Jim Nantz still believes golf is going to be fine.
The sport has seen an unrelenting wave of negative press so far this year, with the drawn-out PGA Tour-LIV split doing considerable damage in keeping the best players in the world separated on competing tours. With the constant fighting about money and private equity and no end to the feud in sight, fan morale is dipping and so are the ratings. PGA Tour TV ratings are down in the 20-30% range this year and LIV Golf has yet to make any noticeable impact whatsoever.
But Nantz is still optimistic about the sport’s present and future. In an appearance on the No Laying Up podcast, he spoke about some of the reasons why the PGA Tour felt like it was off to a slow start this year but hopes The Masters and Scottie Scheffler’s rise can be a turning point. He understands that the lack of familiar faces winning, coupled with events getting washed out, has undoubtedly impacted the early buzz.
“Take the West Coast this year, which usually gives us a little momentum headed into the year,” he said to host Chris Solomon. “We have a pretty good foothold on events on the West Coast with San Diego, Pebble, L.A. We didn’t have Phoenix this year because it was a Super Bowl year for us, and NBC got to broadcast. You think about some years in the past on the West Coast. You were getting Phil (Mickelson) and Tiger (Woods) winning at least two of those. You could pretty much bank on, one of them’s going to win San Diego. Phil won Pebble five times. Phil might win L.A. There was all positive energy.
“This year, here we are in early May and I’m thinking back to some of the leaderboards and the champions we had. There was not a great familiarity with them. Maybe a lot of this has to do with the fact that we have created signature events and non-signature events. But Torrey Pines, which I called from inside the stadium at the AFC Championship Game in Baltimore, Matthieu Pavon take nothing away from — that was a great performance, and he’s played well. He’s shown he has real game, but there was no familiarity with him; didn’t create buzz.
“Sunday at Pebble Beach is a washout. That didn’t help. That’s the week between the AFC/NFC Championship Game weekend and the Super Bowl. Golf is the thing. That’s where San Diego used to reside. It was always the highest-rated regular-season golf event of the year because you’re in the dead of winter and usually have a star-studded field. And usually, in this case, we had guys that were up there…They got washed out, no buzz, nothing.”
Nantz mentioned Hideki Matsuyama’s win at the following week’s Genesis Invitational. While Matsuyama did secure a well-deserved victory, Nantz feels the golf season lacked the usual early momentum. However, the longtime voice of The Masters felt a significant change with Scheffler’s second green jacket against a stacked Sunday leaderboard, and follow-up win the next week at the RBC Heritage.
“But did the Masters feel like golf was really down? Not at all,” said Nantz. “Did Hilton Head feel like golf was really down? (There was) support locally, it was a signature event — it felt gigantic. Charlotte will feel that way…I can’t speak to everything else, but I think the doom and gloom is off. I know we’re all tired, but golf is not in danger of turning into tennis here anytime soon.”
