Cooney’s Column: Is The PGA Taking A Page Out Of WWE’s Handbook
By Bob Cooney Business models are successful because, well, if they weren’t they wouldn’t be models. You don’t attempt to emulate something that isn’t successful. Call it the first rule…
ST ALBANS, ENGLAND – JUNE 11: Phil Mickelson of the United States tees off on the 16th hole during day three of the LIV Golf Invitational at The Centurion Club on June 11, 2022 in St Albans, England. (Photo by Matthew Lewis/Getty Images)
By Bob Cooney
Business models are successful because, well, if they weren’t they wouldn’t be models. You don’t attempt to emulate something that isn’t successful. Call it the first rule of business.
You really can’t fault any company or organization for stealing ideas of success, can you? After all, it’s probably the ultimate compliment to said company and never a bad idea to piggy back on the success of others, right?
So, Vince McMahon and Paul Michael Levesque, better known as Triple H, give yourselves big pat on your massive backs, because there is another organization trying to be just like you and your WWE family, and it is the sport of golf.
Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau and others have decided to become the heels of the sport by joining LIV golf, headed by a group of rich Saudis whose morals are, at the least, questionable. For Mickelson and all the others to get into a dirty money bed with them is, in my opinion and many others, nothing less than gross. But that’s a discussion for another day.
The overwhelming feeling I’m getting from all of this is that golf isn’t minding the controversy all of this is creating. There is no more Tiger Woods to carry the tour. And while there are many good, young golfers, the tour doesn’t seem all that comfortable that they will be able to closely carry the kind of following that Tiger had to keep the sport. So what to do? Hello, WWE.
It started with the Dechambeau-Brooks Keopka matchup of two guys that seemingly hated each other but had no problem squaring off against one another for a made-for-tv huge payout, and now has grown into Rory McIlroy taking shots at Greg Norman, the likes of Jordan Speith and Justin Thomas proclaiming their disdain for now what appears to be former friends. It’s even gotten to the point where Mickelson has grown the bad-guy 5-oclock shadow.
Was this a concentrated effort on the part of the PGA Tour? Maybe not? But it sure seems like everyone knows their roles pretty well as this situation gets more tumultuous.
Pat EganEditor
Pat is Philly through and through, having grown up in the Oxford Circle of Northeast Philadelphia. He attended Cardinal Dougherty High School, and it was at CD that a teacher suggested he should pursue a career in sports radio. He worked his way up the ranks and joined the morning show in June of 2020. As a content creator for 97.5 The Fanatic he writes about Eagles, Sixers, Phillies and Flyers. Follow Pat on Twitter @Pat_Egan
