Obviously tied up with the whole merger discussion. The LIV team thing has seemed dumb and uninteresting from the outset. Don't see why anyone has any reason to care.

Is there any way that the team component could become interesting? The Ryder Cup works as a biennial event because you have two teams with an energized fanbase. The President's Cup not as much. Probably for the same reason that the LIV team thing has been uninteresting. "Not USA or Europe" is a bit of an arbitrary distinction.


So how could professional golf have a good team aspect?

Some ideas I've heard thrown around:

- Manufacturer backed teams. Team Titleist vs Team Callaway. Kinda like F1 where you have an engineering team trying to create an advantage for their squad.

- Geography. Follow the model of other pro sports and have cities be the "home" of various teams. If you had a series going to 10 cities around the world, each of those could have a team based there. Allow the home team to control the setup to play to their team's advantage (like the Ryder Cup). I see some potential here. Mostly of things that would be cool but would never happen.

- Format. I think the basic stroke play format for both team and individual within the same competition doesn't make a lot of sense. Maybe something like the NCAA does where you have stroke play for an individual champion and then team match play? That's probably too much golf, but might be a starting point.

Tbh, we already have manufacturer "teams". They wear the brand and use the gear (which the manuf optimizes for them already). All that isn't done is keeping distinct score.

I just think it's hard to contrive teams and have meaningful interest. Any attempt would at least have to be geography based IMO

Counterpoint: all professional teams are contrived.

It's not like the teams from Dallas are made up of people who were born and raised there. Some rich person decided to pay people to play a game with "DALLAS" printed on their uniform. No reason that golf couldn't do the same thing. Big difference of course is that golf is fundamentally an individual sport.

I read somewhere that the team aspect of LIV was a key part of the business model. They were hoping to sell the franchises. Now that the merger is happening I don't know if that's still a need.

Yeah the team golf aspect of LIV was stupid and uninteresting.

Is that because team golf is uninteresting or their execution of it was bad?

you could have some teams based on the colleges where they played.

Maybe put together something like the FA Cup in English Soccer. Teams from PGA/Korn Ferry/Champions/LPGA play each other in a tourney.

they should do teams based on their college days. Do it in the fall to coincide with football and in the spring with March Madness

You can't undue 100 years of professional golf structure and mindset. No player is going to care about a team, if what actually matters at the end of the day is how they personally played and thats what determines their earnings.

Sure a team event like colleges or something could be fun. But again thats one event. Not a structure for a league entire season.

I enjoy team golf and match play and the variety that comes when its more than just 72 holes of stroke play. But thats because its different than the norm. If it was every week, I'd probably have a different opinion

bagger05 said:

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Yeah the team golf aspect of LIV was stupid and uninteresting.

Is that because team golf is uninteresting or their execution of it was bad?

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I honestly think team golf is uninteresting for the most part, other than Ryder Cup. Stroke Play team golf is definitely uninteresting. There would have to be a match play element to have any drama at all. And more than likely, it would need to be 2 vs 2 match play, similar to what the ryder cup does, with possibly a last day of singles. But even then, I just don't think there would be much interest. There is no reason for the fans to get invested in any of the teams. Maybe fan investment would happen over time, but I don't really see how.

Also, someone in the other thread mentioned wanting to see the pros do a 4 vs. 4 scramble. That would be as boring as watching paint dry. Each team would literally birdie or eagle every hole. The "drama" would be if one team accidentally made par on a hole when the other team birdied it as usual, to make the finishing score -20 to -19.

I'd be all in on manufacturer based teams if restrictions on the ball and equipment were removed. That would be bad ass.

I guess i just have trouble getting past "let's make golf more tricked up and awesome by making it more like every other sport"

no interest in a team golf format

CapCity12thMan said:

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they should do teams based on their college days. Do it in the fall to coincide with football and in the spring with March Madness

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If you really want to grow the game giving your casual fan something to root for is key
Love the college idea, could even do conferences maybe with the current best players from each conference

Mixed doubles type would be cool as well



Just straight LIV vs PGA or everyone vs Rory Dickbag

It would be nice if they came up with something good. So far no one cares.

We need the LIV supporters opinion on this.

Going full Alternate shot is all I can think of.

I don't mind the team concept that they have for LIV. It makes you keep track of the whole leaderboard instead of just the guys on top. The guy sitting in the bottom half, although having no chance to win the tournament, can still affect his team's score so he can't just mail it in.

one issue is these guys don't want to play more than they absolutely have to, so putting this in the fall is exactly the opposite of what they've been wanting. I'm not sure how you would structure this to make it work. As stated above, you have to have some sort of rooting interest in the team to follow it. Just throwing a bunch of guys together like LIV did and calling that a team is meaningless to fans. You might like a couple of guys on the team but does anyone care if they win? Doubtful. Maybe the Formula 1 model would work; IDK because I don't watch F1 but its very popular around the world.

Wolf with pro golfers. I'd watch that.

Dots, Skins, 3 putt poker (might have to be 2 putt or something else), would love to them have to play their hands all the way through at the end

G Martin 87 said:

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Wolf with pro golfers. I'd watch that.

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And they are betting their own money.

I've thought about this, but I honestly can't think of a team format that would interest me on an ongoing basis. I watched the Tulsa LIV event only because I played the course last year. The team aspect that they kept highlighting just held zero interest for me. "Kevin Na needs to make this putt on #13, his last hole, so the Crushers can lock down second place". Zzzzz.

I'm an old guy, so I'm sure I'm not the demographic they're targeting, and I get that.

World Cup every few years.