My long-ago idea of merging the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup to include the rest of the world in what could or should be a global event is probably never going to happen.
When I ran that idea past then-PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem during an unexpected meeting at the 2006 Ryder Cup in Ireland, he surprised me by answering, “We wouldn’t be opposed to that.”
After I nearly fell off my chair, I realized the savvy Finchem recognized that the Presidents Cup in a second-fiddle role as a qualifier to determine who advances to play the defending Ryder Cup champion would raise the PC’s profile to planet-wide do-or-die status. And, oh yeah, exponentially increase profits and viewers for both events.
The Ryder Cup never went global. It’s still just US against Them (Europe). But the Skechers World Championship Cup supporting Shriners Children’s did. It is a Ryder Cup of sorts for senior players, with an International team doing battle against the usual suspects, the U.S. and Europe. It will be played Dec. 4-7 at Feather Sound Country Club in Clearwater, Florida, and will be aired on ABC and ESPN.
The inaugural event was held two years ago, but was canceled last year due to a hurricane. Peter Jacobsen, former PGA Tour player, Ryder Cup member and TV broadcaster, is chairman of the made-for-TV event.
The U.S. won the first Skechers WCC with an extraordinary rally to come from behind and edge the Internationals by a 221-219 margin. Europe had 208 points.
“It’s one of the few cups the United States has won in recent history,” Jacobsen joked.
The event is the brainchild of Jacobsen and Charlie Besser, founder of Intersport. They worked on it for 10 years and finally launched in 2023. It’s a good fit for the Shriners organization, too, which is based in Tampa.
The Skechers WCC has three six-player teams — United States, Europe, International. This is not your father’s Ryder Cup. They play in sixsomes. On the first two days, they play a pair of nine-hole matches in modified alternate shot (pick the best drive then alternate from there) and two nine-hole matches of bestball.
The scoring is different, made to accommodate three matches at once. Each team earns a point per hole for each opponent it beats. Let’s say a U.S. duo birdies, the Euros par and the Internationals bogey. The U.S. scores two points, Europe gets one, the Internationals get zilch. So if a team won two points for every hole, it could amass 18 points in a match.
“There are so many ways to make points,” Jacobsen says. “Two years ago, the players didn’t really get it at first. ‘How’s it going to work?’ they asked. I told the captains, ‘Just go play, you’ll figure it out after the first hole,’ and they all did. Jim Furyk said, ‘This is fun, it’s almost like a member-guest.’ But you’re playing for your team and your country.”
The team matches happen on Thursday and Friday. No official competition is played Saturday due to network TV conflicts with college football. “You’re not gonna mess with college football,” Jacobsen says.
Instead, a pro-am is held Saturday along with several clinics. Sunday, the Skechers WCC concludes with six 18-hole singles matches — they play the back nine twice.
The unique scoring system helps attract sponsors.
“If you’re a big corporate sponsor at the Ryder Cup, you’d better have your tent at 14, 15 or 16 because a lot of matches end early,” Jacosen says. “With our build-out, we can put bleachers all the way through nine because every match goes to the last hole.
“It’s fun, it’s different and I’m a huge fan of new formats. We have a lot of medal play but we don’t have enough match play, Stableford or this. I feel like we’re breaking new ground.”
Someone should tell U.S. Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley that the Skechers WCC captains play in every round. They are Jim Furyk, U.S.; Mike Weir, International; and Darren Clarke, Europe. The player lineups: United States (Steve Stricker, Jerry Kelly, Justin Leonard, Stewart Cink, Jason Caron); Europe (Alex Cejka, Thomas Bjorn, Bernhard Langer, Colin Montgomerie); International (Steven Alker; K.J. Choi; Y.E. Yang; Mark Hensby, Angel Cabrera; Miguel Angel Jimenez).
In the event’s official announcement, Furyk said, “I think we have the type of team that can repeat as champion.”
Would a repeat be good for the tournament? Not if you mean another hurricane.
ONE DIRECTION
Jacobsen has always been known as a voice of reason whether it has been as a Tour player, a Ryder Cup member or a broadcaster. He was known almost as much for his hilarious impressions of other players and their swings — notably Arnold Palmer (hitching his pants) and Craig Stadler (Jacobsen dumped a dozen golf balls down his shirt to create the required stomach outline); starting his own company, Peter Jacobsen Productions; and being the lead singer of Jake Trout and The Flounders, who turned hit songs into golf parodies, as his game.
But he was always a serious golf businessman, going back to the days when he helped found the Fred Meyer Challenge, a popular and very successful pro-am in the Portland, Oregon, area.
Jacobsen is not a fan of recent PGA Tour business moves such as eliminating the annual qualifying tournament and cutting PGA Tour Champions players pensions.
“In an effort to avoid losing players to LIV Golf, we became LIV,” Jacobsen says. “We have signature events. We have the A Tour and the B Tour, everybody else. That’s the wrong direction. Arnold Palmer always talked about open competition. If you have a closed shop like LIV, you see the same players over and over. There are no opportunities for new players to emerge on the world stage. If you have young guys like Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Ben Crenshaw or Ludvig Aberg, you have to give those kids the opportunity to compete at the highest level. I worry about us becoming a closed shop.”
The new leader of the PGA Tour, replacing commissioner Jay Monahan, is Brian Rolapp, who was hired away from the National Football League. Among the things Rolapp wants to see is more scarcity, something he sees as valuable. Exactly how that plays out remains to be seen, but it is presumed to mean the tour will feature fewer tournaments and smaller fields, often without 36-hole cuts.
The PGA Tour has made a dramatic shift in the last three years. It went from being focused on the rank-and-file players, serving the membership as a whole with a goal of creating playing opportunities, to making money for investors (mainly SSG, investment bankers who agreed to pour $1.5 billion into the Tour’s kitty) and shoveling more money to the top players who are already the richest. It began with the Player Impact Program, multimillion-dollar bonuses given in lieu of bribes to deter departures to LIV. It moved on to equity shares in the Tour’s new for-profit entity plus shrinking the number of exempt spots from 125 to 100.
“There’s too much money going to too few players now,” Jacobsen says. “When Deane Beman was commissioner, he really cared about the rank-and-file guys because Deane was rank and file. He wasn’t a Rory McIlroy completing a Grand Slam. He was a golf guy and he understood that the best score wins.
“I can’t stand these no-cut tournaments like the signature events. When you look at the PGA Tour, there’s 38 or 40 tournaments and each one is a pressure cooker unto itself. If you’re playing in the Arnold Palmer Invitational, you have to play well Thursday and Friday to make the cut and make a check. Now, if I don’t play well Thursday, I coast on Friday and still cash a check on Sunday. Is that real competition or is that the LIV model?”
Jacobsen said he has shared a handshake with Rolapp, but not a conversation. Based on how the NFL makes everything it stamps its logo on first class, he hopes Rolapp will do the same with the PGA Tour and its related products — Champions Tour, Korn Ferry Tour and the others.
“I worry about the direction we’re going,” Jacobsen says. “Players come and go in every sport but the PGA Tour is less about the players and more about the strength of its organization and the communities it supports. Today’s players are missing the point of this tour started by Arnie and Jack Nicklaus in the late 1960s. It was for the communities and the charities, and we’re getting away from that. Now it’s corporate money and venture capitalists.”
And then there’s LIV.
“I would never criticize players who left for LIV,” he says. “That money was generational wealth. You can’t criticize anyone for changing jobs. But once you change jobs, you can’t do both jobs at the same time. If anybody wants to come back from LIV, the Tour has rules and regulations and penalties in place in order to get their cards back. I’m really curious to see what’s going to happen in the next two to three years.”
