Golf is in a curious place right now. Known players choosing to participate in LIV Golf events and the PGA responding by suspending those players’ memberships is a subject that likely cannot be avoided by journalists.
NBC held a media conference call Thursday to promote the US Open, which starts next week in Brookline, MA. The event is not governed by the PGA Tour, so even if a golfer is suspended by that organization for competing with LIV, he is still eligible to win next week’s major.
Producer Tommy Roy made it clear that no matter what tour you are a part of if your result is significant this week, it will be something he expects his talent to talk about next week.
“If we show a LIV player who won last week, that will be mentioned,” he said “That’s being journalistically sound. We’re not going to shy away from something like that.”
Dan Hicks, who will call the action, says it doesn’t make sense to avoid mentioning LIV Golf. Fans of the sport are aware of it and they are aware of which of the most famous and accomplished players have signed on to participate.
“If a guy’s in contention, you cover him. You mention that he’s part of the LIV Tour. You cover that because that’s been obviously a gigantic talking point, and then you see where the championship takes you from there.”
The game of golf and a relationship with the PGA are both obviously important to NBCUniversal. The company owns The Golf Channel, which already lost Jerry Foltz to LIV earlier this month. To that end, Roy said that he will put some governors on the broadcast. He isn’t interested in talking about the dynamics between LIV Golf and the PGA. He’ll keep discussion of the Saudi-backed tour to what happened on the course.
“In terms of getting into fracturing the game of golf and all that, we’re not doing that. This is U.S. Open week now and not talking about that stuff.”