a day ago
Peter Malnati gave an epic speech to PGA Tour membership. He walks us through his message
DETROIT – Being a player director on the PGA Tour Policy Board has become hard work. On Wednesday, Zach Johnson, who served on the Tour board from 2009-11, applauded the six players who are currently serving during arguably the most turbulent time in the Tour's history.
'When I served on the board, I had to deal with drug testing – should we or should we not? – and FedEx Cup point realignment. That was the heaviest thing I had to deal with and there never was more than three meetings a year,' Johnson said. 'Since COVID, that hasn't been the case.'
Peter Malnati, a 38-year-old two-time winner whose two-year board tenure ends later this year, knew what he was getting himself into but ran for the role anyway. He likely would lead the statistical category Strokes Gained: Positive Thinking if Strokes Gained creator Mark Broadie could devise a way to rank it. Adam Schenk may have summed up Malnati's optimistic outlook best: 'He's so nice and he actually means it.' (In this writer's opinion, he's golf's Ted Lasso.)
Malnati's speech was a highlight of player meeting
On Tuesday, during the Tour's mandatory player meeting, he gave 'an impassioned speech' – that's how fellow pro Mark Hubbard described it – to those players in the 156-man field at the Rocket Classic. [Not all 156 attended. Some were excused because they already had attended a similar meeting the week before at the Travelers Championship or because the meeting time conflicted with a sponsor commitment or other excused absences.]
'Peter talks from his heart,' said fellow Tour policy board member Camilo Villegas. 'He's had a chance to sit on the board and understand why the decisions that have been made in the last few years have been the right decisions at the moment they were made and how the goal posts keep getting moved in an evolving business and constantly analyzing what's for the best because it's a fast-moving and evolving business.'
'I'm pretty honored that anyone referred to it as an impassioned speech, but it was something that I feel really strongly about,' Malnati said in a voice message to Golfweek. Malnati went on to recount the message he delivered to players on Tuesday, during which he admitted he may have signed off on losing his job someday with the Tour implementing a new policy reducing the number of players who retain fully-exempt status from 125 to 100 beginning this year. [Malnati, who entered the week at No. 194 in the FedEx Cup is exempt for next season as the winner of the 2024 Valspar Championship.]
What you're about to read is shades of Jim Colbert, a mid-tier Tour member who would go on to win eight Tour titles, who once famously said at a Tour players meeting in 1983, 'It's real simple, boys. Just play better.' When players make arguments that don't directly benefit their own cause, the professional golf ecosystem should listen its hardest … because they're rare. Malnati does that with these remarks.
'I just wanted to say to the membership that I ran for a seat on the board because I cared – really, really, strongly about not losing opportunities and not seeing the Tour get smaller and in my time on the board, both of those things have happened. And because I was on the inside and I saw the thought process, I supported them – doesn't mean they're easy for me. It doesn't mean they don't hurt because they do," Malnati began. 'I feel like the Tour at its core was built around the idea of maximizing playing opportunities and may the best man win. So it hurts to see the best option be to reduce playing opportunities and to see the Tour shrink."
Malnati said shrinking Tour makes sense, even if it hurts
Malnati continued to share with the membership that there's tangible evidence of late that validates the thought process. [Over the last six months, the Tour has closed nearly $1 billion in new or renewed contracts. Additionally, CBS reported a 13 percent year-over-year ratings increase and a 19 percent year-over-year increase at signature events. Many other metrics are ticking in the right direction, such as its digital platforms.]
'Seeing the success in renewing full-field title sponsorships for long-term deals in the 9-plus-million-dollar per range that's impressive – that's really impressive. It speaks to the fact that these full-field events feel that they're getting good value. And you know it's marked and measurable to see that their fields are stronger than they were when the invitational events that had 120-player fields and then obviously the first year of signature events, they still played at their regular field sizes. That was crushing the full field events and sponsors were really concerned and now to see the momentum where sponsors are back supporting the full-field events at really nice purse levels – that's a huge win for the entire membership.'
Malnati wanted them to hear that directly from him and also address the elephant in the room, what he termed 'the thing that we all hate the most, which is the smaller fields and the signature events and the upcoming reduction of fully-exempt cards from 125 to 100 for next season.
'That is simply a re-prioritizing of PGA Tour members that takes guys who go out and play a season on the Korn Ferry Tour and finish in the top 20 and says to them you deserve starts in all the full-field events and I think that's absolutely true now. Is it a great accomplishment to finish in the top 125 on the PGA Tour? It is, it's really good. Is it an even greater accomplishment to finish in the top 100? Yes, I've achieved that twice in my 10 seasons on Tour. I shared that with the membership yet I still think this was the right thing to do because the point of everything we're doing is to identify players who can become superstars and drive the brand forward and so we've got to give those guys that graduate from the Korn Ferry Tour a fair shot to play and so I think going from 125 cards to 100 and then putting the guys that finish 101 to 125 in the next-best conditional category after the Korn Ferry Tour graduates was absolutely the right thing to do even though in a way I was cutting my own head off.'
New PGA Tour system to closer mimic Formula 1
How many players would support a decision that might be 'cutting their own head off?' Malnati realizes that barely any players outside the top 100 on Tour generate standalone attention. Sure, there are exceptions like Joel Dahmen (and Tiger Woods wouldn't be Tiger Woods without fields of 156 to beat up on). But fewer players in the arena make it easier for the Tour to market players, easier for fans to know more contenders on a leaderboard, and it's more assuring to sponsors that top-tier players contend or win in their tournaments. Look no further than F1, which is its most popular now, with just 20 drivers who all drive in every race. Same with NASCAR. Athletes in team sports are expected to play in every one of their teams' games.
'Then lastly shared the fact that the system while it creates a very narrow funnel, I said the whole point of what we're doing – the Tour doesn't want to use this language quite this bluntly – we're identifying the top players and get them competing against each other more regularly,' Malnati said. 'So, yes, the signature event model caters to top players, it does, but the thing that I want everyone in that room and everyone on Tour and every fan and every partner to realize is that even though smaller fields are inherently a little bit less competitive because there's fewer guys, the system (we're implementing) right now there's no rules that rule out anyone. J.J. Spaun was not exempt into a single signature event at the start of this year … and he's currently ranked eighth in the world. He played his way there. Maverick McNealy played his way into the top 10 in the world – I think he's 14 right now but he was top 10 in the world. Ben Griffin and Andrew Novak, in terms of everything they're able to accomplish now on Tour, they have played their way into that group of top players. They're going to qualify for the BMW Championship this year, be fully exempt for signature events next year and they've played their way into it.
'This system is aspirational,' Malnati continued. 'The funnel is small, but the opportunity is there and it's still objective. It's still golf. If you shoot low enough scores, you will be there, so, I closed by saying my challenge to Brian Rolapp is to continue to grow the opportunity on the PGA Tour. I want to see him grow it for top players, I want to see him grow it for every single member and my challenge to all the members in the room was to go be as competitive as you can be and believe. But the guys who shoot the best scores are our top players and the more that we do that, the more that we go out and put on a show and strive to become top players, the better our product is, the more fans are going to engage with it and the more opportunity will be for everyone. So that was my spiel …. I'm glad someone thought to call it impassioned. I felt very passionate about it. I still feel very passionate about it but it's definitely been hard.'
