As a voracious reader on the lives of former presidents, Brian Rolapp is probably familiar with Dwight Eisenhower’s quip about leadership being the art of getting someone else to do what you want done because he wants to do it. The PGA Tour’s CEO has already measured up favorably to Ike’s metric, having engineered the return of Brooks Koepka to the fold while keeping a lid on whatever simmering resentment exists in the locker room. (It helps that Koepka is popular among his peers; it’s not like Rolapp was asking them to save seats in player dining for Patrick and Justine).
The first real test of Rolapp’s writ comes six weeks from now however, around The Players, when the Future Competition Committee he impaneled makes public its preliminary concepts about the Tour’s future. That will be followed by a period of negotiations, horse trading and reconciliation until a final plan is agreed upon – which suggests actual material changes to the Tour product are still a couple of years away.
That process will be akin to threading a needle while walking on hot coals. Consider just one dilemma: the chairman of PGA Tour Enterprises is Joe Gorder, who’s also the board chair (and former CEO) of Valero Energy, which has for 24 years sponsored the Texas Open, an event not guaranteed to survive the anticipated schedule cuts. And that’s before Rolapp addresses factions that, if not exactly competing, aren’t entirely aligned even as they pay lip service to the shared goal of a better business.
Like his membership, long accustomed to a benevolent organization devoted to providing them work, but who now face significant reductions in opportunities, narrowing pathways to status, and less likelihood of keeping a job with middling performance. Or his investors, who’d like a return on their $1.5 billion infusion, even if they aren’t the typical burn-and-run private equity ghouls. And the loyal tournaments and sponsors who might find there’s no welcome for them or their money in the new order. Not to mention his media partners, who paid handsomely for a product that will no longer be the one delivered. And of course golf fans, by now weary of hearing how they should bide their time while the aforementioned cut the line to get theirs.
To put it crassly, Rolapp will need the persuasive powers of a lady of the night who finds herself trawling for clients in a gay bathhouse.
So how does he accomplish it? By coaxing the reluctant and facing down the refuseniks.
For example, positioning schedule and eligibility changes as being about rewarding excellence, implicitly daring players to make the opposing case that mediocrity is entitled to continued employment (socialism for me, but not for thee!). That demands decent field sizes and smarter criteria for filling them, not prioritizing a 62-year-old veteran like Vijay Singh over an up-and-coming teenager like Blades Brown. By schooling his investors that the Tour’s responsibilities extend beyond bottom-line profit to the broader golf ecosystem and to charities. By engineering off-ramp options for impacted events and sponsors for whom no place can be found at the top table, whether as part of an international swing, on the Korn Ferry or Champions circuits, or in a Fall scramble for status, a window that’s destined to have more relevance (and familiar names) thanks to the reduction in fully exempt cards.
But good luck convincing media partners to pay more for a shrinking product. A smaller Tour may turn out to be a better Tour in time, but the networks will likely start from a position that the price tag should be commensurately smaller too.
Crucially, Rolapp must be able to point fans toward what’s additive, otherwise they’ll focus on what is being deleted. The past couple of weeks provided a low-grade example of that fever with grumbling about the potential loss of the Hawaii swing. A compelling case can be made that the season should open with a ‘hello world’ roar and not the traditional laid-back aloha before sparse crowds in Maui. That case, among many others, falls to Rolapp to present.
Golf viewers are creatures of habit and find comfort in familiarity – in venues, in tournaments, in players, in the cadence of those dependable three-hour blocks of broadcast action every weekend afternoon. If you’re going to mess with any or all of that, you’d best be able to explain why. Even an improved PGA Tour loses if there’s a widespread assumption that the changes were driven by spreadsheet jockeys seeking efficiencies. Fans can accept that some things they hold dear need to go, but Rolapp can’t have them thinking it’s because Arthur Blank or John Henry need to make rent.
By the time he’s knee-deep in those wars, the Tour’s CEO might wish the task was as easy as finding a welcome for Team Reed.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Brian Rolapp scored early win with Brooks Koepka’s return to PGA Tour
