Since switching over to Claude Harmon III as his new swing coach, Cam Smith is looking more and more like his old self. He finished T7 at the PGA Championship, was in contention for most of LIV Golf Korea, and now has looked great (T4) after 1 round at tough Valderrama! π₯πͺ
DJ's @4AcesGC_ are better than ever this year! Not only are they leading the season long team standings, but all 4 of them are individually in the Top 20 for the season!
Detry - 5th
AK - 6th
Pieters - 12th
DJ - 19th
What a rebound year it has been for the Aces!
#LIVGolf
Another great opinion shared by @JCAGOLFReport. One of my biggest complaints about this year has been the lack of pre and post round shows and I agree that @MattVincenziPGA would be the prefect host for those! Bring them back LIV! Those were awesome!
One of the biggest problems with the top 2 tours/leagues in pro golf is that they don't listen to their fans. They are set in their own ways and no matter what the fans, influencers, golf journalists, and independent golf journalists tell them, they continue to act in the same way.
One of the biggest failures of LIV Golf has been its comms, that's widely known. You would think that 5 years into it they would have figure it out. Nope, they haven't and they won't listen to anyone's suggestions. It has been a comedy of errors one after the other. There is a simple fix, they know it but for some reason they won't do it. If they can't fix that, then who's to say they will fix even bigger problems.
It's not complicated, a simple google search tells you why it's so important to know your audience/customers:
"Knowing your customer is crucial because it allows you to personalize experiences, build deep brand trust, and create products that directly solve their problems. Instead of wasting resources on broad, ineffective strategies, understanding your audience ensures smarter, highly targeted operations."
Take for example the case of Matt Vincenzi. He has been and continue to be underutilized by the comms dept. All LIV Golf fans want a pre and post show with Matt and other collaborators, everyone loves his picks of the week takes and no one in-house at LIV Golf (apart from players and teams) has more influence with fans in social media than him. But LIV for what appears to be "economic reasons" has chosen to leave him covering this week event (once again) from back home while other people at LIV that are a LOT less valuable, highly overpaid, and have absolutely no connection with their fans are flying to Spain's Costa del Sol to enjoy a week at Valderrama while acting like they are working and not producing anything of value to the fans or the league.
They are leaving back home their most fan influential member of their comms team for "economic reasons" because they couldn't find any way to cut $5-10K in any other tournament allocation expense for the week or didn't want leave someone less influential back home? Really!
Every week the LIV Golf comms team makes a mistake. Last week it was how they dealt with the cancelling of some of their APP functions. On top of that they released such a bad written press release/email to their subscribers that it was laughable. A recently comms graduate could have come out with something better. And that is a reflection of their leadership starting at the top of the comms/marketing teams.
Each tournament week LIV Golf finds a way to push farther away their own fans and lessen or take away from their own product, it's unbelievable! In the future there will be marketing or comms case studies about this, that's how badly this has been managed.
@ScottONeil@chrisheck76
LIV Golf Korea Final Thoughts:
1) In an event that featured much bigger and more energetic crowds than last year's tournament, Joaquin Niemann outlasted Talor Gooch in a playoff battle between 2 of LIV Golf's biggest success stories!
2)Joaco is now an 8 TIME CHAMPION on the LIV Golf League and it was great to see him back on top! Love seeing the enthusiasm from his wife as she ran onto the green to jump on him after the win, and then seeing Joaco's backflip after! No matter of LIV exists next season or not, the story of LIV will not be able to be told without talking about the great Joaquin Niemann. His 2nd shot on the playoff hole was pure class!
3)I somehow felt a little nostalgic seeing Gooch battling with Joaco. Talor is also such a massive part of LIV Golf history, and with the current state of the unknown of LIV's future it just felt right seeing these 2 guys at the top of the leaderboard!
4)Bryson Dechambeau gave it a great run on Sunday and came up just short individually, but he and his Crushers teammates came out on top for their record 10th LIV Golf team title! Australian Travis Smyth filled in for Paul Casey and was great and finished in the Top 10!
5)After back to back 70s to start the week, DJ fired 64-66 over the weekend to storm back to finish 4th! His game had been looking better and better lately and that's a good thing for golf and for LIV!
6)Cam Smith faded down the back 9 on Sunday, but he spent most of this event near the top of the leaderboard and his game is looking shockingly improved ever since his switch to Claude Harmon. Cam is one of my favorite golfers and the golf world is a better place with him in form!
7)I continue to admire the galvanizing spirit amongst the golfers ever since the announcement of the ending of the PIF funding. The vast majority of these guys love this league and absolutely love their teams. If LIV survives, I think the defiant spirit of these golfers will be the reason why. I think investors will notice this and will be impressed by it.
8) this was such a great and beautiful looking golf course and the crowds really showed up to support this year! I know the modern trend is to take trees out of golf courses, but I think that these courses like this one are just so much more beautiful! And the course really stood up to the test and was a worthy host! Korea is such a growing market for golf and it was awesome to see much bigger crowds this year! During the round, Rachel Drummond interviewed LPGA Hall of Famer Inbee Park, and Park mentioned that she had been to many tournaments in her life but that this LIV one was a great, special, and different atmosphere. There is a place for LIV Golf and I'm really hoping and optimistic that it will survive.
9)The realization that the Any Shot Anytime feature was removed from the app as part of the strategic new plan for financial viability was a hard blow for many LIV Golf fans. I personally didn't use that feature much, but plenty of my LIV Golf fan friends loved it. As is the case with many things in LIV history, the communication was not good from LIV about this one. I understand the need to scale back, but some of these changes are going to be tough pills to swallow. I just feel thankful that the awesome broadcast team that we have had for so many years, especially Arlo, Jerry, David, Su Ann, and Rachel, are still there and still giving us such a great broadcast.
10)I'm excited that LIV is heading to Spain for one of the greatest events of the year on one of the greatest golf courses in the world! I hope the Spanish fans show out this year and help make this one one of the great events like it should be on the tour!
#LIVGolf