Is Pro Golf Once Again Shooting Itself In The Foot This Week?

It's a huge weekend ahead, as we highlighted in our latest This Week In Golf article, with big tournaments everywhere you look.

But is there too much going on this week? And is it yet another example of golf shooting itself in the foot? I think so.

Let's start in America, where arguably the biggest tournament in the women's game is taking place. The iconic Riviera Country Club hosts its first ever US Women's Open for what is set to be a memorable and important week.

World No.1 Nelly Korda is favorite to finally lift the famous trophy, but it is set to be a highly competitive event with many of the world's best players in good form ahead of the LA showdown.

England's Lottie Woad and Charley Hull both have great chances to win their maiden Major titles, while Hannah Green and Hyojoo Kim have each tasted victory multiple times already this year. World No.2 Jeeno Thitikul also won recently, while the likes of Lydia Ko, Minjee Lee, Ruoning Yin and many more big names could also contend.

However, golf's frustrating scheduling - as I wrote about in last week's pro golf irritations Inside The Ropes article - once again rears its head.

That's because the US Women's Open is essentially competing for eyeballs against a PGA Tour Signature Event.

This week's Memorial Tournament is easily one of the circuit's top events, carrying a $20m purse and a stacked field featuring nine of the world's top 10.

It's a special week for Jack Nicklaus' tournament at Muirfield Village as it is its 50th playing, and World No.1 Scottie Scheffler is seeking to match Tiger Woods to win it for a third consecutive year.

Sure, this week's two big US events are on slightly different timezones with a three-hour difference but two huge tournaments taking place concurrently on different sides of the country ultimately mean media is spread between the two, while those covering the events remotely have to cover both as best as they can instead of going all-in on one single tournament.

Instead, the US Women's Open should have a week to itself like many of the men's Majors, so it can be the golf tournament of the week and garner the biggest attention.

This exact clash happened last year, while the 2025 KPMG Women's PGA Championship took place up against the $20m Travelers Championship, which featured a dramatic final round where Tommy Fleetwood looked set to win his first PGA Tour title before Keegan Bradley pipped him on the final hole.

It was the second most-watched final round of the Travelers Championship in 22 years, with CBS averaging over 3.5 million viewers and peaking at over 5.4 million. Those numbers were up 35% year-on-year.

That means two of the five women's Majors directly clashed with two of the biggest tournaments in the men's game last year. It's really not ideal.

There's a similar clash in Europe this week, with the DP World Tour's KLM Open going up against LIV Golf Andalucia.

The historic Dutch Open is weaker with LIV Golf taking place in the same continent, as the team circuit's event featuring multiple DPWT members, as well as the likes of Bryson DeChambeau and co., on an incredible course that had previously been on the old world circuit for years - before LIV poached it in 2023.

The two tournaments take place on the exact same time zone, and fans sitting in front of their TVs on Sunday afternoon will either have to get two screens out or choose one of the other.

Golf is not the biggest sport in the world and it only has a finite number of fans. The US Women's Open and Memorial Tournament are worthy of their own solo spots on the calendar, while European golf viewership is not big enough for LIV Golf Andalucia and the KLM Open to be taking place concurrently.

Clashes like this - and I stress that they happen constantly - mean that all tournaments lose, with one usually losing more than the other.

A particularly bad clash last year saw the Nedbank Golf Challenge, Hero World Challenge and Australian Open all take place in the same week. Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy and Viktor Hovland were all headlining different tournaments on different sides of the world.

The PGA Tour is trying to streamline its circuit and cut out the fat, and I think it is time for the entire game to do the same. There are far too many 72-hole, four-day tournaments taking place from Thursday-Sunday.

What about Monday-Wednesday? Golf fans have nothing to watch on those days and a final round on any of these afternoons or evenings could do very well. Can tournaments feature a 36-hole day to try and avoid Sunday final round clashes? Something surely needs to be done with scheduling in the sport.

There is a huge amount of sponsorship money and work going into these events to make them so great, but they need to reach their potential and the biggest audiences possible. Constantly clashing with other events does not allow for that.

Do you agree or think I'm being a bit dramatic? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.