Countless column inches and digital bytes have been dedicated to breaking down the eight episode, fly-on-the-wall peek behind the PGA Tour curtain and, LIV Golf aside, it might be the biggest story in golf in 2023.

But more than whether golfers liked or didn’t like all or some of the series, its existence raises an important question for the industry to consider: What is the role of professional golf in the continued popularity and growth of the game?

Put simply, can or does professional golf – in and of itself – create golfers?

It’s an unanswerable question, of course, and they are always the best kind because they leave room to ponder.

There’s no question Drive To Survive, the F1 racing docuseries Full Swing is modelled on, has been hugely successful in growing the audience of that sport.

The numbers are staggering and it’s easy to see why both golf and tennis have tried to copy the formula.

But even if Full Swing managed to achieve the audience growth for professional golf that Drive to Survive has for F1, would that automatically flow on to increased participation?

It’s impossible to say but the answer seems to be ‘unlikely’.

(I am not suggesting growing participation was/is the goal of the show’s producers or even the PGA Tour but it is certainly the only important measure for the rest of the industry.)

"Even if Full Swing managed to achieve the audience growth for professional golf that Drive to Survive has for F1, would that automatically flow on to increased participation?" - Rod Morri.

The reality of golf watching (majors and Ryder Cup aside) is that it is done almost exclusively by people who also play the game.

There’s an element of ‘chicken and egg’ to this argument but almost everyone I know who is a fan of professional golf became interested in it through playing the game themselves.

That’s not to say it can’t or doesn’t happen the other way around (case in point Nick Faldo) but given that even watching golf requires some understanding of the complexities of the game to appreciate what’s on offer it seems a less likely way to capture the interest of the uninitiated.

To the non-golfer, many of the subtleties of the game are lost simply because they’ve not experienced them. As an example, consider the simplest of all shots, the three foot putt.

For someone who has never played, all three foot putts look pretty much the same. But every golfer in the world knows a downhill, left to right sliding three footer is a source of evil and torment unlike anything else in the game.

So when a player on TV faces said putt to win the US Open or a crucial point in the Solheim Cup, the golfers in the audience know it’s a vastly different scenario to a putt of the exact same length from the other side of the hole.

None of which is to suggest professional golf is unimportant or has no role to play in attracting people to the game or keeping them interested in it.

It’s more to question the direct correlation many make between Tour golf and the health of the recreational game.

All Tours are guilty of anointing themselves agents of ‘growing the game’ but in reality, for the most part, their existence has pretty limited impact.