, just because it’s such a fan favorite and players love the atmosphere,” Rory McIlroy mentioned on Wednesday.

But the Tour hasn’t been utterly constant in its embrace of the change. What have been first trumpeted as “Elevated Events” at the moment are simply lowercase “designated events.” At a event the place Beer and Seltzer have each earned doubtful capitalization (see above), this collection of large rotating occasions has not. This muddies the waters; defining “designated events” to non-golfing mates is a multi-step course of.

If Tour management appears considerably bashful about boosting up some occasions, that’s doubtless as a result of elevating some means relegating others. Last week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, as an illustration, acquired buried within the schedule, caught the week earlier than back-to-back designated occasions (this week in Phoenix plus subsequent week’s Genesis Invitational). And it’s nonetheless not clear how completely different this 12 months’s fall schedule — initially pitched as an offseason of kinds, inserted to make us hungry for star-powered golf tournaments come springtime — will find yourself wanting.

But that’s the truth of the scenario. Weakening some occasions solely pays off if these which are strengthened greater than make up for it. TV scores by no means inform the complete story, however there’s no query the Tour is hoping for enchancment after sagging numbers at its January occasions. They’ll have this week’s CBS viewership quantity circled, little doubt. I’d argue they may nonetheless assist themselves by additional emphasizing the big-time occasions, although; followers will take their cues from the Tour’s messaging but it surely’s nonetheless not clear if we needs to be targeted on a 17-event schedule or a 45-event schedule.

Numerous folks will attend in particular person; that’s a certainty. They’re already attending in particular person, for that matter, heckling athletes, celebrities and businesspeople whereas they sip from their commemorative plastic cups beside the sixteenth inexperienced throughout Wednesday’s pro-am. They’ll attend in droves on Thursday and Friday and particularly Saturday, too, most of ’em thrilled to be on the day’s greatest occasion and a few of them enthusiastic about the truth that there are golfers right here who often skip this week, like Rory McIlroy. Speaking of which…

Who’s right here — and who isn’t?

Nearly each high PGA Tour participant is in attendance at TPC Scottsdale. That’s no shock, given the Player Impact Program mandates they play each designated occasion (with one skip every). But it’s nonetheless vital to have 18 of the highest 20 gamers (lacking solely Cameron Smith and Will Zalatoris) within the World Ranking.

That consists of Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm, who’ve every been waging epic campaigns for the title of greatest golfer on the earth. McIlroy has gained his two most up-to-date begins on Tour: the Tour Championship final August plus the CJ Cup, his lone occasion so far this season. (He added a win in his 2023 debut in Dubai for good measure.) Rahm, in the meantime, has wins in two of his three Tour begins in 2023. Now they’re again in the identical discipline and enter as deserving favorites.

Other attendees are price calling out, too: Defending champ and World No. 2 Scottie Scheffler, who jumpstarted his four-win mega-season at this occasion final 12 months. World No. 5 Patrick Cantlay, who Scheffler defeated in that playoff. World No. 6 Xander Schauffele, who thrives at TPC Scottsdale however hasn’t but emerged victorious. World No. 7 Collin Morikawa, who started his 2023 with a silver and a bronze in two begins and is now in search of a gold medal to go along with ’em. You get the concept — they’re all right here.

In some methods it’s simpler to acknowledge who isn’t within the discipline. Brooks Koepka, a two-time occasion champ and final 12 months’s bronze medalist, is among the many LIV golfers barred from taking part in. No matter what facet you’ve chosen within the LIV vs. PGA Tour conflict, there’s no denying that Bryson DeChambeau taking up the crowds can be must-see TV, not to point out World No. 4 Cameron Smith strutting by the tunnel onto the sixteenth tee, previous champ Phil Mickelson making a cost on the minimize line or the endlessly intriguing Patrick Reed doing…absolutely anything. The PGA Tour’s leisure product is worse with out the characters which have gone to LIV. How properly it might compensate for that loss is an open query.

Then there’s Tiger Woods, who stays a PGA Tour loyalist however gained’t be wholesome sufficient to play a full slate of designated occasions; his yearly event complete is probably going to end nearer to zero than to 17. His final begin in Phoenix got here in 2015, on the peak of his short-game struggles, when he shot a career-worst 82 and missed the minimize. It’s not all dangerous recollections, although: his ace at No. 16 in 1997 stays the enduring shot within the event’s historical past. The Tour has Woods’ full endorsement, but it surely’s price acknowledging that his presence can be a game-changer for each certainly one of these occasions. And the subsequent iteration of the PGA Tour will at all times be measured towards the model that included its hottest participant ever.

What will success appear to be?

That’s a very good query. There are metrics to measure such issues, in fact: Ticket consumers, Peacock streamers, ESPN+ subscribers, CBS viewers. Those will all be underneath intense scrutiny. (Next 12 months there will likely be newer metrics nonetheless, just like the variety of wagers positioned at TPC Scottsdale’s on-site sportsbook. Tens of hundreds of souped-up followers, ingesting and playing in shut proximity to the golfers they’re betting on? What may probably go fallacious?!)

A profitable week may even require a compelling event. The PGA Tour would profit from having certainly one of its stars within the combine for a dramatic conclusion within the lead-up to Sunday’s Super Bowl. If two no-namers are competing for the $3.6 million first prize, it would undercut fan intrigue in addition to the elite standing of this occasion collection.

Those within the know have made it clear that this 12 months remains to be a beta take a look at of kinds for the designated occasions mannequin. They say that 2024 will present a extra full image. But if it’s not going to work this week, with the whole lot golf has on its facet, when will it?

In the top, maybe the Tour’s questions are the identical because the event’s.

How large is the occasion and the way a lot larger can it get?

Who’s going to win?

The purpose from my finish is to write a recurring Wednesday column. Since folks ask me for picks recurrently, let’s embody a play or two on the finish. Let’s wager $500,000 web {dollars} per week, beginning with bets on two undervalued professionals. One vital factor to keep in mind, although: I’m not good at this. Let’s get it!

Winner: Xander Schauffele, +1600 odds ($100k to win $1.6 mil)

Terrific at this course, terrific in large occasions, in good kind, prepared for an additional defining victory.

Lock of the week: Keegan Bradley to end Top 40, -125 odds ($400k to win $720k)

TPC Scottsdale favors well-rounded drivers; that’s Bradley. He’s in sturdy kind, too. And he loves a crowd. Top 40?! Book it!

Season complete: Even.

Dylan Dethier

Golf.com Editor

Dylan Dethier is a senior author for GOLF Magazine/GOLF.com. The Williamstown, Mass. native joined GOLF in 2017 after two years scuffling on the mini-tours. Dethier is a graduate of Williams College, the place he majored in English, and he’s the creator of 18 in America, which particulars the 12 months he spent as an 18-year-old dwelling from his automobile and taking part in a spherical of golf in each state.