McCARTHY: Phoenix Open party is the start of the new PGA Tour

For sports fans trying to escape seeing Travis Kelce in a trucker hat for another day, fear not, the PGA Tour’s answer to LIV Golf will be on full display beginning Thursday.

The frat boy of golf tournaments, the WM Phoenix Open, marks the first full-field designated event on the revamped PGA Tour. That means twice the money is on the line and all your favourite players will be teeing it up. That is, as long as your favourites didn’t jump ship to join Dustin Johnson’s Four Aces, Ian Poulter’s Majesticks, or Bubba Watson’s RangeGoats.

In case you haven’t followed golf’s soap opera over the past year, some significant changes have been made to the PGA Tour’s tournament structure in an effort to keep the rest of its best players out of Greg Norman’s clutches.

The tour’s new future was borne at a not-so-secret secret meeting of top players held last August. This gathering was led by Rory and Tiger — two guys who don’t need last names or bigger bank accounts — and what came out of it was a new-look PGA Tour where the top players will play together at the same events and play them for lots more money. (“Well, that’s settled, what’s for lunch?”) Once the meeting was adjourned, they threw their ideas over to commissioner Jay Monahan to work out the finer details like which tournaments and what money. And presto, the whole gang is in TPC Scottsdale this week to play for a $20 million purse instead of last year’s $8.2 million. The winner on Super Bowl Sunday will take home $3.4 million, more than double the $1.4 million Scottie Scheffler won at last year’s event for his first career victory.

“No matter what the purse is, this tournament is going to be what it is,” Jon Rahm said of the famously rowdy tournament. “Very few sporting events in the world can comfortably happen in the same week as the Super Bowl and still have the impact that they have like this one.”

With the infamous stadium par-3 16th hole and thousands upon thousands of over-refreshed college kids and weekend warriors, the WM Phoenix Open has it’s supporters but has never seen 22 of the top-25 in the world rankings attend as it will this week.

“I don’t think it’s everybody’s favorite. I think either you love it or hate it. There’s no in between. With my case, I love it. I want to come every year,” said Rahm, who is an Arizona State alumni and local resident. “This would be one of the few events that if it wasn’t designated would still rival designated events. Now, with that said, we have the strongest field we’ve ever had here because it’s a designated event.”

In total, there will be 17 designated events throughout the season, including the four majors. The first was Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii but that felt largely unchanged as it has always been a limited winners-only field. Next week’s Genesis Invitational hosted by Tiger Woods is also elevated with a $20 million purse, and the golf world is anxiously waiting for word whether Tiger is ready to be more than host.

With back-to-back designated tournaments on the PGA Tour, Tiger’s potential return to action, and the much-hyped Netflix docu-series set for release next week, it’s a good time to be a golf fan.

SHARE THE WEALTH

When the PGA Tour’s plan for designated events was announced, there were hints that some of the elevated tournaments would change from year to year. Rahm hopes so.

“What I do hope is that some other tournaments that want to put up the resources to become elevated events might get the chance,” he said. “That would be epic. I would love to see this rotating, not always being the same ones every year. That’s my personal opinion.”

Let’s hope that comes true as these elevated events have already created something of a two-tier PGA Tour, with the majority of the schedule for top players decided by mandatory events. The top players are currently allowed to skip just one of the 17 designated events.

Rory McIlroy, for instance, opted not to play in Hawaii, and now will have to play all the rest. (He can only miss another at the commissioner’s discretion, a slightly murky term.) That means McIlroy will be playing four weeks in a row in June. He will start at Jack Nicklaus’ Memorial Tournament which is a designated event, then he’s expected to head this way to defend his RBC Canadian Open title, then it’s on to the U.S. Open in Los Angeles, before finishing in Hartford for the designated Travelers Championship.

With the PGA Championship in May, for McIlroy, that’s five tournaments in six weeks, including two majors. Not many top players will likely sign up for that. And the RBC Canadian Open is the only one of those five that isn’t mandatory, so you can do the math for many of those not defending a win in Canada.

One solution that would work nicely for fans north of the border is to have the Canadian Open rotate schedule positions — and more importantly, elevated designations — with the Travelers Championship. Whichever one isn’t elevated each year can take place the week before the U.S. Open, and the designated event can take place the week after.

CHIP SHOTS

I’d also like to see the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in a designated event rotation. The iconic course is set to host the U.S. Open in 2027, 2032, and 2037, but making it mandatory for top players once in between each major would be great. It’s a tournament that has meant so much to the PGA Tour, it’s a shame to see the fields in decline. If the top players can put up with drunk crowds this week, they can put up with rich dudes and actors every five years too … Speaking of Pebble Beach, it was fun to see golf nuts Jason Bateman and Will Arnett playing last week. For me, the best part of their popular podcast Smartless is listening to them talk about their golf obsession … There are six Canadians in the field this week at the Phoenix Open. The U.S. is the only country better represented, which is pretty cool for Canadian golf.