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Butch Harmon has lamented the ongoing state of men’s professional golf, insisting that the turmoil of the last three years could have been avoided had the PGA Tour, and its commissioner Jay Monahan, not been so “arrogant”.
Harmon, who famously coached Tiger Woods to eight major wins over the course of their 11-year professional relationship, savaged the US-based circuit’s leadership during an appearance on Matt Adams’ ‘Fairways of Life’ show on the Golf Channel this morning.
Asked for his take on the current fractures in the sport, Harmon hit out at Monahan for not entering into dialogue with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund which bankrolls the LIV Golf League, sooner.
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“You’ve got to look at it two ways,” said the coaching icon. “The crop of young players we have right now is the best crop of young players we’ve had, maybe ever, and there’s a lot of them.
“The downside to that is when you turn on the TV on Saturday and Sunday and you look at the leaderboard and the novice golf fan sees these ten names and he has no idea who any of them are, ’cause it’s not any of the superstars, and I think that’s why golf ratings are down, that to me is wrong, because these kids are so good.
“The other side of that. the business side, is the worst it’s ever been. I don’t understand the way the tour handles their stuff. All I know is, if the commissioner had taken Yasir’s phone call four years ago, we wouldn’t be in this place.”
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He added: “I think the arrogance of the PGA Tour – thinking they were the best game and only game in town, and that nobody was going to come in and do anything about that – well, we’ve seen what’s happened.
“All you and I want and all golf fans want is when we turn on the TV on Sunday we want to see the best players playing against each other. That’s all we want. And we only get that four times a year now, at the majors, and for me that has to change.
“If [the PGA Tour] had listened four years ago, we might not even be going through this. Now, there’s a difficulty… but there has to be a way to bring everybody together, and for God’s sake, let’s hope they figure it out.”
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