Monday, July 4, 2022

Weekend Wrap - Truncated Edition

Just a wee little facsimile of a Monday morning post.  Nothing that puts too much strain on your humble blogger.

LIV v. PGA Tour, Round II - The Deere has always been a weak sister, with only Jordan Spieth going out of his way to visit the Quad Cities,.  I wonder how that 2015 bad call looks in the rear view mirror, though that's not of the utmost importance right now.

But lost in the shuffle is that the Deere was always going to be further hit by the co-sanctioning of this week's Scottish Open by the U.S. Tour.  Those willing to endure an additional week of Sottish weather (Shhh....don't tell them it's actually grand) are further disincentivized to head to backhoe country the prior week.

The Tour Confidential panel gets right to the nub of the matter:

1. The PGA Tour v. LIV battle took its much-anticipated turn this week, when the upstart circuit played on American soil for the first time, going head to head with the Tour. Let’s start with the broader picture: What was your takeaway on having two men’s tours
squaring off against each other? Could competition be good? Could it water down the product? Something else?

James Colgan: It did not help the PGA Tour to have the John Deere — annually one of the weakest events by field strength — up against LIV’s maiden voyage on U.S. soil. Now, I didn’t think the LIV event proved much of anything (other than it is perhaps a good idea for Talor Gooch to sit the next few pressers out). But I’m not sure it did the Tour’s “best players, tournaments and fields in the world” argument any good to stare down Bryson, DJ and Brooks with … J.T. Poston.

Sean Zak: How about three! The Irish Open was happening, too. Competition in this sense is just watered-down fields. The LIV field isn’t good. The PGA Tour’s field isn’t good. The DP World Tour’s field wasn’t good. The J.P. McManus pro-am would blow them all out of the water. The takeaway is that it’s OK to not have pro golf on every single week.

Josh Sens: Agreed, Sean. There’s not a market for that much golf, at least not one that justifies the money that many players would argue that they deserve. In terms of the two events that were happening in the States, my main takeaway was they underscored the extent to which fault lines in golf fandom appear to be solidifying, with two sides shouting insults back and forth. The parallels with our politics are as disheartening as they are plain.

J.T. Poston might have cemented his role as poster child for golf's civil war, as folks will have to choose whether they want to live in a world where such players win big-time events.  The LIV folks were crowing:

Greg Norman wanted to share some “interesting facts” with you. His tournament this week in
Portland, the LIV Golf CEO wrote on Twitter earlier this week, had 21 players from the world’s top 100. And 17 of the past 50 major winners. And 10 of the past 24 major winners. And the competition had less. It’s here where we’ll note that he probably didn’t scrape through the data on his field, the PGA Tour’s John Deere Classic field and the DP World Tour’s Irish Open himself, but you never know. Let’s continue.

Anyways, one of Norman’s newest employees summed it all up rather quickly.

“And how many major winners do you have here compared to John Deere?” Pat Perez said. “It’s not even close. The Tour wants to keep talking about strength of field and all that kind of stuff; the strength of field is here. So whether everybody wants to talk about it or not, that’s what it is.

“Facts are facts.”

"Field Strength less awful than Quad Cities" seems the perfect rallying cry for the age, and Nick Piastowski offers this rebuttal via a friend's text:

“A big reason I like to watch these guys play the John Deere this week is because a win for them is career-changing! Two-year exemption, huge amount of cash, get in Masters, etc.

“To watch a guy have to hold (or take) the lead in final round is lots of drama.”

I texted back that he had formed quite the take. Really, the John Deere?

“It’s true! To make a birdie or par on 18 or whatever to win is HUGE. Difference between exhibition and real competition.”

I actually strongly agree with Nick's buddy, heck I'm the guys that's been arguing that the Tour's Fall schedule was better when the big boys weren't invited, for exactly this reason, seeing young men fighting for their professional lives.

But one of the sub-texts is that the folks they're buying haven't done them any favors when in front of microphones.  This unscripted moment kind of says it all, no?

As I perused the driving range ahead of Thursday’s shotgun start, one particularly flushed 3-wood stopped me in my tracks.

“Yeah, that’ll work,” I muttered to one of 48 LIVers at Pumpkin Ridge this week.

“Yep, it will,” he replied. He then nudged another ball from the pile into hitting position and turned around again. “But, who the f--k cares if it doesn’t?”

He’s got a point. LIV Golf covers travel and accommodations for all 48 players, their caddies, agents and coaches. With no cut, you can shoot eight over par each round and still net $120,000 for the week. Andy Ogletree literally did that. Winning the tournament does no more for your World Ranking than finishing middle of the pack. (No points, and no points.) There is, of course, more money to be made for high finishes. But the “worst possible” scenario is not bad. There’s only upside.

Come to think of it, "I Got Paid!" is even a better slogan than the one above...

2. As for the actual play, Branden Grace won and cashed the biggest check of his life ($4 million), and the team of Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Talor Gooch and Pat Perez won the team portion of the event, with Perez winning around a cool million, despite shooting a Saturday 80. What do we make of all this? While there’s something to be said for playing for a boatload of cash, could the quality of play diminish if players are still taking home a huge sum, regardless of their finish?

If your field is only 48 players deep, you're not going for quality of play...

Colgan: I think there’s something to the team format, even if LIV’s current usage is wonky and inauthentic. Almost every other major professional sport thrives based on fans’ allegiances and rivalries with certain teams. Why wouldn’t it work in golf?

Pat Perez agrees.... 

Zak: Dustin Johnson said he’s more motivated to win LIV events than normal Tour events, given the purse size. Hmm! So perhaps it’s about the money? It always has been. But I’m still not buying what DJ is selling. I’ll bet he grinds harder at home this week before St. Andrews than he was for LIV Portland.

Sens: DJ cried after he won the Masters. I don’t doubt that the money motivates him, but playing for meaningful trophies clearly does, too. Whether guys like him get to continue doing both in the long run will be a huge factor in how this fight shakes out. As for whether guaranteed fat paydays hurt or help the quality of play, I dunno. The more important question is whether it makes things more interesting for fans. In my opinion, it does not.

I used to call the Match Play the upside-down tourney, because it peaked on Wednesday and became progressively less interesting as the week went on.  LIV ups the ante here, as their events peak with the pressers, as the guys are far more interesting when sullen and unresponsive than on the golf course.

3. Two events in, is LIV working?

For whom?  

Colgan: If your definition of success is ‘creating a legitimate rival to the PGA Tour’s product for players,” then yes, LIV has been a success through two events. There are actual events, paying big money and drawing legitimate pro players. If your definition of success is “creating a legitimate rival to the PGA Tour’s product for fans,” then no, it has not been a success. Through two events, there hasn’t been a single compelling reason to watch the product on the course.

Zak: LIV London was all about getting to the finish line. Getting an event completed. LIV Portland was about momentum, opening up the content wheel, and apparently Greg Norman becoming much more visible. Normalization is working to an extent. The biggest story of the week is that LIV is kicking off its 14-event season an entire year ahead of schedule. That means they know they’ll double their amount of contracted players in the next 6-8 months. That’s a huge piece of evidence that they think it’s working.

Sens: I’m with James in the first definition of ‘working,’ and it will continue to work in that way as long as the Saudis keep the spigot open.

Hard for this observer to think anyone saw it or cared very much, confirmed by this from Geoff:

At what point does the money become obnoxious to people? As Branden Grace was picking up $4 million for winning the Portland stop, the final round got just under 700,000 YouTube views, up from 408,645 for the London inaugural but about half of a good French bulldog meltdown (Walter Geoffrey or Griffin are pretty fine examples in the 1.4 million territory). Plus, given the number of Twitter bots now populating everyone’s LIV Tweets, the views could be just about anyone goosing the numbers. Either way, media and fans do not like bots. Or lavishly rewarding mediocrity.

 Yeah, nobody.

What a Stupid I Am! - There were two bizarre moments in Portland that deserve their own plaque in the Hall of Fame.  LIV has taken a quasi-interesting approach and presented their players to the press in threesomes, here including DJ, Branden Grace and Carlos Ortiz.  It's opening question that amuses:


PointsBet has a line on the probability that DJ knows the meaning of "conditional", making him a prohibitive underdog.

Then there's the above-referenced Talor Gooch, continuing what Geoff calls a torrid stretch of stupidity:

This was Geoff's pont:

Talor Gooch continued his torrid stretch of stupidity by saying he can’t imagine much difference between LIV’s event atmosphere and a Ryder or Presidents Cup. Barring a major change in policy, he’ll have to keep imagining.

Ummm, isn't policy the least of it, Geoff.  This guy has never played well enough to even be fitted for the team kits, so we all understand why he cashed the check.

Lastly, it's been some time since we've seen Sergio self-identify.  Feels like months since he's spit in a cup or defaced a green... Remind me again, where wa sit that he damaged those greens?  That's right, it was in...wait for it...Saudi Arabia.

As you likely know, the Euro Tour penalized their defectors, though to this observer it seemed that it wasn't much more than a short time out.  One mystery to this observer is why folks cashing huge checks don't look happier, though admittedly this guys is pretty much never happy:

“The news [of the ban] came out during last week's BMW International [in Munich]," a leading player, who wished to remain anonymous, told Telegraph Sport. "Sergio flew off the handle, shouting 'this Tour is s***, you're all fucked, should have taken the Saudi money'. Bob MacIntyre was there and was disgusted."

MacIntyre and his management company declined to comment when approached by Telegraph Sport - as did Garcia's representative - but later in that tournament the Scottish golfer posted a tweet. “Amazing how fast you can lose respect for someone that you’ve looked up to all your life,” MacIntyre, 25, wrote.

The ugly incident has been the talk of the range at the Irish Open, that finishes at Mount Juliet in Co Kilkenny on Sunday. There was enough ill-feeling even before the “Sour 16”, as they are now being labelled, sent in their letter to Wentworth HQ, giving an ultimatum for the sanctions to be lifted, a demand to which the DP World Tour has steadfastly refused to cave in.

You stay classy, Sergio!  

I don't know Robert, seems you haven't really been paying attention.... He's been quite the dick for some time now.

One last amusing bit: 

Here's where not being on TV is a very good thing indeed...

We'll have more tomorrow, including an Alan Shipnuck deep dive into the $ side of LIV.  

Fun Stuff -  Just a bit of this, a bit of that, mostly Scottish-themed.  Four weeks from tomorrow we leave for Scotland, and Employee No. 2 found this website offering photos of Pittenweem, our home for two weeks:

To orient you, we are where the North Sea merges into the Firth of Forth, what they call the East Neuk of the Kingdom of Fife:

I had wanted to stay here in 2019, mostly because I like the name, but ended up in the next-door village of St. Monans.  We had rented in Pittenweem in 2020, but you'll recall how that movie ended....

More to come on this subject as we get closer to departure, but it seems forever since we've been there.

Our trip takes us first to the Highlands, where we'll be the guests of our dear friends Elsie and John, with whom long-term readers will be familiar.  Golf Digest has released their updated international course ratings, and it's strange to see heaven in third place:

3 [4] ROYAL DORNOCH G.C. (CHAMPIONSHIP)Scotland
Old Tom Morris (1892), George Duncan (1947), Donald Steel (1993), Tom Mackenzie (2013)
6,704 yards, par 70
Score: 8.553

Herbert Warren Wind called it the most natural course in the world. Tom Watson called it the most fun he'd had playing golf. Donald Ross called it his home, having been born in the village and learned the game on the links. Tucked in an arc of dunes along the North Sea shoreline, Dornoch's greens, some by Old Tom Morris, others by John Sutherland or 1920 Open champion George Duncan, sit mostly on plateaus and don't really favor bounce-and-run golf. That's the challenge: hitting those greens in a Dornoch wind.

We're hoping that, thanks to Elsie and John's considerable efforts, that we'll play there, though in this year of Revenge Tourism nothing is taken for granted.

As off-putting as events in Oregon were, this is a better look for these guys:

Wow, actually having fun on a golf course.  is that even allowed?  And, for what it's worth, there are few golf course that are mor efun than Lahinch, so good on him.

More tomorrow.  Happy 4th.

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