With the 2024 Masters tournament ever looming we get the sense of the normal rotation of the golf calendar being pushed aside. We may even extend it by stating that the top hierarchy of the sport is in crisis. Jon Rahm, the present wearer of the Green Jacket, is one such defector and will make his debut to the rebel tour playing LIV Golf the first weekend of February.
The case of Clark is maybe the most curious one, because it is a compilation of the current dilemma of most players. Clark, though he has won the US Open in 2023, is also a player who is still coming up in the game.
Clark, as much as 55/1 to win at the Masters at the Augusta odds given online, is one of the few who have gone out publicly to voice their problems to the media as to what to do with their future.
The appeal is evidently obvious
However, one feels that the ambiguity is a setback to golf. How many more will fall, or be talked of falling, in the meantime, before the performance at Augusta, on the 11th. – 14th of April? Recent defector Tyrell Hatton, who like Clark has seen his star starting to shine, has been the latest example as the money promised to him has emphasized the problem players go through: Hatton will make nearly three times as much in his entire career despite his signing bonus being a mere sixty-four million dollars.
The masters is not the pga tour of course but it will still have the best players in the world and it will still make them stay having lost their glory. LIV Golf (the lack of consistency in the game has been left unsettled now) But there is a bizarre nature currently in the game which possibly will leave a poor flavor in the mouths of fans us to Augusta and all the other Majors this year.
The second problem here is that it is just difficult to keep in pace with events. Getting to the golf Majors is a complicated procedure wherein it is a conglomeration of previous deeds and up to date ranking that proves to qualify you.
There is no one discussing the golf
And that, probably, is the rub. When the defecting players were aware of the fact that this would influence their ranking, this fact was by no means obscured. Mitigation efforts there have been – even a canceled merger between PGA and LIV – but some who remained within the PGA feel that the traitors can rest in peace because they are getting what they deserve.
Nevertheless, it is LIV we are speaking about. In the case of a player like Rory McIlroy, one who you have the feeling is straining every vestige to get his first Green Jacket, the questions abound about what he thinks of the defectors. No one is talking the golf. All of that puts a damper on the sport before the first Major of the year. It will be tension time at Augusta as the players will partner with others who have a different league. The spectators will pay attention to it as well. Hopefully it won t come second to the golf as displayed at the greatest tournament in the world.