Will Rolapp bring NFL culture to tour?

CEO hire gets good reviews, offers new opportunities; Stray Shots: U.S. Open re-Spauned

New CEO Brian Rolapp is a big departure from PGA Tour traditions as an outsider (PGA Tour)

The NFL and the PGA Tour are in entirely different orbits.

The NFL is an owner-run league with players contractually obligated to their teams run by owners.

The PGA Tour is a player-run tour, and the independent-contractor players have sometimes had more say than others.

The players in the NFL have a union, and the PGA Tour players do not.

I could go on and on, but the point is that Brian Rolapp — the newly announced CEO of PGA Tour Enterprises — comes to the job from the NFL, where things are done differently.

Which begs the question: How will Rolapp adapt?

Everyone who has met him — meaning the players — has nothing but positive things to say about him, which is understandable since they just hired him.

Hopefully, they got that right.

“I think he seems like a steal from the most successful sports organization in the world and someone who is on the path to becoming potentially commissioner over there, to coming over and taking the PGA Tour forward,” said Jordan Spieth, former PGA Tour Policy Board member, on Wednesday at the Travelers after meeting Rolapp. “I think he said all the right things. From other players to other people that are sponsors that have reached out to me since have all been super excited about that hire, and that we’re very lucky to have him.”

Spieth’s assessment seems on point. Spending over 20 years in the NFL and ending up as the number two man behind NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Rolapp would seemingly be prepared for anything.

In this case, anything could happen, whether its regarding PIF, LIV Golf, player discontent or pacifying the Strategic Sports Group, which has invested $1.5 billion and has committed more if needed.

The PGA Tour’s in-house lineage goes back to when Deane Beman succeeded Joe Dye in 1974. Since then, both subsequent commissioners were groomed inside Ponte Vedra Beach headquarters — Tim Finchem taking the helm in 1994 and Jay Monahan in 2017.

Rolapp comes in with a completely fresh set of eyes and without any previous preconceptions. He should bring more of an NFL-style culture to the PGA Tour, where he can.

What that will be is anyone’s guess. But what is clear from the short time listening to him and reading his comments, there will be a day when Rolapp will draw a line in the sand and make his feelings known and that is when the PGA Tour will move into a new era.

“I said this to the players, when you’re in the seat I’ve been in for a while, you get to look at a lot of different opportunities, and … unique ones don’t come up very often,” Rolapp said. “This one did, and it was a chance to really do something different and help grow a game and a sport that I love.”

Players are bought in so far.

“What do I hope to see? I think it’s exciting to have some new leadership,” said Scottie Scheffler. “I think Brian will bring some good energy. Literally the first time I heard him speak was yesterday, so I really don’t know much about him. I liked what I heard yesterday.

“I think our board and Jay and everybody put a lot of research into finding his successor, and to be able to get somebody from the NFL, especially somebody high up at the NFL, I think is pretty cool. The NFL is obviously a very successful organization. He’s got a lot of experience and some new thought processes he can bring to the tour, and I think it’s exciting.”

Said Rory McIlroy: “He certainly said all the right things and has an amazing background, two decades in the NFL, helping them expand internationally and basically become the behemoth that they have become. So for him to bring that experience to the PGA Tour I think will be amazing, and I think it’s great that Jay is there to help with the smooth transition also. Yeah, I think it’s a really positive thing for the tour.”

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Nobody seemed more surprised at the U.S. Open conclusion than winner J.J. Spaun (Chris Keane/USGA)

Stray Shots: U.S. Open re-Spauned

By Peter Kaufman

Reflections on the U.S. Open …

1. The Open that wasn’t, until it was: It took a while, but this turned into tremendous theater. And the TV coverage had its moments.

Has there ever been a better broadcast sequence than cutting back and forth several times from the ball to J.J. Spaun on the second hole on Sunday as Spaun watched in utter disbelief as his approach hit the pin and started its seemingly interminable journey backwards, coming to rest 53 yards from the flag?

Talk about bad breaks? Instead of a kick-in birdie, Spaun made bogey. In fact, he bogeyed five of his first six holes en route to a front-nine of 40. And that was all she wrote for Spaun, right?

That was the highlight (or low?) of a pretty soporific first half of Sunday.

2. I’ll be back … or not: While most of the lads were busy communing with the jungle on either side of the fairways during the front nine Sunday, competing to see who had the better machete, we kept expecting Scottie Scheffler to drop a 65 or 66 on the field and wait in the clubhouse to see how even or 1-under fared.

Alas, Scheffler had no “Terminator” magic to produce this day. He started the final round T11 and eight shots back at 4-over par. A three-pronged combo — Scheffler’s aura of ongoing invincibility, Oakmont having given up the first three days rounds of 65, 66 and 67; and the fact that of the men ahead of him, only 44-year-old Adam Scott had ever figured out how to win a major (and that was over 12 years ago) — made it feed like Scheffler was going to hang a low round on the field and wait for everyone to come back to him.