Is golf becoming the NFL? With Brian Rolapp’s NFL experience, the question is justifiably looming. Moreover, golf relies on the traditional American crowd and tends to lose its popularity when the more modern and flashy NFL season starts. Is that why Rolapp was rolled in? Could be. Yet, Eamon Lynch from Golfweek does have some caution to spare.

“The debate about optimal PGA Tour scheduling is myopically focused on another league—the NFL,” wrote Lynch in his weekly column. “That ignores two things: a core golf fan base that needs to be sustained with at least a partial menu and the fact that only the American market is distracted by football,” followed by “Rolapp’s last job involved catering to NFL fans. He shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking his current job asks the same.”

Golf is not just for the Americans. This criticism by Lynch is simple to follow. As the NFL season rolls in from September to October, the PGA Tour scales back its main events. After the TOUR Championship, we entered into the fall stretch of the event. That, let’s be honest, is not as religiously followed as the core FedEx Cup season. But Lynch argues that making space for another event does not make sense for a game like golf. And that too is due to a paranoid hypothesis of losing core viewership.

It’s partially because golf’s committed audience is not like football’s hyper-concentrated, jubilant crowd (barring the Ryder Cup circus). Golf depends on providing a year-round event for fans who follow it each week. They don’t vanish for half the year just because football kicks off. Hollowing out four months of the schedule just to avoid a domestic viewing conflict is, in Eamon Lynch’s view, a surrender rather than a strategy. Such warnings have ensued before as well.

The second point that he puts forth is a more damning one. A belief that “only the American market is distracted by football” is delusional. Golf’s ecosystem stretches through several continents. The PGA Tour’s second- and third-best players are from Europe. NFL, there is barely a blip, and that too is due to America’s heavy commercialization. This American-centric tunnel vision wastes the potential of actually elevating the Tour’s global outreach. This has always been the norm. Like the time when the PGA Tour came into existence in the 1930s, and the European Tour was formed almost 50 years later.

Talking about the European Tour, a lesson could be learned from them. At a time when the PGA Tour’s best players were resting, the DP World Tour players were competing all over the globe, from Dubai to India to, of course, Europe. This week, Rory McIlroy has flown into Australia for the Crown Australian Open. Now, who’s to say that only Americans would be tuning in for these events?

Coincidentally, though, McIlroy himself has advocated for an NFL-like schedule for the entirety of golf. But that’s mainly because of the condensed nature of the sport. Events are lined up week after week, with the Majors at times infused between them. In all honesty, the European talisman would prefer the Brian Rolapp administration any day over Jay Monahan‘s.

And there’s a reason for that. Brian Rolapp was brought into the picture to undo some of Monahan’s slip-ups. The opacity with which he dealt with the PIF-LIV Golf deal and his inability to actually merge the two ultimately led to his ouster. The ex-NFL executive, on the other hand, seems more focused on the PGA Tour rather than the Saudi-backed league. He’s adding more courses from South America, working towards relaxing the overflowing schedule, and has also roped in exemptions for the Masters for global winners.

Still, old habits take time to die, and that’s what Eamon Lynch warns him of.

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Why is Brian Rolapp’s and PGA Tour’s vision being narrowed, anyway?

As per Eamon Lynch, this is no coincidence. The rise of the Strategic Sports Group (SSG), or as he calls them, “the finance bros,” has influenced these decisions. These investors’ focus is on quarterly returns (they have invested around $1.5 B). Instead, they should be on the long-term health of golf’s competitive ecosystem. As a carpet rolls out, these pressures somehow dovetail with Rolapp’s ‘NFL conditioned instincts,’ believes the Golfweek analyst.

That’s why he wants a balance to be struck.

“A delicate balance needs to be struck between current priorities and longer-term opportunities,” wrote Lynch. “The decision shouldn’t fall to finance bros or football fanatics inclined to declare five months of the calendar off limits.”

Keeping in view the player’s health, spreading the events all over the year could be a solution. Designing the fall events as more challenging and important for everyone, rather than just the bubble players, could be another option. Just letting the events unfold on scenic courses will not rope in more viewers, unless players like Scottie Scheffler are playing. And then, of course, collaborating eloquently with the DPWT to mimic their schedule has always been on the table.