DC300
The biggest part of the issue is that the Tour has tried to supernaturally elevate the status of numerous tournaments. There's like what, four WGC tournaments now each season? "Oh, you gotta win one of these to be considered a great player!" Then add the four majors. Then you throw in the Players Championship at Sawgrass, you gotta win one of those! And then the Tour Championship finale at East Lake, which isn't a big deal to the average fan, but nevertheless part of the "heralded" prestigious PGA Tour's tournament final rotisserie that awards a guy worth $200 million another $10 million.
And yet, I get why the Tour wants to keep sponsors who are willing to dole out big bucks, $7 million dollar purses during the fall months. But it does nothing for the viewers who've already had their fill of televised golf from March thru September. Unless it's Ryder Cup - who really cares?
Very few fans watch golf from October thru March, unless they're diehards. It's most always been this way, this isn't breaking news. The playoffs haven't brought in the viewers that the tour thought it might over the years. And that's okay, hey - no problem. But don't tell me you're completely shocked when the Nielsen Ratings remind you Monday morning that your product still sucks ass and doesn't compete with "The Office" reruns on Comedy Channel, much less college football on Saturdays and the NFL on Sundays.
It takes these guys 5+ hours on average to finish a round. Who in the hell wants to devote 5 hours to watch these meaningless, trivial tournaments broadcasted live on tv? I FFW on DVR through the majors, even! I don't need to know Matt Kuchar's table-tennis exploits or Dustin Johnson's workout routine in the middle of the telecast. WTF!
Shit, my DVR is automatically set to record pga tour golf tournaments every week. I can easily FFW through the commercials, the grab-assing Keegan Bradley's and J.B Holmes' of the world taking 5 minutes to figure out how to miss a 3-footer. I'm deleting that crap without even watching it. I gain at least 10 hours of my weekend by just reading about it on ESPN.
It's just not interesting to me. And a big reason why is because I'm burnt out as a viewer after having it available to me for 52 weeks a year. Once I get past the British Open (unless it's Ryder Cup season) - I'm finished watching golf until March basically.
I might read about it, I might comment about it, but I'm most likely not watching it.