The PGA Tour acknowledges The Showdown for the first time, angers golf fans by leaving out vital piece of information – Australian Golf Digest

by Admin
December 17, 2024

[PHOTO: Kevin C. Cox]

Later this morning, Australian time, Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy will take on Brooks Kopeka and Bryson DeChambeau in The Crypto.com Showdown, a made-for-TV golf exhibition pitting the two of the PGA Tour’s top pros against the cream of the LIV Golf crop. The event, despite having no real stakes, is interesting in that it will bring the PGA Tour and LIV Golf together for a good cause (the event will raise money for The First Tee) while simultaneously embracing the leagues’ ongoing rivalry.

Those intentions seem innocent enough, but for longer than three months, the PGA Tour has completely ignored The Showdown’s existence. Earlier this week, McIlroy admitted that it took multiple calls with the PGA Tour brass to convince them The Showdown was actually a good thing. The tour allowed McIlroy and Scheffler to play in the event, but refused to acknowledge it until mere hours before the scheduled start time. However, when the tour finally promoted the primetime event featuring two of their most bankable assets, they omitted one very important detail. Let’s see if you can spot it.

https://twitter.com/PGATOUR/status/1869028537782751542

If you noticed that the PGA Tour failed to mention Rory and Scottie’s opponents, you’re not alone. Golf fans quickly swarmed the comments, asking the PGA Tour for a little, ahem, clarification on the opposing team.

Who are they playing against?

— Flushing It (@flushingitgolf) December 17, 2024

Who are they playing?

— Mark Crossfield (@4golfonline) December 17, 2024

You post this as though it’s a 1v1 match between Scottie and Rory. You guys just conveniently forget they’re playing Bryson and Brooks?

— James Jinnette (@james_jinnette1) December 17, 2024

Who else is playing?? This is pathetic. What an embarrassment.

— Alfredo Hinny (@alfredohinny) December 17, 2024

and Bryson & Brooks…

— AccuShu™ (@accushu) December 17, 2024

Who’s gonna win ? 😂

— Red (@reardon_red) December 17, 2024

It goes on like that for a while. You get the idea… unfortunately the PGA Tour still doesn’t seem to. Fans are sick to death of the greed, the pettiness, the in-fighting and the waiting. We were told more than 18 months ago that a truce was in place. Now we’re not even being told who McIlroy and Scheffler will be teeing off against today. Making matters even worse, is that 30 minutes after the PGA Tour finally broke their silence about The Showdown, Jay Monahan issued a brief address about the PGA Tour’s upcoming season, once again ignoring Brooks, Bryson and the five-tonne elephant in the room that is LIV Golf.

As the year draws to a close, Commissioner Jay Monahan has a message for our fans. pic.twitter.com/yQzrlM6ut2

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) December 17, 2024

To call this “tone deaf” is probably too flattering, but no matter what the tour does or doesn’t say, The Showdown will go on as planned, reuniting four of the best players in golf, if only for an evening. Here’s hoping this is just the start – there have been rumours of a Ryder Cup-style PGA Tour–LIV Golf event in the near future – but as with everything in this sorry saga, we’ll believe it when we see it.