Brennan: The magic of the Masters can't overshadow fact that men's golf is in some trouble

10/04/2024 22:01

AUGUSTA, Ga. — The game of men's golf marks time from one year to the next when Augusta National opens its doors for another Masters. This is a revered tournament, the most famous on earth, but it's also something more.

It's a measuring stick of sorts, an annual gathering to tell us how the men's game is doing. How is Tiger Woods holding up? Is Rory McIlroy ready to finally win here? And, perhaps most important, where does the game stand in these fraught times, with the sport increasingly and devastatingly sectioning itself off from the people it needs the most, its fans, all because the game's most compelling matchup these days is PGA Tour vs. LIV?

By any measure, as the Masters begins Thursday morning, golf is a sport in some significant trouble. The glory days of Tiger are long since over, replaced by little more than hope: hope that he can make the cut here this week, hope that the people who love and miss him can will him into the weekend and up the leaderboard.

The players themselves are concerned, even though some of the biggest complainers are the ones who bolted their multi-million-dollar lives for the LIV Tour's Saudi blood money.

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Bryson DeChambeau for example.

"It's great to have the majors where we come together, but we want to be competing, at least I want to be competing every week, with all of the best players in the world for sure," said the man who walked away from playing against the best players in the world to go to a no-cut, exhibition style shell of a golf tour. "And it needs to happen fast. It's not a two-year thing. Like it needs to happen quicker rather than later just for the good of the sport. Too many people are losing interest."