Stephen Curry is playing a Web.com Tour golf event. Here’s why that might make some pros upset.

Earlier today, the PGA Tour announced that Stephen Curry will tee it up in the Ellie Mae Classic, a second-tier Web.com Tour event just outside the Bay Area in early August. It’s totally fine and normal for professional athletes and celebrities outside golf to take part in professional golf events — the Bob Hope Classic and Pebble Beach events heave been built on such for years.

But this is different. Rather than competing in some exhibition pro-am, Curry will actually be in the actual field. With professional golfers. He’s playing to actually playing to win as an actual member of the field, playing on sponsor’s exemption. Steph is a good player and big golf fan — he was a solid-to-good player as a junior and is now known to spend weekend mornings watching the European Tour. On a quick eval of his credentials, he was probably good enough to play in college somewhere.

But this is the Web.com Tour, the gateway to the PGA Tour, a place that can make or break lives.

Sponsors exemptions in pro tournaments are a thing golf people have, well, opinions on even for golf’s legitimate stars. We’re already debating whether Tiger Woods is worthy of entry to certain big events when his exemptions run out. Sure, much of that is golf’s holier-than-thou nature at times. But it’s a whole different type of situation when some dude’s coming to tee it up from some other sport for show. Any beef, whilst still possibly dumb, becomes much more legitimate.

Is it bad that Curry’s playing in a Web.com Tour even? I don’t know! Rather than let me tell you how to feel, choose your own adventure! To help you decide how mad you should be about Curry, not a pro golfer, playing in a pro golf event, here is Whether Steph Curry Playing in a Web.Com Tour Event is Good or Bad, As Explained by various levels of Glowing Brain Meme.

Steph’s gonna play a Web tour event! Cool!

Listen, golf needs fans and allies outside the traditional realms in which they exist. Golf’s demo is aging and turbo-white — and anything that can be done to change that should be welcomed! Curry is an uber-popular NBA MVP, current champion, and perhaps one of the most visible athletes on the planet currently — and he loves golf. He spent his weekend watching the danged Travelers! He’s friends with Jordan Spieth! He’s even admitted to having dreams of playing on the PGA Tour after basketball’s over!

This isn’t some guy who doesn’t understand what the Web Tour is — or what it means for the regular players. Steph is a true golf fan, and was probably good enough to play at college at some level. He gets it. This is good.

Curry being involved with second-tier tours is just fine, and this should draw some new eyeballs to the game. It’s cool he’s gonna give this a shot.

Hold on there, champ! Steph Curry’s a fine golfer — you don’t play at a 0.6 handicap index at your local club without being able to stripe it. But for context, at that rate he’s probably comparable at best to a replacement-level, low-major or lower-division men’s college player. Those guys don’t play professionally. They have office jobs. Or they write golf blogs. No, please, stop don’t look at me like that.

Even if he’s a scratch, there are thousands of players in America more deserving of a possibly life-changing Web.com tour exemption than Stephen Curry. Presumably the spot taken by Steph in the Ella Mae Classic field is one that could’ve been populated by some Monday qualifier living out of his car. That’s bad! Sure, sure — sponsors exemptions aren’t zero sum, and the chances of the one player left out of the field because of Steph winning this given week would be slim. But still, this is bad! Any time someone’s appropriating the means of putting food on the table of another to create a sideshow, well, yeah, people are gonna get mad.

Making it through Q-School to even the Web.com Tour is extremely, extremely hard. Take Lee McCoy for example. Thanks to the NCAA’s rules, the former Georgia star had to turn down $300,000 when he only had $350 after finishing in the top five as an amateur at last year’s Valspar Championship. Now, even after proving himself on the sport’s biggest stage, he’s toiling on the Mackenzie Tour in Canada — a step or two below the Web.com Tour’s offerings. He’d be someone that loses out from Steph’s inclusion in the field. His reaction is predictable — and understandable.

A heavy percentage of Golf Twitter, especially lower-level players, will be miffed about Steph’s inclusion in the field. It’s understandable.

Perhaps let’s be a little callous and blunt: Curry’s possible hackshow is worth more than a shot at a Lee McCoy win to Web.com Tour players as a whole, probably.

Consider most of lower tour’s events generally toil in almost complete anonymity, occasionally one peeking the head out into consciousness of golf nerds only when something really interesting happens. Even we don’t pay much attention. Perhaps we should, but that’s another topic for another time.

The fact that I’m writing about a Web.com Tour event on a random Wednesday in June is a deviation from normal. Standard media fare for the PGA Tour’s developmental events are the occasional late weekend window on the Golf Channel on tape delay. They’re hyper-regional events (Evansville! Wichita! Springfield! Knoxville!) and come with relatively low exposure. What does that mean for sponsors? Little return on investment outside the immediate market where the tournament exists.

But today, more people have googled ELLIE MAE CLASSIC probably than the last decade combined. This isn’t perfect logic, but increased exposure here and happier sponsors should lead to more tournaments, bigger purses, et cetera. Some economist will probably come up with some half-baked calculation on what Curry playing in this one event is worth for the Web.com Tour. That added interest coming in the form of dollars, in the long run, a net gain for most players.

Don’t ask me exactly how, but it will. I think. Something something opportunity cost, or whatever.

I’VE SEEN THE DATA. THE APPROXIMATE 3,000 VIEWERS THAT TOOK IN THE REX HOSPITAL OPEN TOOK A CHUNK OUT OF THE NBA FINALS’ NUMBERS. BIG BASKETBALL WON’T TELL YOU THEY’RE OUT TO STICK IT TO GOLF AND ENSURE THAT CAPTIVATING STARS LIKE BRYSON DECHAMBEAU DON’T USURP THE BRAND POWER OF LEBRON JAMES.