Team Golf

Does It Work?

Aside from watching college and NFL football over the weekend, I spent a good amount of my time watching The Solheim Cup. The US women came out on top with some stellar play. It was riveting sports television on Sunday as the European women tried to make a match out of it. They played valiantly but started Sunday well behind.

As I watched this weekend, I thought about team golf. Golf is inherently an individual sport, so it begs the question does team golf work? We have The Solheim Cup, The President’s Cup, The Ryder Cup and The Walker Cup. LIV Golf, secondary schools and collegiate players play as individuals and teams within the same tournament. Fans appear to be drawn in large quantities to The Ryder, Solheim and President’s Cups. For schools, team golf makes sense. For LIV, team golf looks more like a sideshow novelty that hasn’t quite caught on, at least for now.

The answer to the question is, based on my observations over the years, team golf works in the proper context.

What do I mean?

First, there has to be a fan base for a team. In other sports throughout the world, fans are aligned with “their” team. It doesn’t matter what the team sport is, there is always a fan base associated with the team. For golf to be successful as a team sport, there also needs to be fans to support a team. For instance, with The Solheim Cup this past weekend, there are the US fans and the European fans. Fans showed up in support of their teams dressed in all kinds of attire to show their support. They cheered and chanted and sang just like fans do at any other sporting event. The same occurs with The Ryder and President’s Cup matches.

Schools and colleges have alumni which support the different sports at the schools. There is a natural fan base as a result. These fans are more likely to be vociferous when it comes to football or the other major sports, but alumni do contribute financially to golf. For example, The University of Alabama just completed a $47 million golf practice and training facility.

LIV Golf instituted a regular team concept to their events. While intriguing as a concept, it has struggled to gain traction with fans and sponsors. One of the reasons is perhaps the lack of a natural fanbase for the created teams. The teams themselves are not based out of a city or region or country. Some teams may comprise of players from the same country, but the majority of the teams don’t have a natural fanbase.

Frequency matters. The Solheim Cup occurs once a year. The Ryder Cup and President’s Cup occur every other year. LIV team golf occurs in all but one of their tournaments. The uniqueness of team golf makes it intriguing. Having one team event a year keeps fans engaged and interested because it is not a regular occurrence. Too much of a good thing ends up getting stale, and fans lose interest. In the US, football is king, yet, spring and summer leagues struggle to draw fan support.

For the team concept to work, there needs to be natural fanbases just like other sports. It needs to remain unique within the sport in order to keep interest up. Too much team golf hurts the interest level.

There is one more way team golf works. To read my opinion, please consider a paid subscription. Paid subscribers get extra content each week.

As always, be grateful when you play. Be thankful you have the opportunity and privilege to enjoy this amazing game. Now, go golf!