6.6.23 - JR Interview with Michael Williams

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And a lot of the players didn't even know that this merger is taking place. So to discuss this and answer some of the questions and to really talk about it, it's time to talk to a golf expert. He is a golf contributor to the landscape here at CBS Sports Radio and GolfWorksWRX.com. It's my main man, Michael Williams.

Michael, how are you? I'm sitting here in Virginia. I'm at the homestead for celebrating the centennial of the Cascades course where Sam Snead was the head pro here for years and years and years and decades.

Wonderful place, one of the meccas of golf in this country. And I thought that story was going to be on the ground playing golf here. And then this story comes in out of the blue.

And I think that the biggest story is why there was, there was so secret. Nobody knew about it. Nobody expected this to come. And then here it is. It comes out of nowhere. And, you know, as we get this announcement, as we get more information going, it's going to happen sort of in the late morning today as we get into the evening.

Still, we have more questions than answers. What is this thing? How does it happen? How was it kept so secret? Who was involved? Who made the decision? What actual decisions are being made?

What is the name of this thing going to be? Who's actually in charge? Who's going to get paid?

Who isn't going to get paid? It is, it is really because of the shock of the news of it and the lack of information behind it. I think that it has made professional golf about as important as it has ever been without Tiger Woods being the lead name in the story.

It's just an interesting thing. Golf expert Michael Williams is joining us here. CBS Sports Radio, the JR Sport Reef Show. I think you're correct. I had mentioned the fact that you don't have to be a massive fan of golf to just even understand or keep up with the general storylines here. My question to you, if there is even an answer, we see that there are going to be, as of right now, separate schedules between Live Golf and the PGA. How do you think this ultimately boils down into the future? Is there going to be a combined entity?

I would assume you still keep the PGA. Nate, I'd like, there's a lot of questions here. What are your thoughts?

What do you think? Well, I used to say when I was a little kid, I don't know. It was like, nobody really knows how this thing is going to pan out. We don't know. There have been some suggestions about how this, how the tour schedule is going to work out. We don't know when this actually begins. We're assuming that the Live Tour and the PGA Tour will play out their current schedule for the remainder of the 2023 season, and all this kicks into 2024. But we haven't been confirmed on that. We don't know what the schedule is going to be like. Jay Monahan, the Commissioner of the PGA Tour, the current Commissioner, has made reference to the fact that they want to explore the opportunities that are represented by the Team Golf concept of the Live Tour. Okay, so what does that mean? When is that going to happen? Which events will be team-based?

Does that happen in the fall? Who's forming the teams, by the way? This is a big deal because of who this partner is. Okay, this is about Saudi Arabia, and as you know, I'm a political reporter as well, and the fact that you have Saudi Arabia involved, all these things about sports-washing that are involved, and the Saudi regime and how it behaves on the global stage, and the fact that Jay Monahan a year ago was saying that what Saudi Arabia is, is everything. It's the most important thing, and that prevents us from partnering with them. And a year later, he's saying that what was once everything is nothing. It doesn't mean anything.

That is a big deal. So why is it now nothing? Is it just because of the money? Is it because of the lawsuits?

Is it because they thought they were going to lose? What actually is going on? We don't even know what the name of the tour is going to be. It's currently the PGA Tour. Is it going to be the PGA Live Tour? Is it going to operate under some other name? What are the events going to be? We know nothing currently. What we do know is that there's a lot that has to be answered, and what's most surprising to me now is the more I learn about this, the more surprised I am that they went public with this, with so much yet to be decided.

Why would you do this when there's so many questions to be answered that still they have no answers for? Well, I certainly saw the reports from this afternoon, this evening, that obviously there are a lot of players who stuck their neck out for the PGA. The biggest names happen to be obviously Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.

And you can go on down the line or go down the ranks. I don't want to say that they're standing there with egg on their face, but they look ridiculous for defending an organization that went, I could say, behind their back and just slept with the enemy here. There's a lot of players. They had a players meeting today, and Jay Monahan, after the meeting, said in the morning he was going on CNBC and talking about how this was a new day and a win for everybody.

It was very sunny and Pollyanna and that sort of thing. And after the meeting with the players, he said that it was, quote unquote, heated. I mean, when you get these guys, I mean, these are not very highly emotional people and we're talking about professional golfers.

They generally keep it on the low side of boil. When these people get heated, you know that you've done something. And I think that what they are saying is we put ourselves out there and got in line with you on principle.

And we also turned down a lot of money as well. So what is this all about and why couldn't we be involved with the situation of how you got to the point of getting to an agreement with these people? They are the ones who are actually powering this thing.

They are the show. And interesting thing, you know, you have a NFL players union, a Major League Baseball players union, the most effective union in the history of unions, by the way. You don't have a professional golfers union, but you may after this, watch this space. Wow.

Michael Williams joining us here, CBS Sports Radio golf expert. You know, we can go through scenarios. It's kind of my final question here, where things kind of blow away and get washed away. I am sure that we will, you know, we will see, I don't want to say protest, but we're going to hear about this domestically here in the United States of America. What ultimately happens? Golf isn't going anywhere. What do you think will happen in five years from now? Will this all be a blip and everyone is all on with the world or do you think that golf is going to take a hit?

Jay Monahan says into the future. This is going to be of in the best interest of everyone. Well, best interest of everyone.

We'll see. Okay, because you got a lot of sponsors out there. The ones who have who have to answer to current sponsors, the PGA Tour, have to answer their shareholders, how they're now sort of tied up with the Saudis, with the shareholders who somehow thought that they weren't going to be getting into bed with that whole thing.

He's in a way, Monahan is right. In five years, 10 years, nobody may really care. But here's the thing. Nobody really has convinced anybody to play golf besides Tiger Woods. The guys on the live tour make tons of money, maybe 10 times as much as the guys on the PGA Tour for about 50% of the work. But the thing is, nobody's watching, right? So if you have a business that depends on people watching, still the only thing that compels people, a lot of people to watch besides people like me who care a lot about golf is a guy like Tiger Woods. So this is a story for today because the business thing and because of the intrigue of it, because the duplicity of it, it's a people's story. But once it returns to being a golf story, I think probably it'll be one of those things where, you know, actually, who cares unless you get a charismatic golfer who compels people to watch? Right now, people are being compelled by the car crash of the humanness of this, the chase for money and the duplicity. But if it comes down to watching an interesting golfer, we still got to come up with one because Tiger's just about done.

Yeah, this is you're right. This is the biggest story. Michael, I appreciate you taking the time to join us. Where can people follow you and your amazing work? You can hit me on Twitter at Michael on TV or Instagram at Michael Williams TV.

Call anytime operators are standing by. Always a pleasure, Mike. Hopefully the next time we have a conversation, it's about something good going on in golf and not people are sleeping with the next door neighbor's daughter, cousin, brother, mother, sister, uncle, aunt.

I'm flexible, but let's do it on the golf course. I can dig it. A big shout out to my main man, Michael Williams.

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