Welcome to Issue #17
"The mind messes up more shots than the body”
Tommy Bolt
What’s on mind this week
LIV partners with R&A and USGA to improve grass, still not over the Anthony Kim comeback, Sahith showing the Riviera course some love, so Taylor was a no show, Lucas Glover finally joins PGA PAC, I need a new range practice plan, only 48 days to the Masters.
In the news
Why it matters: Paige Spiranac (11.6M+ followers) has partnered with Pro Shop, the media house behind Netflix's Full Swing, to launch Paige Co. This joint venture provides Spiranac with institutional production, merchandising, and distribution infrastructure, whilst she retains equity and creative control. It marks the professionalisation of the golf creator economy.
Our Take: The creator economy is reaching institutional scale. Spiranac spent a decade building an audience; she is now leveraging Chad Mumm's Pro Shop infrastructure to monetise at corporate scale. Top-tier talent no longer needs traditional sponsors to reach the market, they need infrastructure partners. As Pro Shop expands its reach into the LPGA and PGA Tour, they are building a media-commerce hybrid that challenges traditional broadcasters. Institutional media must now match the speed and authenticity of creator-led content or risk becoming irrelevant to younger audiences who consume golf primarily through social platforms.
Why it matters: Callaway Golf Company projects a combined $75 million in tariff expenses across 2025 and 2026. With $40 million hitting this year alone, the company is signalling higher than historical price points and forced product redesigns to protect margins amidst flat to declining year-over-year revenue.
Our Take: Equipment endorsement budgets disappeared because tariffs created a 115% cost surge that forced brutal choices. Callaway's projected $2 billion in sales faces a $75 million tax on its Asian based production and Mexican assembly lines. For consumers, equipment inflation is now structural, not cyclical. We are entering a high-price, high-retention market where smaller brands without Callaway's scale will likely be forced into consolidation. Your next driver costs $700 because of trade policy, not R&D innovation. The equipment endorsement model collapsed under manufacturing economics.
Why it matters: Buffalo Groupe's 2025 Golf Travel Study reveals a behavioural pivot: whilst 90% of golfers plan to maintain or increase spending in 2026, high-budget travellers (formerly $15,000+) are shifting towards multiple shorter trips rather than single, marquee "bucket list" destinations.
Our Take: High-net-worth golfers are trading one 10-day trip to Scotland for three 4-day escapes to Southern Europe (Spain/Portugal/Italy) or the U.S. Southeast that blend golf with culture and climate. For resorts, the strategy must shift from acquisition to frequency. Value perception is now more critical than premium posturing, travellers cite hidden fees as their primary deterrent. The most successful destinations in 2026 will be those that make a 72-hour stay feel like a complete lifestyle reset, whilst competitors chase signature holes and championship pedigree. Golf travel remains resilient, but the product must match how affluent consumers now allocate their time.
Pic from Golf.com
Worth your time
Watch: Nike missed the biggest boom in golf history interesting observations by Jordan Rogers on the world of golf fashion.
Listen: Grapes & Greens a brilliant podcast mixing golf and wine (what a combo). Host Niall talks to David Green, GM of Basingstoke GC in the UK about the venue’s redevelopment.
Follow: @unplayable.golf on Instagram. Conor McGowan’s videos cover a mix of golf courses, golf businesses, golf history and basically anything interesting to do with the game. Great content.
Feature story
What Brooks Koepka's solo exit revealed about LIV, the PGA Tour, and player power
Pic from Getty Images
Nearly three weeks have passed since the PGA Tour's 2nd of February deadline for LIV players to return closed. In that time, the implications of Brooks Koepka's solo defection have come into sharper focus, particularly after Anthony Kim's emotional Adelaide victory demonstrated what LIV gained whilst losing its five-time major champion.
Four players were invited to return. Only Koepka walked through the PGA Tour door. Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, and Cameron Smith all declined. The $50 million penalty Koepka accepted, combined with the choices the others made, reveals more about professional golf's economic and competitive dynamics than any negotiation between the Tours ever could.
The price of re-entry
Koepka's December departure from LIV, with one year remaining on his contract, triggered the most expensive penalty in golf history. A $5 million donation to charity. Ineligibility for FedEx Cup bonuses in 2026. No equity grants for five years. Limited access to signature events unless earned through performance. Estimated total cost: more than $50 million in forfeited earnings and future revenue.
This was not negotiated. It was the price the Tour set for a player who left voluntarily, returned voluntarily, and possessed the leverage to do both. The fact that Koepka accepted anyway says more about what he was leaving than what he was joining.
Koepka cited family reasons. Less time travelling abroad. More time at home with his wife and son. The personal context is genuine. The Koepka’s experienced a miscarriage in 2025, and Brooks has been candid about how that shaped his priorities. But personal circumstances do not explain why DeChambeau, Rahm, and Smith reached different conclusions when facing the same choice.
Pic from Golf Monthly
The players who stayed
DeChambeau's response was instructive. He declined the invitation, then floated abandoning tour golf entirely to play only major championships whilst building his YouTube channel full-time.
"That's an incredibly viable option, I'll tell you that," DeChambeau told Front Office Sports in mid-January. "Doing the course record series and playing Break 50s does keep me quite dialled in for tournament golf."
The statement was strategic. DeChambeau's YouTube channel generates an estimated $800,000 annually in ad revenue alone, before brand partnerships that could push total YouTube-related income into seven figures. His LIV contract expires after 2026. Reports suggest he has demanded $500 million to extend, which would make him the highest-paid player in LIV history, exceeding Rahm's reported $300 million deal.
This is leverage in its purest form. DeChambeau created optionality where none existed. The PGA Tour wants him back. LIV cannot afford to lose him. YouTube provides a third path requiring neither. The price he commands from LIV reflects that reality.
Rahm and Smith declined for different reasons. Both have stated publicly they are committed to LIV. Smith signed a reported $140 million deal. Rahm's contract is reported at $300 million. Unlike Koepka, who had one year remaining, both have multiple years ahead. Walking away would cost substantially more.
What we've learned since
Two weeks after the 2 February deadline, Anthony Kim won LIV Golf Adelaide on 15 February.
The 40-year-old, who disappeared from professional golf for 12 years whilst battling addiction and personal struggles, shot a final-round 63 to defeat Rahm and DeChambeau by three strokes. It was his first victory anywhere in 16 years.
Kim's win provided something LIV has struggled to generate consistently: credibility through competitive narrative. A redemption story that transcended the league's funding source. Record crowds in Adelaide of more than 115,000 over four days. Emotional television. The Public Investment Fund's billions have not bought this kind of organic storytelling. Kim delivered it.
The juxtaposition is striking. Whilst the PGA Tour closed its doors after securing only one defection, LIV produced its most compelling sporting moment in four years of operation. The question facing both organisations is whether these parallel developments represent sustainable trajectories or temporary narratives.
Pic from Getty Images
The sponsorship credibility LIV is building
LIV has struggled with non-endemic sponsorship since launch. The league's funding source and political complications created barriers with multinational brands. That is changing.
In the past 10 months, LIV has secured approximately $500 million in new sponsorship deals, according to CEO Scott O'Neil. HSBC signed as title sponsor. Salesforce, MGM Resorts, and Rolex have all entered partnerships. Reebok returned to golf through a team apparel deal with DeChambeau's Crushers GC.
These are not Saudi-based companies filling inventory. These are global brands making commercial calculations that LIV delivers value. The sponsorship momentum provides financial diversification beyond PIF funding and signals that institutional partners view LIV as somewhat operationally stable.
The challenge is sustainability. Sponsorship follows star power. Koepka's departure leaves LIV with DeChambeau and Rahm as primary tentpole players. If DeChambeau's negotiations fail and he departs after 2026, LIV would be reduced to a single marquee star with major championship credibility. That changes the commercial calculus for sponsors evaluating long-term commitments.
The precedent question
The PGA Tour's "Returning Member Program" was framed as a one-time opportunity. Tiger Woods, who chairs the player board, was personally involved in Koepka's case. The Tour expanded signature event fields to protect current members. The message was clear: this accommodation is exceptional, not repeatable.
Precedents do not expire simply because organisations declare them temporary. The Tour created a pathway. It set a price. One player accepted. Three declined. The question is what happens when DeChambeau's contract expires and he possesses major championship exemptions, YouTube leverage, and a documented willingness to walk away from guaranteed money.
The Tour's leverage depends on scarcity. If star players can return on similar terms when LIV contracts expire, the deterrent effect weakens. If penalties remain punitive enough to discourage returns, the Tour risks exclusion. The balance is delicate, and Koepka's decision does not resolve it.
Pic from SportsPro
What the PIF invests next
The Saudi Public Investment Fund has invested an estimated $5 billion into LIV Golf since 2022. The announced expansion into team ownership, broadcasting rights, and international tournaments suggests sustained commitment.
The 2026 season features 14 events across 10 countries on five continents, including LIV's first event in South Africa. Broadcast deals now reach nearly one billion households across more than 200 territories. The infrastructure investment is substantial and designed to persist.
But infrastructure does not guarantee competitive relevance. LIV's long-term viability depends on whether it can attract elite talent to replace those who leave or retire. The league has failed to recruit a single star player from the PGA Tour in the past three off-seasons. Koepka's departure, combined with Henrik Stenson's relegation and Patrick Reed's exit, reduces the roster of recognisable names.
The PIF's willingness to continue funding LIV is not in question. What remains unclear is whether money alone can solve talent acquisition when competitive credibility, global ranking points, and major championship pathways remain concentrated on the PGA Tour.
The mobility question
Professional golf now operates under three distinct contract models simultaneously.
The PGA Tour model offers performance-based compensation with fluid player movement. Players can enter and exit relatively freely, with earnings tied to results and sponsorship.
The LIV model offers guaranteed contracts with substantial upfront payments in exchange for multi-year commitments. Breaking these contracts carries significant financial penalties, as Koepka demonstrated.
The YouTube model, floated by DeChambeau, offers a third path: major championship exemptions supplemented by content creation revenue. No tour affiliation required. Complete optionality.
Each model reflects different valuations of security, flexibility, and competitive relevance. Koepka valued flexibility over security and paid $50 million for it. DeChambeau values optionality and is using it as leverage. Rahm and Smith value security and are honouring commitments.
What they collectively reveal is that professional golf's labour market has fractured into multiple competing systems, each with distinct incentives and constraints.
What this means
The 2nd of February deadline resolved nothing. It clarified positions.
LIV now knows that guaranteed money alone does not prevent defections when players value competitive relevance or personal circumstances more than financial security. The league must solve talent retention through means beyond compensation.
The PGA Tour now knows that creating pathways for returning players does not trigger mass defections. Three of four invited players declined. The deterrent effect of LIV contracts proved stronger than anticipated.
Players now know that mobility exists, but at a price. Koepka is likely to pay more than $50 million for flexibility. That figure will inform every future contract negotiation on both tours.
Professional golf's economic model remains unsettled. No single organisation controls talent. No single contract structure dominates. No single competitive pathway provides unquestioned legitimacy.
What Koepka's solo exit demonstrates is that player power in golf functions differently than in other professional sports. Individual leverage, personal circumstances, and financial optionality matter more than collective bargaining or league-wide constraints.
Professional golf's future will be determined by individual calculations rather than institutional agreements. That provides players with agency and prevents organisational monopolies. It also ensures that golf's competitive and commercial structure will remain fragmented, contested, and unpredictable.
One thing from history
Why 18 Holes? The accidental standard.
Pic from St Andrews
In golf’s early days, courses had whatever number of holes the land allowed. Leith Links had 7. Montrose had 25. Prestwick, host of the first Open Championship in 1860, had 12. There was no standard because no one thought there needed to be one.
Then came St Andrews.
In 1764, the Old Course consisted of 22 holes. There were 12 physical holes, but golfers played 10 of them twice, once going out and once coming back. Several of the early holes were extremely short, which made the routing feel uneven.
The Society of St Andrews Golfers made a simple decision. They combined the four short holes at the beginning and the four at the end into two each way. The result was an 18-hole round.
There was no grand design. No philosophical commitment to symmetry. Just a practical adjustment.
For decades, other courses continued to improvise. Prestwick’s 12-hole Open required three circuits. At nine-hole Musselburgh, it required four. The game tolerated inconsistency.
What changed was authority.
In 1858, the Royal & Ancient Golf Club wrote into its rules that a round consisted of 18 holes unless otherwise agreed. As St Andrews’ influence grew, more clubs aligned. Prestwick expanded to 18 holes in 1882. The number hardened into convention.
18 did not win because it was optimal. It won because the most influential institution in the sport adopted it.
Industry standards rarely emerge from perfection. They emerge from coordination. One respected player chooses. Others follow. Debate fades. Habit takes over.
Golf still revolves around 18 holes today. Not because it had to. Because St Andrews did it first.
Next week
We chat with founder Travis Miller about his transition from building the hugely successful PGA Memes to relaunching Northwestern Golf as Marketing VP and equity shareholder.
Have a good week. Until next Friday,
David