Gary McCord dishes on future of golf, PGA Tour

Even though two of golf’s biggest bombshells of the year — the ball rollback and Jon Rahm’s departure for LIV — had yet to drop when legendary golf broadcaster Gary McCord sat down with hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz in the Subpar studio for this week’s episode, McCord still had plenty to say about the future of LIV, the PGA Tour and the golf world at large.

“The one thing holding [LIV] up,” McCord began, “is the fact that they cannot exist without world golf ranking points. They can’t. They can’t get the big players, because the big players will, finally, after not getting world ranking points, gonna fall out of the majors, and that’s what they’re there for, they’re trying to build their legend.”

Knost commented that Talor Gooch, who won LIV’s season-long points title this year, has no exemptions into the major championships.

“If you look at this thing, and what’s gonna go on, it will be unified in some way, shape or form,” McCord said. “And there’s gonna be a world tour, of 15 events, whatever, take your pick, 15, 20 events. It’s gonna be at the top, all the other tours are gonna be below it.”

McCord speculated that the tour might be comprised of 75 players, where the bottom 25 are relegated each year and need to work their way back up. But the question remains: what happens to guys who have crossed over to LIV and want to return?

McCord said the answer is that the best players in the world will need an outlet where they play for a lot of money in select events throughout the year, period.

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“It’s gonna end up that there are gonna be 15, plus the four majors, and that’s the pinnacle,” McCord said. “And then you down from there and you build your pyramid.

“It’s gonna be an individual deal to get in those tournaments to play.”

For more from McCord, including more of his thoughts on LIV, check out the full interview below.

Golf.com Editor

As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural class of female varsity golfers, Jessica can out-birdie everyone on the masthead. She can out-hustle them in the office, too, where she’s primarily responsible for producing both print and online features, and overseeing major special projects, such as GOLF’s inaugural Style Is­sue, which debuted in February 2018. Her origi­nal interview series, “A Round With,” debuted in November of 2015, and appeared in both in the magazine and in video form on GOLF.com.