Midweek Musings - Saudi Greens Edition

 Well, not only are they pegging it as Saudi Greens, but Saudi green is the dominant subject of the week.

The Little Asian Tour Event That Could - We have quite the commentator cage match for you, leading with a man I've occasionally called the conscience of our game.  Though he seems a tad more crdelous than I think advisable, especially considering the source:

At Saudi International, Greg Norman advocates once again for a global game of traveling international stars

Just out of the goodness of his heart, I'm quite sure...  Though, what would you guess is the over-under for "Grow the game" references?

The subject, really, when you get right down to it, was Norman’s ambitions for a golf tour without borders, though he wasn’t saying that.

From his opening remarks, Norman sounded that theme. “My responsibility as the best player in the world was to grow the game of golf as much as I could possibly grow it,” he said early in the press conference, being held in advance of the Saudi International, a golf tournament featuring Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Xander Schauffele and other familiar names.

“And to do that, you had to be eyes wide open and ears wide open to see what was going on around the world,” said Norman, the CEO of a new company formed last year called LIV Golf Investments.

That explains way too much of his career... As just one example, his 18th hole bogey at Augusta in 1986 certainly provided an indelible memory for golf fans around the world, so perhaps I've misjudged the man.

The actual news conveyed was pretty minimal, including these steps:

The news of the news conference was that the Saudi-backed investment fund that funds LIV Golf is increasing its annual investment in a series of 10 Asian Tour events from $200 million to $300 million. Those events, called the International Series, will be played in Thailand, England, Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East, China, Singapore and Hong Kong, LIV Golf said in a press conference.

And that, Norman said, was just the start. “The International Series is not going to be geofenced,” Norman said.

Geofenced?  That's a new one to your humble blogger but, as per Alistair Tait, they have plans to set up shop in Keith Pelley's back yard:

Seems Saudi company Aramco is to stage an Asian Tour event in June at the Centurion Club, near St Albans, just north of London. Talk about close to home, it’s just 31 miles from Pelley’s office in Virginia Water to the Centurion Club. The Canadian should have that trip plugged into his car’s Satnav system: The Tour staged the 2017 and 2018 GolfSixes at Centurion.

Aramco appears set to run back-to-back men’s and women’s events at the course between St Albans and Hemel Hempstead. The $1 million Aramco Series London tournament on the Ladies European Tour is set for June 16-18, one of four Aramco sponsored tournaments on the LET along with Sotogrande, New York and Jeddah. The men’s tournament is pencilled into the week previous to the London date, clashing with the $1 million Scandinavian Mixed hosted by Henrik & Annika, a co-sanctioned event between the DP World Tour and LET.

That'll be deliciously awkward, though I might argue that this week's one-upmanship is the more damaging.  Because....

The strategic alliance between the PGA Tour and European Tour, along with the latter forming

recent partnerships with the Australasian and Sunshine Tours, was supposed to see off the Saudi threat. The Saudis obviously aren’t going away. That much is obvious this week with the appearance money being paid to the likes of defending champion Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Xander Schauffele, Tony Finau, Patrick Reed, Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood, Shane Lowry, Paul Casey, Tyrrell Hatton, Kevin Na, Tommy Fleetwood, Bubba Watson, Henrik Stenson, Jason Dufner and others to play in Jeddah.

Human rights? Sports washing? The above obviously don’t care. They’re voting with their wallets, not their consciences.

To add insult to injury, this week’s Saudi International is up against the inaugural Ras al Khaimah Championship presented by Phoenix Capital on the DP World Tour. The $2 million event features Danny Willett, Bernd Wisberger, Padraig Harrington, Colin Montgomerie, Thomas Bjorn, Miguel Angel Jiménez, but it can’t compete with the star-studded $5 million Saudi International field, and its estimated of $20 million appearance fee fund.

 If my math is correct, they're being outspent $25 million to $2 million, so that'll get one's attention.

Back to Mikey Bams:

Norman, for years, has said that American golf fans do not have a real understanding of the vast appeal of the game’s most international stars, including Seve Ballesteros of Spain, Laura Davies of England and himself.

“Why do international players have to go to one location to increase their opportunity for success?” Norman said. “Why aren’t there multiple different places for the international player to be able to go to?

“And why isn’t the opportunity for maybe an American player to spread his wings and come and play on the International Series that is not geofenced and learn different cultures and different places and different corporations. … That’s part of growing up.”

A good question, but one with quite the simple answer.  No event has been able to maintain sufficient sponsors' commitments without U.S. television ratings.  

Anyone remember when they started taking WGSs overseas?  Anyone remember that riveting match-play from Royal Melbourne that nobody bother to go to?  Yeah, those international players all live in Jupiter as well...

Geoff has a long post at the Quad that's paywalled, though his header does have me instinctively nodding:

The More Greg Norman Talks The Better It Is For The Five Families

Then just when you think we've inevitably reached peak stupidity, comes this story:

Ian Poulter is being courted by the Super Golf League with the Saudi Arabians looking to sign up a quorum of big names for their breakaway circuit as soon as possible.

It is understood that Poulter has been offered between $20 million and $30m up front and like his good friend Henrik Stenson now has a decision to make. A life-changing sum of money or the Ryder Cup?

It is a question that would obviously weigh heavily on the deliberations of one of Europe’s greatest and most passionate team players.

The Englishman has expressed his desire to appear one more time in the blue and gold and has been considered a shoo-in as a future captain, perhaps for New York in 2025.

Geez, both putative captains for Bethpage are seemingly prepared to sell their birthrights for thirty pieces of silver....  A game for gentlemen, indeed!  And we again are faced with this seeming focus on has-beens (really, in the case of Poults, never-weres), added to Phil, Stenson and others.  Is this because those are the only names Saudis are familiar with, or is it that only at the end of ones' career would such an offer be entertained?

 This is the Sword of Damocles bit:

Yet he has been left in no doubt that should he take the Saudi dollar then he will face a lifetime ban from both the PGA and European Tours and, barring a u-turn in official policy, would be waving goodbye to the biennial dust-up which has essentially defined his career.

A family man, Poulter could well deem that sacrifice to be worth it for financial security. However, he will have seen the quandary Stenson is in and understood the difficulty of the choice.

Goeff has a muddle paragraph that touches on a fairly important point:

But we also know the sport is better off with a healthy professional game that gives back and inspires people. Yet in Norman’s LIV Golf world of trying to sell a new Saudi Arabia-backed golf entity, he’s rescuing touring pros from anti-competitive restrictions placed on them by stupid things like economic models. Free them with money from people who have no model other than to make you forget how awful they are, and voila, we have trickle down golf economics. At least in Norman’s world. Some of the time.

We blog golf ratings from time-to-time, and Geoff just happens to have another such item up right now:

It would have been a disaster had someone tried to compete against the NFL’s AFC and NFC Championship games given this year’s massive numbers and the almost non-existent numbers for sports going against the football.

Showbuzzdaily has all the Nielsen numbers, starting with those eye-popping NFL numbers: 23.35/50.2 million for the NFC title game on Fox featuring the Rams victory over the 49ers, and a 23.62/47.8 million average for CBS’s broadcast of the Bengal’s win over the Chiefs.

The 2022 Farmers final round wrapping on Saturday drew a 1.71 Nielsen rating with a 2.67 million viewer average.

Friday’s third round on CBS drew a .95/1.4 million average viewership.

The Masters in April was credited with 9.45 million viewers for the final round, and that's a pretty hard cap for golf (just ask the bozos at the USGA).  You don't have to be Hayek to understand that these economics make no sense, though Mike Bamberger seems to believe that this is all about Greg Norman's vision....

Ewan Murray of The Guardian tries to sort through the implications of the coming Ryder Cup stand-off, though I found this bit interesting as well:

Two discussions with high-profile players at last week’s Dubai Desert Classic resonated. One was adamant that, as a businessman, he is fully entitled to exert maximum value for professional services and provide for his family accordingly. When I pointed out the public perception that sportsmen of his standing already have sufficient wealth, the response was that nobody would choose to downscale their way of life if there was an alternative. I actually admired his candour.

Player two stated a belief that Saudi’s staging of golf tournaments increases focus on the kingdom and, in turn, should force them to improve upon behaviour and policies. Simply shutting a country off, under this theory, serves no actual purpose. Nonetheless, this notion of a force for good is contradicted by the unwillingness of golfers so far to speak out on Saudi’s hitherto appalling human rights record when in this very domain. While afforded a captive audience, golfers instead shuffle uncomfortably and trot out the wholly unsatisfactory line that they are “not politicians”. They are also being paid to front up the “new” Saudi Arabia. Altruism this is not.

That last bit sounds exactly like LeBron James justifying his jihad against the Houston Rockets GM that had the temerity to express support for the people of Hong Kong.  This response from Jim Gerahty always seemed spot on:

We’re Not Exporting Our Values to China — We’re Importing Theirs

 Pretty much.

But Murray is worried about the Ryder Cup threats:

Logically, the Saudis have pursued deals with individuals at the latter stages of their careers for whom a guaranteed payday of tens of millions of dollars triggers the rubbing of hands. Younger golfers are also known to be interested. Should, for argument’s sake, Bryson DeChambeau, Phil Mickelson, Henrik Stenson, Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood be tempted by this promised land then their future involvement in the Ryder Cup either as captains or players becomes almost impossible to square. The debate in this case would be a furious one; is it fair for players to effectively turn their backs on an event that has done so much for their profile, or would administrators on either side of the Atlantic be wrong to ostracise them? Even in the short-term, if Europe cannot or will not appoint Stenson as the captain for 2023 in Rome because of Saudi links then their Ryder Cup environment is undermined. And that, whatever the rights and wrongs, is a key issue.

And, it seems, at a time when they're least resilient.   Top tier Euro players have always been required to exert a significant effort to maintain Tour status, but what is the message to young talent if Stenson and Poults are banished for cashing a Saudi check?  

Mutual Assured Destruction is the term that pops into mind, but I can't imagine that Keith Pelley sleeps comfortably these days.

Lydia In Full - I dissed Lydia in not blogging her Sunday win.  Dylan Dethier had some thoughts in his Monday Finish column, so let's allow him to cover my laziness:

Lydia Ko’s latest chapter

It remains hard to fathom, but Lydia Ko — winner of this week’s Gainbridge LPGA — is still just 24. That’s difficult to comprehend because she became world No. 1 at just 17, which means

she has already played a lengthy professional career, but it’s also hard because that career has had so many chapters. Early success. Then some struggles. Caddie changes, coaching changes, team changes. And now, with 17 wins under her belt, Ko has validated her comeback tour and cemented herself among the top pros in the world. Since the beginning of 2021, Ko has made 24 starts, missing just one cut while logging 16 top-10s, nine top-threes and three victories. She’s solidly at No. 3 in the world behind the dueling duo of Jin Young Ko (back at No. 1 after this week) and Nelly Korda.

This bit was cute as well:

On Sunday, Ko held off Danielle Kang with a clutch up-and-down from a greenside bunker at No. 18. Post-round she reminded everyone that you can’t try to be a past version of yourself; neither life nor golf works that way. And she summed up her feelings succinctly:

“Three words: Excited, cocktail, sleep,” she said. “I’m a little — I could do with sleep right now, thank you. I had a cocktail. That’s why I said cocktail. I feel like my cheeks are getting red, too.”

Well earned.

Hard to imagine Lydia with an adult beverage, mostly because some of us have frozen her in our minds as a teenager.

I'm a bit surprised to find her at No. 3, because I don't really think she's the third best player in the world.  She can compete and rack up a bunch of top-tens, but I'm unclear on why Dylan thinks she's won three times since the start of 2021, whereas Wikipedia has her at two:

The bigger issue is that all of her wins since that 2016 ANA Chevron have been second or third tier events.  

If she's number three, there's quite the gap between Lydia and those top two, who were not in the field last weekend.

Pebble In Full - Will Jay show on the Monterrey Peninsula?  Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall in any conversations between Jay and those nice folks at AT&T?  Obviously some external factors are involved, but being a Tour sponsor has long seemed akin to being a battered spouse...  Regardless of the abuse, they seem to always go back...

So, remember last week when we poked fun at their announcement of the field?  Yeah, given that they were pumped up over Maverick McNealy, I was surprised in revisiting that post that they failed to cite this guy:

2022 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am odds: Will Zalatoris among betting favorites this week

You know what's coming:

Will Zalatoris withdraws from AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am after testing positive for COVID-19

As long as they don't lose any of their truly marquee players, yanno, someone like Ray Romano. 

There's also something very funny going on, which only Geoff seems to have noticed:

With Level 4 State Department status (“Do Not Travel”) you’d think going to Club de Golf de Panama might be low on the list of Korn Ferry Tour members. But every dollar counts when you’re trying to secure a PGA Tour card and money made at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am doesn’t mean a thing toward your season long effort so, not surprisingly, players are opting to take on the double whammy of crime and COVID over the Monterey Peninsula.

In that sense, this is a win for the KFT structure and speaks to the player determination to get their card. But passing up what was once a signature Tour event where the prominent and powerful gather is also quite surreal to see. Some good news: the worst crime areas cited by the Department of State are a decent distance from the KFT’s Panama Championship. They’ve got that going for them.

The AT&T has seen its field depleted by all the waivers granted to play the Saudi’s PIFSIPSIA stop on the Asian Tour. So with three courses and pro-am slots needing a pro, the opportunity exists to play Pebble Beach, Spyglass and MPCC like never before. Yet it appears the AT&T is headed toward a Charlie Beljan late-add at this pace. And some lucky big spender is guaranteed to get Grayson Murray for three rounds. Enjoy that!

A high finish on the main tour doesn't help in the Corn Fairy points race?  That seems wrong, no?  This bit of struggling to fill fields in Tour events is a new but repetitive phenomenon, no? 

Charlie, Where Have You Gone? - I find it hard not to like Charlie Rymer, who has penned a fun rant for the folks in Myrtle Beach.  He specifically calls out two aspects of Tour life, first the schedule:

But here’s the deal. I don’t cover the PGA TOUR anymore, so I can tell the truth and still keep

my job. I don’t have to sit in meetings where I’m told what I can and can’t say on broadcasts. By the way, most of it wasn’t a big deal and I didn’t have issues with it. But the fact that golf coverage now has zero editorial independence is a pretty big deal. For the fans, it makes the product more dull than it would be otherwise. And for the PGA TOUR, it allows them to control the messaging. And the argument is that it’s good for business. And maybe it is, up to a point.

I remember the days when the PGA TOUR began in Hawaii the first full week of every year. I was with ESPN and the Tournament of Champions was where the season started. We would interrupt programming to cover the opening shot at Kapalua and celebrate that golf has begun. Golfers were snowed in across most of the mainland and tuning in to see the PGA TOUR start its season on Maui at a balmy 82 degrees was an annual tradition.

It was special, and there was a sense that everyone was watching. Now, it’s just a mid-season event.

If you don’t know, this past year the 2021-2022 PGA TOUR season started in September, the week before the Ryder Cup. Yeah, that’s right. And I’m pretty sure ESPN didn’t interrupt programming to cover the first shot of opening day on the PGA TOUR live from Silverado in Napa (a very nice place, by the way).

So what’s the answer? Fall events on the PGA TOUR are very important … to the players. If I was still playing I’d bust my hump to get off to a great start. It can set up the whole season. But the numbers show that these events aren’t important at all to the fans. More folks watch mushy love stories on the Hallmark Channel or Emeril’s chicken air fryer commercials than fall events on the PGA TOUR.

So why force it? Let golf rest. Have the events and put them on pay-per-view or a streaming service for the friends, family, and hardcore fans who want to watch. Give the sponsors a break. Let announcers give real opinions like this that can lead to larger discussions, and maybe a creative solution will present itself. But in the meantime, the PGA TOUR (at least for me) starts in January in Hawaii.

I like the guy, but not because of his internal consistency... But the reason I like it is because he's correct on one point, that the wraparound scheduled has reduced the importance of and interest in the January portion of the schedule.  Just another set of sponsors screwed by Ponte Vedra Beach....

But his point about the events being important to the players is also worth noting, though perhaps he's forgetting how things used to be.  Back in the day, the so-called Fall Finish was not for the top level players, it was for that next tier to enhance their status.  I've long thought that a better model for fall golf, though that was before  Ian Poulter was worth $20 million large.  There is exactly zero chance that Jay Monahan would leave such a void for the bonecutters to exploit.

Charlie's second rant takes dead aim at the only party wasting more money than the Saudis:

FedEx. It’s a great company that has a wonderful relationship with the PGA TOUR. They obviously don’t have the relationship with the TOUR just because they think the executives are their friends. Hell, they might very well be great friends.

FedEx has the relationship with the PGA TOUR because it’s a good business decision for them. Somewhere in Memphis, a bean counter does all the fancy math counting up “impressions” and distributing the beans across silos and gives the deal a thumbs up. Because of that (and if you haven’t noticed), there’s a season-long bonus pool where PGA TOUR players get astronomical bonuses for their finish on the final list. They have this thing called the FedEx Cup Playoffs that end the season, and somebody gets $15 million and a really cool trophy. I’m pretty sure the winner doesn’t care about the trophy.

Players finishing all the way to 125 on the list get nice bonuses, too. Great for the players. Great for FedEx. Great for the PGA TOUR execs who put the deal together.

Problem is, the event has an awkward format that has evolved over the years and every few years has to get reinvented. When it was first announced by former commissioner Tim Finchem at a press conference in Atlanta, he indicated that the PGA TOUR has the deal and will now get to work figuring out the format. Fifteen years later, they’re still figuring.

The latest version involves a staggered start to the Playoffs’ final event, where the leader begins TOUR Championship Week at 10-under and the chasers start farther back based on their standing entering the finals. For the most part, it’s actually worked and has certainly produced drama.

But imagine the challenge if you’re in charge of selling the latest iteration to golf fans, and the manner in which you tell that story is dictated to you. For example, the race is based totally on FedEx Cup points. Most PGA TOUR events award the winner 500 FedEx Cup points. Bigger events get more points. Other points are awarded based on your finish in the event. Therefore, the better you play and the more events you win during the season, the more points you earn.

At the end of the year, you exchange those points for dollars. It’s sorta like playing Skee-Ball at the arcade. Win enough tickets and you go home with the giant stuffed heffalump.

Here’s the problem. FedEx Cup points mean nothing to golf fans. Dollars mean everything to golf fans. Dollars are relatable. What’s more dramatic: “This putt is worth 1.2 million dollars!!!” or “This putt is worth 219 FedEx Cup points”?

Let’s put this another way. I’m a big fan of Jersey Mike’s Subs. They make an awesome Italian sub. I have no idea how many subs I can buy with a single FedEx Cup point. I know exactly how many dollars I need to buy the #13 with chips and a drink.

Announcers want to cover the game in ways that are relatable to the fans. These days, in so many ways, that’s just not possible – and at some point, there will be a price to pay.

If you never hear from me again, you’ll know what happened. I hope there isn’t a dungeon under the new Global Home. But if there is, I’ll be playing cards and telling stories with Peter Kostis and Gary McCord.

I know, these excerpts are way too long.... But are you familiar with this famous Blaise Pascal thought:

“I’m sorry I wrote you such a long letter. I didn’t have time to write you a short one.”

Makes sense, eh?

My favorite part of Charlie's ramblers is that bit about the beancounter in Memphis.  I'm sure such an accounting does exist, but I'm equally sure it's nonsense and I always wonder why there isn't more push-back from shareholders.  For instance, I found this on FedEx's current ten-year deal with the Tour:

Although the financial terms of the agreement, which runs until 2027, were not released, the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper reports that FedEx will be paying US$650 million to the PGA Tour over the decade-long deal. In addition, the PGA Tour confirmed that FedEx will commit an annual donation of US$1 million to selected non-profit organisations.

Do we think the various benefits FedEx derives, including those "impressions", adds $650 million to FedEx's bottom line?  Well, give it some thought when you stop laughing.... I mean, if you stop laughing.

But, yeah, $650 million, and we can't even come up with a format that can be explained without eye rolls.  

I'll leave you to your busy lives, and we'll have more fun as the week progresses.