The clash started when G-Mac, AKA Graeme McDowell, shared his thoughts on the new path for young golfers. Michael S. Kim did not wait a second before firing back.
“The PGA Tour is one of the purest meritocracies in sports and if you’re good enough, you’ll end up playing on tour. If you never made it… you just weren’t good enough,” Kim replied in a post where McDowell said LIV Golf now offers a real path for rising young stars.
Actually, McDowell argues that the Saudi-backed league provides a soft landing for college stars and wrote, “Hot take but LIV is a legitimate pathway for young potential superstars who can get paid to be mentored in their young careers by Tour greats and play a guaranteed schedule.” The former U.S. Open champion and Ryder Cup legend also said the road to the PGA Tour is increasingly perilous.
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McDowell has his points. Caleb Surratt, a 20-year-old phenom from the University of Tennessee, was the first Volunteer golfer to be named a First Team All-American and won the SEC Championship by six strokes. Under the traditional model, Surratt would have faced the uncertain path of Q-School or sponsor exemptions. Instead, he signed with Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII. And Surratt was not just signed; he was integrated into a team captained by Jon Rahm, a Masters champion.
And there are several examples like that, such as David Puig, another collegiate star (Arizona State), who joined LIV in 2022. His development has been overseen by Sergio Garcia (Fireballs GC) and Joaquin Niemann (Torque GC). But McDowell’s ‘guaranteed schedule’ has a trapdoor. Players finishing 49th or worse in the standings face relegation in LIV. So the job is not as safe as it seems.
That’s why Michael Kim agreed that the road to the top is hard. But he also believes that the struggle is what makes a golfer truly great and strong. And who can advocate this journey better than Kim himself? There was a phase in his career when he failed to make the cut on 19 out of 20 attempts.
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Remembering that phase of life, Kim shared George Harper Jr., “I remember thinking like if this year doesn’t work out then I have nothing to stand on. I have to go back to Q school. And that’s when you think like man do I really want to go through Q school or if not Q school mini tour, doing it again. Do I even play golf at that point? Like how long am I going to even try to try this? You know, if you don’t make cuts, you’re not making any money.”
He changed his coaches, his clubs, and even his caddies to find a fix. The golfer felt like he was throwing stuff against a wall with no luck. He even considered quitting the game forever because the losses were piling up so high. Thankfully, he kept swinging and finally found his way back to the winner’s circle. In 2025, Kim won his first DP World Tour title at the FedEx Open de France. He made a huge par putt on the final hole to win by one. This victory proved to him that his hard-earned meritocracy theory was actually correct.
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This same pride is why Kim cheered when Akshay Bhatia rejected a massive LIV offer. The young southpaw turned down millions from Phil Mickelson’s HyFlyers GC to stay on tour. Even though ‘Lefty’ was his mentor, Bhatia chose to chase majors and history instead. Kim praised this move as a victory for the competitive spirit of the sport and noted that it is very cool to see young guys say “no” to checks.
While meritocracy is pure, it is also becoming a very small and exclusive club in the PGA Tour.
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The golden gates are closing
New CEO Brian Rolapp is bringing an NFL-style efficiency to the weekly golf schedule. He wants to focus on the top stars to make the game more exciting. This means smaller fields and fewer jobs for the mediocore players on the tour.
The math of this new model is quite scary for the average professional golfer. The board decided to cut the number of full cards from 125 to 100. Access from the Korn Ferry Tour also dropped from 30 spots down to 20. They are also making the fields smaller in famous events like The Players Championship.
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And the reality hits harder than ever as several past champions like Matt Wallace, Matt Kuchar, Joel Dahmen, Brandt Snedeker, Adam Hadwin, and Zach Johnson lose their cards for the 2026 season.
Lucas Glover blasted these changes as a ‘money grab’ that hurts the soul of golf. The former U.S. Open winner thinks the tour is focusing too much on the bank and believes smaller fields protect premium golfers while shutting out the hungry young hopefuls. Glover is not even afraid to hold stars like Scottie Scheffler accountable for staying silent.
In the end, McDowell and Kim give us two honest options to weigh in. One offers a cushion and fast lessons under superstar covers; the other grinds players until they earn permanence.