Two leagues, five majors, 41 events: Gary McCord's vision for pro golf

More than 40 years after spearheading what became the all-exempt tour that has become the model for all of professional golf, Gary McCord has brainstormed a new business model for the PGA Tour.

“Forty-two years later, the idiot’s got another idea,” he cracked on The Favorite Chamblee podcast, which is hosted by Brandel and Bailey Chamblee.

McCord envisions the Tour selling tournaments as the equivalent of franchises to the highest bidders and breaking into two leagues – the equivalent of an American and National League in Major League Baseball, which he’s named the Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods leagues – which each play 18 times and then meet for five majors (the Players officially becomes the fifth major in this scenario). So 41 tournaments in all. There will be a version of a draft and each tournament will be its own franchise competing against one another for the best talent. A total of 140 players will be drafted with fields of 110 and a 70-man cut. It would conclude with a Super Bowl of sorts, a match-play finale of the top 12 players from both leagues in a winner-take-all format.

More: Gary McCord breaks down the PGA Tour in the for-profit era and says, 'Follow the money'

“Our pyramid has been upside down. It’s been pointing at one guy, Tiger Woods. We’re going to succeed because of Tiger. It’s not a good business plan for the long term. We have no base,” McCord explained on the Chamblee podcast. “One hundred guys out of all the great golfers in the world? That’s it? There will be no more signature events. Whatever they call that crap. That’s insane. The other guys have to play beyond belief to get in, that’s bullshit.”

The idea of a franchise model could be appealing to the Tour’s private equity partners, SSG, which is made up of owners of several professional sports franchises.

“Jerry Jones bought a franchise in 1988 for $148 million. It's now worth 10.5 billion according to Forbes. That's their business, the franchise,” McCord tells Golfweek. “So it's an open competition between 36 franchises. To get their players and who they want to play with the league.”

In October, in a story that ran on Golfweek, McCord pitched his version of how the Tour’s private equity partner, SSG, would recoup its investment. What McCord didn’t expect was for so many people in the golf industry to read the story and express the belief that the concept might have legs. That included Rory McIlroy who mentioned during a press conference while playing in India that he was intrigued by McCord’s idea.

“And that's when I went, alright, here we go again,” McCord tells Golfweek. “I put together, I've got eight guys on my team, they're called ‘The Watchers,’ I'm not telling anybody about who they are, I can't, but they have helped me immensely with eyes everywhere across the world, inside guys. It's really amazing that these guys are helping me do this for nothing but that’s how much they love golf.”

McCord is quick to point out that his concept can’t work until 2030 when the Tour’s media rights deals expire, but negotiations likely will start well in advance.'

“Think about it, we're going to reduce the number of tournaments played and more than double the amount of players that are exempt to play. All those guys who are crying on TV losing their jobs at 100, 101, we're going to have 220. We've got the economics figured out, the ROI for SSG and future revenue streams within each franchise,” he tells Golfweek.

McCord explained why he wanted to appear on the Chamblee podcast this week to spell out his vision in greater detail.

“In 54 years on the Tour, I’ve learned to be sneaky about the placement of things and marketing and I know it's going to cause serious conversation. I want the big boys sitting on the range at Tiger's tournament to sleep on this and chew on it for a little bit because they've got a couple of weeks with nothing to do,” McCord said, referencing the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas, which is hosted by Woods.

McCord also made sure to see J.J. Spaun on the range at Whisper Rock, the private golf club in Scottsdale where numerous Tour pros are members.

“I wanted him to know first-hand for when the buzz hit. I figured he was in (the field), that's why I kind of went over to him,” McCord tells Golfweek. “That way, he can actually say from his POV that he talked to me and here's what he said versus the interpretation. Everybody will sit on it. Everybody will look at it. I imagine I'm going get a phone call from (Tour CEO Brian) Rollap. But I've already talked to his boss. So I'm doing an end-around much like I did with the all-exempt tour.”

McCord's reference to Rolapp’s boss would be Arthur Blank, the founder of Home Depot and PGA Tour Superstore, owner of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and one of the principal investors in SSG and TGL and a member of the Tour’s board. Influential figures in the game are paying heed to McCord’s concept, including Blank. McCord, who lives in Scottsdale, Ariz., said he’s been invited to Blank’s owner’s box when the Arizona Cardinals host the Falcons on Dec. 21.

“After I get through with Arthur, if he nods his head to me, I'm going to give it to the Players Advisory Council. I've already talked to one of them,” McCord tells Golfweek. “I'm going to give the whole structure to them, and then it's theirs. Let them do what they want with it. It's a structure. It's a new way to do things and the Tour is talking about getting smaller. And that's really good when you've got Tiger. You don't have Tiger anymore. So now what do you do? Your pyramid is upside down, it's totally upside down, so we'll address that and address the vastness of how many good players are out there and the future fight is going to be LIV and the world against us.”

More than four decades ago, McCord convinced tour pros that expanding from 60 exempt players to 125 made business sense. Could he do it again? At the tail end of their podcast, Brandel Chamblee said to his wife, "It could be in 2031 we’re sitting here and we were equivalently sitting in the board room at the Holiday Inn when Gary sprung this idea on us."

“I've done it once already for nothing. I'm trying to do it again for nothing. You can't copyright it, you can't patent it. I've already talked to lawyers and that's out of the deal. So you know this is just for the good of the game,” McCord said.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Gary McCord's vision for PGA Tour: Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods leagues