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Lucas Glover Sees LIV Golfers As Important to Signature Events

Originally posted on The Morning Read | By Alex Miceli | Last updated Dec 12, 2024 5:47 PM ET

If you believe almost every media outlet covering the potential PGA Tour—PIF negotiations, they are close to being concluded.

That’s if they receive the necessary governmental approval.

Which means the Department of Justice.

These words have been spoken and written literally for months since the Framework Agreement was announced on June 6^th, 2023.

It’s now December 12^th, and we are still waiting for the white smoke from the chimney of the newly built PGA Tour headquarters.

They say Rome wasn’t built in a day, so why expect this deal to get done quickly?

But once it does get done, what exactly will it look like?

That’s a much bigger question since the amount of money PIF has invested has never been a real issue; it’s always been about the details.

On Thursday, Lucas Glover discussed one of those potentially pesky details on his Sirius XM Radio Show.

Should LIV golfers play in Signature Events?

Glover rightly pointed out that if you put on a signature event, it will be a top-of-the-line event. Since the LIV Golf Tour has some top-notch talent, it makes sense for them to play in those events.

“Obviously (it would) benefit the PGA Tour, and that if we're going to have a for-profit money-making organization, then we're going to need those guys, and golf needs them too.”

When the PGA Tour took $1.5 billion from Strategic Sports Group in January, there was a catch: The PGA Tour had to make money with the money SSG had just invested.

It's not much of a catch. It’s how businesses are run, and for the first time, the PGA Tour was being held accountable for its decisions and actions.

Glover’s point is prescient; you must treat these decisions as business decisions.

Signature Events are assets, which means making the most of them from a financial perspective.

Therefore, limiting access to LIV players and making the fields smaller only detracts from the property's value.

“It should be a fuller field if you're putting up $22 to $25 million for one of these events, or maybe even more, who knows, but limiting the fans and limiting the TV audience to 70 to 80 players, it really limits the story lines,” Glover said. “It limits the drama. It limits the overall competition, in my opinion, because the more bodies, the more golfers, the more competition. That's just common sense. And on top of that, you take it one more level. It's better for the fans on site, because then you get golf all day.”

One detail down and many to go.

This article first appeared on The Morning Read and was syndicated with permission.

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