The Masters arrives this week with plenty of lingering questions about the future of professional golf, which has been fractured for the past two years. The PGA Tour and LIV Golf are not merged, and there is no timetable for when the divide could be resolved. But as players have been getting ready for the first major championship of the year, Augusta National has proved to be a pivotal meeting place for key figures from both sides.

During a press conference Tuesday morning, defending Masters champion Jon Rahm (above, left) said he had hoped his move to LIV would expedite negotiations between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, but he admitted his influence is minimal. “Unfortunately, it’s not up to me,” he said. But later in the day Rahm spoke one-on-one with Rory McIlroy (above, right)—perhaps the Tour’s biggest supporter in the battle with LIV—for several minutes on the driving range. He also made nice with Tour members Tony Finau and Tom Kim before heading out to a practice round with European Ryder Cup teammate Nicolai Højgaard. 

Also seen chatting near the driving range was 2020 Masters champion Dustin Johnson, LIV’s first big catch in ’22, and the green-jacket-wearing Jimmy Dunne, the powerful Augusta National and PGA Tour policy board member who helped broker last summer’s controversial framework agreement with the PIF. What were Rahm, McIlroy, Johnson, Dunne, and others talking about? If only we knew. One thing we can be certain of: It would be a surprise if the PGA Tour and LIV Golf were not brought up in those conversations.

Playing Nice

Out on the course, Brooks Koepka and Adrian Meronk were among the LIV golfers to play practice rounds with PGA Tour players, in addition to Cam Smith, who hit the links with fellow Australians Jason Day, Adam Scott, and Min Woo Lee. But the sight of players repping LIV league and team logos at Augusta National (which also happened last year) is still hard for many fans to believe. As Smith and Day shared a laugh walking down the No. 10 fairway, several patrons could be heard joking about the Ripper GC branding on Smith’s bag.

New-Look Tiger Still a Main Draw

As five-time champion Tiger Woods looks to break a Masters record by making a 24th consecutive cut this week, he still has yet another green jacket on his mind. “If everything comes together, I think I can get one more,” he said.

Woods played nine-hole practice rounds Monday and Tuesday, unsurprisingly drawing the biggest crowds of anyone at Augusta National. But an unfamiliar style in his recently launched Sun Day Red brand was a strange sight to some fans. “It’s so weird seeing him without a Nike hat on,” one man said to his group of friends. “I think they really missed the mark on that logo,” another quipped about the brand’s flagship striped tiger drawing.

After a season-long, Caitlin Clark–fueled bonanza across women’s college basketball that redefined the sport, the WNBA literally has next—and is poised to cash in on multiple fronts.

Recalling the league’s original marketing slogan, the WNBA is now starting to see some of the initial benefits from the incoming influx of Clark (above, left), as well as other stars such as LSU’s Angel Reese (above, right). Among the latest data points:

• Even before Clark is a member of the Fever—she’s expected to be selected first by Indiana in the WNBA draft Monday—resale prices for the team’s home opener May 16 in some cases have surpassed $500 per ticket, before fees, and even is reaching $100 for upper-deck seats. Those ticket resale prices for the game in Indianapolis arrive on the heels of rising marketing by several other WNBA teams of Clark’s expected arrival as a visiting player to their towns.
• Fueled in part by that road-market promotion, resale ticket pricing is ballooning across the league to see Clark and the Fever.
• The two-time defending league champion Aces have moved a July 2 home game against the Fever from the 12,000-seat Michelob Ultra Arena at Mandalay Bay to the 20,000-seat T-Mobile Arena due to expected demand. Aces season tickets are already sold out in what is claimed to be a WNBA first.
• League commissioner Cathy Engelbert aims to double its media rights, in part because of the momentum of the incoming stars, and could break off from joint negotiations with the NBA in pursuit of that boost. 

The rising expectations follow what was already a breakthrough 2023 season for the league with big increases posted in attendance, television viewership, and digital media consumption during the regular season, and further audience growth in the playoffs. 

“When you’re given an opportunity, women’s sports just kind of thrives,” Clark said. “It just continues to get better and better and better. That’s never going to stop.”

For Clark’s last college game, a title game loss to undefeated South Carolina, there was a final exclamation point Tuesday as a record-setting television audience, originally pegged at an average of 18.7 million in fast national metrics, was revised upward in final figures to 18.9 million. The event was the most-watched college basketball game—men’s or women’s—in ESPN’s history.