Mackenzie Hughes in depth on state of golf and viral social media post

Article content

The following are excerpts from an extensive feature on the state of professional golf and the past year on the PGA Tour.

Article content

One day after Jon Rahm announced his decision to leave the PGA Tour for LIV Golf, Canadian Mackenzie Hughes posted a thread on X, formerly known as Twitter. His thoughtful assessment and blunt criticism of the direction of the game drew the attention of the golf world. Hughes recently took the opportunity to expand on the points he made on social media in an interview with Postmedia’s Jon McCarthy:

Article content

On Jon Rahm leaving for LIV Golf, opening the door for Hughes to play all PGA Tour signature events PGA Tour:
“I probably had the most to gain from what Jon did. I went from 51st to 50th, yet I still would have rathered him not do it for the sake of the game. When he left it was significant, it was a big moment in golf, it was a terrible scene with him going on TV after his decision. I just felt like this is not the right direction for the game even though I had a lot to gain.”

Article content

On why he posted the thread on X:
“It was just honestly to let people know that not every single player or person on the PGA Tour should be painted with the same brush. With all these guys battling over all this money and going to LIV, if someone were to say, ‘Oh, Mackenzie Hughes plays on the PGA Tour,’ the response might be, ‘Oh yeah, one of those greedy bastards.’ I wanted people to know that actually, no, that’s not necessarily me. I just wanted to let people know that not every golfer is one of those guys chasing more money and thinking only about themself. To me, that was the impetus of why I posted that. Obviously you can’t articulate all of your thoughts on a forum like that but I did my best to make clear where I stood on things.”

Article content

Article content

On the path the PGA Tour has taken since LIV Golf’s arrival:
“I’m still not convinced that we’re necessarily doing the right thing. Obviously LIV changed a lot of things for the tour, but I’m not convinced that the tour has maintained its DNA. The fabric of the tour was rooted in a lot of good causes and a true spirit of competition and lots of good work for charity. And that was at the forefront of what we stood for, that we would give back to the communities where we play and that we would do that better than anyone in any other sports league in the world. And now it’s how much money can we give our top players, and that has kind of been shoved down the throats of the fans and I personally don’t think fans really care for that.

Why he feels men’s pro golf is a “broken marketplace”:
“You’ve got young college kids going to LIV as a first option, never having to cut their teeth, never having to prove anything professionally before jumping into $25 million tournaments with no cut and 50-man fields. That’s not reality, it’s not real.”

Article content

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I don’t like money, but I like it to be fair and I like it to be earned. And also economically sensible. Three years ago on tour we played for $10-million or $8-million purses and those were all great, there was no problems with that from anyone. Then all of a sudden LIV comes around and $20 million purses are now what we expect, and the other tournaments are somehow lesser events. By all accounts, the PGA Tour still offers, at best, the same product. I’m not the smartest guy in the world but that doesn’t seem to make a lot of economic sense to me. We’re in this place where players have a warped sense of what golf is worth.”

On what he believes the PGA Tour is in danger of losing:
“Charity is something that makes you feel good about what you’re doing, that what you’re doing is creating a large impact wherever you play. It’s not just about golf, and it’s not just about me making a living, it’s about being able to impact people and leave these communities better than we found them and to me that was a particularly cool part of what we do, and I hope we don’t lose sight of that. I know that in some tournament cases, the money that they have to fork over with these increased commitments to the tournament can affect how much they can give to charity, that’s not a positive or a good look for us when I know that everyone on tour was already fairly compensated. I understand that that might not be the most popular opinion among some of my peers, but that’s how I feel.”

Article content

His concern that the PGA Tour isn’t respecting its longtime partners:
“You’ve seen it a little bit already. Wells Fargo has opted out, well, actually not opted out, they made the tour a great offer and the tour didn’t think it was enough. And soon Farmers Insurance will be gone as a title sponsor in a couple years. It’s a little troubling to think that maybe we aren’t doing those dealings in the right way and we’re chasing away some of the good sponsors that we have. To my knowledge, I don’t know if we have dozens of sponsors waiting in the wings to jump on board and fork over tonnes of money, but I think we need to tread somewhat carefully there. I know we’re getting a big investment from SSG but that can’t hide what the market is telling us. The only thing driving the increase is LIV putting a value on golf that has no calculated formula. Their plan seems to be just throw as much money at it as possible and see what happens.”

Article content

Hughes fears golf’s money war could turn off fans:
“Losing fan interest is certainly a concern of mine. I think the fan has been somewhat forgotten over the past couple of years. Both sides in this battle are focused on how they can get players the most money possible, while in the meantime the fan gets pushed to the background. There probably hasn’t been enough thought given to what the fan wants to see, and what the fan needs from us. I think now, with this investment from SSG, we need to make fan experience the priority, and figure out how we can reach a broader audience. I have some ideas but I’m not going to be driving those discussions, the top players are, but the direction we need to go is more fan driven.”

On being a member of the PGA Tour Players Advisory Council:
“My first year was not great at all. As far as being more informed or involved, there were many decisions I was blindsided with 10 minutes before they were made public, or found out along with the public. To me that whole process was quite frustrating. And because of that, I’m back for more this year. I got re-elected to go back on the PAC but I’m hopeful that this year will be better and I’ve been assured that they’re making strides toward that and that it’s a priority for them, so hopefully when you ask me the same question next year I’ll be able to say it’s a more positive experience.”

Article content

On LIV Golf:
“My feeling on it is that it’s kind of ruined our game and my thoughts toward it are pretty poor. I don’t think very highly of it, but that’s just one opinion and I’m just one person. It’s not proper golf, it’s not good for the game, it’s overvalued golfers to a large degree and made golf as a whole a greedy, dark place. But it is here and maybe here to stay and that’s unfortunate.

“There’s no scenario I can really see over the next coming of years where it doesn’t factor into the golf landscape. I would be the first one to admit that they have some great players over there who were an asset to the PGA Tour and that we miss. I can think of a handful that we would love to have on our tour but that’s where we are because some people chose money. I’m not going to judge them for those decisions because I wasn’t put in that position, but I obviously have zero interest in going over there.”

Article content