Guarantees and Motivation
LIV as a test study for golfers and the championship spirit
I want to preface this by stating that I strongly believe all athletes should maximize their earnings, and that the entire mess the sport of golf is in right now is by NOT guaranteeing any money for their tour players, like basically every other major sport does. It’s quite clear in the NFL, MLB, NBA and others worldwide, having a guaranteed yearly salary doesn’t kneecap the motivation to win. Because winning is unlike anything else, and a lot of players are motivated by that adrenaline, as well as creating a legacy in their sport.
If you’re the kind of player who will lose his (or her) edge because you suddenly need nothing in life materially, then you probably were going to burn out in some other way and not reach your apex.
Golf is a very unique sport in a way that makes it less accessible for those on the outside looking in. While there are teams collegiately, and in events like the Ryder Cup (and now, yes, on LIV), the teams that exist in professional golf tend to be guys who are signed by the same OEM club manufacturer, and they are barely teams in that regard as well. Instead, golf is a VERY personal sport. Nobody is going to know if you put in your hours on the range, in the gym, if you are dieting the right way and keeping your distractions to a minimum … nobody but you.
Tiger Woods made some comments about LIV last year, and at The Open at St. Andrews he offered one sentence that has stuck with me:
What is the incentive to practice and earn it in the dirt?
For me, this recalled Ben Hogan, who famously said the secret to golf was in the dirt - and by this, he meant that the secret is in the practice range. Working on minutia until you have it perfected, Hogan would pound balls for hours and hours each day.
Woods and others are very much creatures of that habit, health permitting. And by asking this, Woods wondered aloud why guys like Dustin Johnson and Cam Smith would put in the time - golf is famously fickle, it doesn’t take long for your swing to disappear and do some confusing, hinky things.
Last year suggested, maybe, that Woods was off-base. DJ won several times and earned him and his team additional millions. Smith joined the league late but won an event almost immediately.
But this year? Cam has a T5 - but finished fully 10 strokes behind Charles Howell III in Mayakoba - and last week finished T24, seven strokes behind winner Danny Lee. It’s worth noting that CH3 and Lee collectively have four wins on the PGA Tour, but have notched victories fairly early in their LIV career. While it’s easy to say that sure, it’s easier to beat 47 other guys than 159 on the PGA Tour, what does that mean about Cam? Finishing T24 means truly being in the middle of the pack.
Golf is hard, and the best golfers don’t win every week or even close to it. But what’s happening here? Cam and DJ are miles ahead of most everyone on LIV in terms of talent and where they are in their athletic primes. If young guys like Abraham Ancer, Carlos Ortiz or Talor Gooch were asserting dominance, that’d be one thing. (In fairness, Ortiz was part of the playoff where Lee eventually won.) But Smith is finishing behind guys like Scott Vincent, Richard Bland and Sam Horsfield. (The correct response to this is, in fact, ‘Who?’)
I just struggle to think that these tournaments mean much to Cam, or DJ. They’ve already gotten paid so much money that even the $4,000,000 they can win by winning another tournament stops meaning much.
Where this gets interesting is in the majors. I personally have long thought Cam Smith had at least one green jacket in him, and I’ve been eyeing him as a one-and-done pick for The Masters. But … I have to say, this concerns me. Where is the proof that he’s still got the fire in the belly? While he’s the reigning Open Champion, and the winner of the last major, I truly can’t say that he’s doing his very best to prepare for the next major. And what does that tell us?
His talent hasn’t evaporated, but has his motivation? If you can’t get motivated to roll over a bunch of guys CLEARLY inferior to you, you’re gonna show up and just be ready to go up against Jon Rahm, Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and others? Can you really just turn on your best game after months and months of essentially playing in exhibitions and fishing off your boat in Florida?
I … wonder.