What Can Golf Take From NASCAR's Schedule Shakeup?

This AP story looks at the huge change in NASCAR’s 2021 move away from a schedule dominated by “cookie-cutter oval tracks” to a mixture. This includes six road course races and one dirt track race.

While professional golf sees a pretty solid variety of courses, a case could be made that the schedule’s almost complete reliance on 72 holes of stroke play is the NASCAR equivalent of cookie-cutter ovals.

From the story:

It is a true shakeup after a lack of imagination created the most predictable schedule in sports, one that favored new speedways — 1.5-mile ovals that not only all looked the same, but raced the same, too. Not since Indianapolis Motor Speedway was added in 1994 had a Cup race been awarded to a track that was not part of an ownership group for an active speedway.

NASCAR set aside all the old ways of doing business.

“We said back in 2019 ... 2021, you were going to see some really bold changes from NASCAR,” said Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR’s executive vice president. “We believe we’ve delivered on that. We are excited for our fans, it’s an historic schedule, the most changes since 1969.”

With obvious support of its TV partners at FOX and NBC, conservative NASCAR is shaking things up despite having stabilized ratings. It may simply be a result of upstart interests hoping to start new circuits emphasizing driving skill over technology. But even the most unimaginative executive on the planet has to know a weekly sameness does not make for great TV.

While the European Tour has been more experimental with formats in better times, the PGA Tour has struggled to find different formats that work or that simply rekindle a long-missed event (the male-female JC Penney mixed team, for instance).

In the face of a possible competitor(s) equivalent to those NASCAR is facing—the Premier Golf League’s 54-hole, shotgun start, team component—it would seem like there is no better time for golf tours to read the room and at the very least, watch NASCAR’s moves closely. Four rounds of Thursday to Sunday stroke play works for the big events, but so many others should be considering something less cookie-cutter.