The PGA Tour has improved its quality. So here’s why it makes sense
There’s a bit of late golf in the brand new PGA Tour Players Championship movie, Sunday rushwhich reflects and embodies its brilliance.
The shot serves as an off-ramp from the last round’s failure and self-impression from its four mic’d-up characters. It’s a break from their collective downward slide; the pace of the show suddenly slows down to allow one of the longest continuous scenes to play out.
Akshay Bhatia’s golf ball lands on the hill twice across the par-3 13th green. It catches the right side of that hill, picks up the slope, picks up speed and zips toward the cup, skimming before landing on the tee.
Bhatia’s player Joe Greiner – who steals games from start to finish, in a good way – walks well ahead of his opponent, saying nothing but throwing both hands in the air, a moment of joy in the midst of slow-motion rollercoaster 72-hole stroke-play golf. Behind him, Bhatia is frolicking.
“What a weird shot, man. I mean how did I see it,” Bhatia said, running to grab his looper. “Like him – absolutely size there then.”
“For now, can you love golf again?” Greiner asked, floating. “Than this one second? After doing something like this?”
Bhatia brings them back to earth. “Uh, yes. I could have made it.”
In the context of who wins the PGA Tour’s major event of the 2026 season, this moment of greatness is meaningless. But for now it feels raw and real and honest, a real turning point in his round, which includes two more late birdies to help Bhatia secure a T13 finish. That’s a lucrative and impressive and admirable position — it’s not just the focus of an hour-long movie.
“>
That’s the genius of Playing Sunday, though. It seems to be its guiding principle to trust. Trust that the golf will be enough, the access will be enough, that with the right players and the right caddies and maybe a thousand of the greatest cameras in the world, you can make the T13 attractive, and the T42, and the T50, and the T56. That’s where four of our mic’d-up golfers finished – Bhatia, Rickie Fowler, Si Woo Kim and Chris Gotterup, respectively – but to watch them get there just two days later is the real thing.
(One point of objection before I go further: The title. All the signs that say “NO FILTER, MIC’D UP AT THE PLAYERS” sound like a trip that screams algorithm. Trust your best stuff! I understand that we all scream Great Algo in one way or another, but in this case…)
Small things are big. That’s mainly what I mean by trust. What makes this film work is the belief that at its core is something multifaceted and interesting. That the event was produced by NFL Films is somewhat ironic; did it take experts from other sports to help the Tour believe that golf is interesting enough on its own? Well they got there, damn it, which is exactly what golf fans have been asking for for years, since the inception of the NFL’s mic’d up segments or the Hard Knocks TV show. And now it’s here.
If I sound as shy as Bhatia, it’s because I like to see how this all works. Hi, I started the program just so I could ask these guys how it all works. But this is much better because they are not interviewed, they just are to be. And that’s how we get the little moments of micro tension. Bhatia’s wife has her sandwich somewhere in the crowd – will Greiner be able to follow her? Kim is looking to fix the ball mark on the border between the green and the rim; are you allowed to do so? There’s a restraint to everything, a minimalism, a sense that you’re watching these guys as they are, which makes doing so very satisfying.
“Real” alone, is no guarantee of success. Who and how is very important, too. Protagonists are an important starting point; the Bhatia-Fowler-Kim-Gotterup ensemble is a great combination of youth and energy.
Caddies are important connective tissue, too; Greiner and Ricky Romano (Fowler’s caddy) and Manny Villegas (Kim’s) and Brady Stockton (Gotterup’s) start the conversation, lighten the mood, help draw emotions and goals and precise golf shots from their respective players. I found the whole thing to be a wonderful reinforcement of how important a good caddy can be – there is no one way to be a good caddy, and each player’s needs are different, and even if the caddy is there to read the green, that person acts as an extension of your brain, there to help and challenge you; that is a powerful position.
There are elements of hope and luck in choosing the four players who will stand out in the field of 123. In some ways the producers were unlucky that their marquee players were absent from the upcoming debate on Sunday; you can imagine Ludwig Aberg’s drama being mic’d as he hits back-to-back water balls as he takes the lead in the final round, for example, or Cameron Young and Matthew Fitzpatrick play key roles as they play down.
But in other ways they were lucky, especially with their weekend pairings; we got secondhand access to the tournament’s biggest stars and defining moments.
For example, think of Kim. For the first two rounds he was paired with Aberg and World No. 4 Collin Morikawa, whose back injury WD was Thursday’s biggest story; we see everywhere playful, painful and uncomfortable.
“It’s weird. Like, I don’t know what to say,” Aberg said as Morikawa was carted off to officially announce that his round was just two overs. (“Live, man,” Aberg offers, which seems fine.)
Kim is also paired with Scottie Scheffler on Saturday; the two are regular sparring partners back home in Dallas, so this is a great opportunity to catch a glimpse of the World No. 1 away from the press conference setting.
“Are you friends?” asked Ted Scott of Scheffler’s caddy.
“He doesn’t accept it,” said Kim dejectedly.
Fowler is paired with Jordan Spieth, meaning he gets to go close as Spieth delivers a monologue about the qualities of a young driver as i perfect club to hit the 18th tee. This show doesn’t shy away from spin levels.
And then there’s the exposition of the show, as Bhatia realizes in real time that Brooks Koepka, the five-time major champion and reinstated PGA Tour peer, isn’t using the yardage book at all. He was eager to share that news with Greiner.
“Is there another player you know who does not carry a court book?”
Absolutely, Greiner said. JT Poston. But as he says it you can see that Bhatia is speaking literally, which leads to this.
Greiner: “Oh, he doesn’t even have a book.”
Bhatia: “He doesn’t even have one.”
Greiner: “I like it. That’s the way I think I can play better. [Pause.] That’s not the case be one.”
Bhatia: “I was like, ‘You don’t even carry a book?’ He goes, ‘Nah.’
Greiner: “Of course remarkable.”
And in the next scene Greiner circles around Koepka’s Ricky Eliott. Greiner is sincere and curious and remarkably engaged; he’s a fun person to talk to, so he’s a great player.
Greiner: “So he never had a yard letter?”
Elliott: “No. Never.”
Greiner: “So, what do you ask? And you just say yes?”
Elliott: “I say to him, ‘You look like a driver up there, don’t you?’ He goes, ‘Yeah.’”
That’s the beauty of watching golfers talk about golf and other golfers. We see in real time: there is more than one way to do it.
But it’s not all machismo and yardage books. There are moments of genuine vulnerability sprinkled in.
“God, I’m so bad. I’m the worst player in the world,” Kim said at one point. And golfers will recognize Chris Gotterup’s self-proclaimed style, which is approachable and endearing but borders on melancholy throughout.
“I’m just having a problem,” he tells Stockton, who is held even at one point. “Everything just feels right turned off. I’m trying to pull harder, it’s cutting. [Pause.] That’s right. Down and up.”
It’s that last four-word reset that makes him a pro.
So let’s do this every week, eh?
Probably not. None of this happened by accident, especially in this timeline; The release of the video on Tuesday at 9 pm ET means that it is just over 48 hours since the end of the tournament that it was published. There is an unimaginably large team involved in making things happen. I checked the closing credits and counted 265 words – two hundred sixty five! – involved in its production. The fact that so many people were involved and somehow no one overcame it is amazing and inspiring.
There’s a reason this sounds bigger than just a video. New PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp has been eager to push the envelope, to reshape the program, to make every tour event feel great. But if this video is any indication, it wants to do so by doubling down on golf and golfers. There is no promoter to be found, the action does not spill out of the ropes and they face the real outcome of the tournament only in the last few minutes.
They hope golf is enough. They take it for granted. They treat the surrounding information as a big deal, too. And because they do, we are more likely to do the same.
Dylan Dethier welcomes your comments at dylan_dethier@golf.com.
“>
