Friday, September 16, 2022

Late-Week Logorrhea

Appreciate your understanding when real life affects the blogging calendar.  But shall we see what we might have missed?

Pravda, Examined - As some of you might not know, I spent my formative years studying Russian and Russian literature, which imparted certain skills that have become increasingly important in recent years.  Most important of those was learning how to read Pravda to discern what might in reality be happening.

These skills are indispensable in reading the New York Times and other mainstays of the media establishment, a perfect example of which is on display now.  To  wit, the appearance of this article itself is far more interesting than anything it might actually say:

Wall Street Journal report details Jay Monahan’s use of PGA Tour-owned jet, criticizes other expenditures

A Wall Street Journal report has detailed Monahan’s use of a PGA Tour-owned jet for both personal
and business trips, citing flight records, a commercial jet-tracking service and various sources. As part of the report, the Tour told the Journal that Monahan, “is required by its Policy Board, which includes players, to use the corporate plane for all air travel—business and personal—because it provides the ‘necessary level of efficiency, privacy, and security.’”

Flight records largely showed the plane was used for business travel to airports near Tour events, but also showed trips to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, Missoula, Montana, Nantucket, Massachusetts, and Turks and Caicos.

I hear you objecting that this is the venerable Wall Street Journal,  that bastion of Darwinian capitalism.  Yes, but it's the news division of said WSJ, which is indistinguishable from Pravda or the WaPo.  If you don't believe me, just ask a member of the WSJ Editorial Board what they think of their own news division, and you'll see them quickly draw a rather bold line in the sand.

Geoff, a in a Quad post, had similar thoughts:

I don’t care to label solid investigative journalism a hit piece. But if you take in the Wall Street Journal’s analysis of PGA Tour executive spending in light of any number of potentially unflattering stories they could have investigated, this one felt, well, aggressive. As one WSJ story commenter noted, “I mean, using your non-profit's corporate jet to fly private to a wedding in Turks and Caicos is a bad look, but it still beats murdering dissident journalists.”

Solid investigative journalism?  Oh yeah, a stenographer accepting a leak is just like groundbreaking journalism...

Of course, if it weren't unseemly, it wouldn't have been published, and Geoff has the deep dive into the information, and I'll make good on my logorrhea reference by excerpting it in full.  But Geoff's intro to his bullet points is its own spit-take:

Still, the details are terribly unflattering for the PGA Tour’s image and carbon footprint. Key revelations from Mark Maremont and Andrew Heaton’s reporting:

Let me see if I have this right.  The PGA Tour has exposed their excessive carbon footprint so naturally we'll default to the competitive league funded by, checking notes, the Saudis?   

Anyway, here's your PGA Tour, which we've been reliably informed is all about the charity:

  • The Tour owns its Citation X through a for-profit subsidiary. WSJ: “The Tour’s private jet use, however, can’t be gleaned from the annual tax filings required of all nonprofits. Those filings require a nonprofit to provide a narrative description of certain benefits offered to top officials, including private-jet travel, which the Internal Revenue Service calls part of ‘charter’ travel.
  • Curiously, the story only focuses on the one jet and no other private air travel by the PGA Tour 
  • The Tour told the WSJ that Monahan is required by the Policy Board to use the corporate plane for all air travel—business and personal—because it provides the “necessary level of efficiency, privacy, and security.” Translation: Jay could get stuck in first class next to plebians who might ask if Tiger is a nice guy. 
  • Monahan used the Tour jet for 17 trips since early 2017 to Steamboat Springs where a property is registered in his wife’s name. Other personal trips include multiple visits to Montana; Nantucket, St. Lucia and Turks and Caicos. 
  • Flight records show a June trip to Turks and Caicos for the Brooks Koepka royal wedding. “A few weeks later, in the middle of the Monahan news conference at which he discussed the Tour’s financial efficiency, LIV announced Koepka as its newest recruit.” 
  • WSJ put the Global Home cost at $81 million for the Foster and Partners-designed headquarters, definitely up from the “on budget” $65 million previously reported by the Tour. It’s not clear in the story where that number came from or what it encompasses. 
  • Tim Finchem is still raking in SVP level money: “In addition to receiving almost $19 million the year after he retired, Finchem remained on the payroll—making at least $800,000 annually—until at least 2020, the filings show.” The Tour said his pay is for work as chair of the First Tee fundraising campaign. 
  • Air Monahan “flew back and forth between Tour headquarters in Florida and Augusta, Ga. four times during the week surrounding this year’s Masters.” After all, lodging can be tricky that week if you don’t reserve early enough! 
  • The Tour pegged the base compensation Monahan received in 2020 at $8.3 million, a year he claimed to have frozen his salary for a time. The final total compensation number hit $14.2 million “with the remaining sum either long-term incentive compensation he has yet to receive or an estimate of future retirement benefits accrued in 2020.” 

Oh, the inhumanity!  How is Nurse Ratched supposed to get by on a mere $800K per year?  

Does the Tour have this coming?  Oh yeah, just for that new HQ building, if nothing else... And wouldn't be poetic justice to see that manifestation of Jay's edifice complex vacant?   at least it is until we realize that the alternative are the Wahabis...

It's an extremely competitive category, you'll agree, but it's that fifth bullet that has me cleaning coffee off my desk.  Jay got himself bitch-slapped by Brooks Koepka, so we can only hope that had the last laugh in regifting an extra orange juicer or air fryer.  But I do hope he's realizing that buying these guys off seems easy at the time, but has he noticed that they don't stay bought?

But this guy is thinking along my lines:

To me this is more than merely vindictiveness, though there's no shame in relishing the schadenfreude. The Tour has been coddling these guys, actively protecting their reputations by refusing to release the details of any disciplinary actions.  The most obvious and oft-repeated example of this was allowing DJ to concoct a fictitious jet-ski accident to cover for a failed drug test.  That policy needs to change post haste, even if it requires disclosure of disciplinary actions against players that haven't jumped.

But the larger question is one that still puzzles me, why is the WSJ doing the bidding of the Saudis?  I'll remind you here that just as Joe Biden went to Saudi Arabia to plead for them to pump more oil, his Justice Department opened an antitrust investigation into the PGA Tour, taking time away from their day job of treating parents that show up at school board meetings as domestic terrorists.  Are they merely doing the bidding of the Democratic Party?  Occam's Razor might lead us to conclude that this is sufficient explanation, although your humble blogger feels we should continue to watch this space.

L'Affaire Sergio - Just a wee follow up on that great humanitarian, who had this to say about potential friction at the Euro Tour's flagship event at Wentworth

On Saturday at the LIV Golf Invitational Boston, 2017 Masters champion joined fellow European
Martin Kaymer in anticipating a degree of friction at the $8 million BMW PGA at Wentworth. That’s because 18 LIV Golfers are competing in the DP World Tour event in England due to a U.K. legal decision.

“I’m sure some guys will be tense about it [because] we’re going to go out there and play; what I’m going to do is support the European tour and that’s all I can do. Whoever doesn't like it, too bad for them,” Garcia told Golf Digest at The International outside Boston, after shooting a six-under-par 64 to sit at six under overall and six shots behind 36-hole leader Talor Gooch.

Yeah, that's a good one, especially in view of how it all played out.  I don't why I'm being critical, because that supported lasted for five holes on Thursday...

Jay Coffin does a good job of explaining why Sergio wants to support the Euro Tour:

The remaining members of LIV Golf remained in similar positions or slightly dropped, including Graeme McDowell, who remained at 406th with a 50th-place tie. Sergio Garcia withdrew and dropped three spots from 74th to 77th. 

Might there be consequences for the Spaniard?

Now, that decision could be cause for punishment levied against the former Masters champ. According to a report from ESPN, the DP World Tour is considering disciplinary action against Garcia for failing to provide a reason for his withdrawal from the event.

According to the DP World Tour handbook, players are forbidden from withdrawing from events with the exception of “emergency reasons or medical circumstances deemed reasonable by the tournament director.” The tour, according to the report, has not received any reasoning for Garcia’s WD.

Garcia has 21 days from the time of his withdrawal to provide written proof of medical circumstances causing the WD. Should the tour find him in violation of its rules, Garcia would face a fine in line with its general regulations.

Of course, Garcia has already been the subject of disciplinary action from the DP World Tour this year. Earlier this summer, the tour fined Garcia and 15 other golfers £100,000, or around $125,000, for their decision to join LIV Golf. The tour also suspended the group from the Scottish Open, an event it co-sanctions with the PGA Tour.

Does anything scream "feckless" more than fining the guys after they cashed a huge LIV check?  If you're not willing to suspend them, then you're a lost cause....

But now, stories and memes collide.  Because earlier this week rumors about Jon Rahm broke, which he aggressively shot down: 

Heh!  The PIP bit is pretty good...

But here's why this might be interesting, because the of the spot Sergio took in the Wentworth field:

Garcia’s WD came at a time of increased tensions between LIV and PGA Tour players, who competed in the same field at a non-major for the first time at the BMW PGA. When, on Saturday, Garcia was spotted on the sidelines of the Texas-Alabama football game, his decision to leave the event grew even more contentious. Sky Sports’ Jamie Weir reported that Jon Rahm was particularly upset by Garcia’s decision, “as his good friend Alfredo García-Heredia was first reserve.” In other words, Garcia’s flippant WD cost García-Heredia a spot in the field.

So Sergio will be increasingly popular in Spain, though that's not a place I suspect he visits any longer.

I'll just segue from here with this from Shane Lowry:

Shane Lowry believes the "disgusting" amounts of money on offer in golf could alienate fans and reckons he "never contemplated" joining LIV Golf as he feels it is bad for the game.

Lowry said he did not know until hours afterwards how much prize money he won for his victory in the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, where he held off Ryder Cup teammates Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm on Sunday.

And although he admits he was "well looked after" for signing a three-year deal to play the Saudi International, he insists he was never tempted to join the Saudi-funded breakaway headed by Australian Greg Norman.

"We are very lucky the corporate world loves golf and that's why we have such great sponsors and that's why we play for a lot of money, but I do feel like this is causing a division in the game and it's going to piss people off," Lowry told the No Laying Up podcast.

Ya think?

I think it's a bit more complicated than Shane lets on, as there's always been an obscene amount of money on offer.  It's perhaps more the guaranteed money, or even their sense of entitlement to it that's really at issue.  And, as always, Sergio is the spoiled brat taking his toys and going home.

A Hero For Our Time - Phil has gone quiet lately, a merciful gift indeed.  ESPN has published this interesting account of LIV's rules and regulations, and I'll not pretend that I've absorbed all that might interest my readers.  But this of course jumped out at me:

LIV Golf owns players' on-course media rights

The rules and regulations state that "television, radio, film, internet, statistical data and information, and other associated rights, as well as all other media rights, of all Players participating in events forming part of the Series or any other golf event run in conjunction with, or the under the auspices of, LIV Golf, are, in connection with all content that is created, captured, recorded or otherwise generated during or in conjunction with any such events, hereby granted and assigned to LIV Golf."

While players' media rights surrounding tournaments are "the property of and expressly reserved by and to LIV Golf," the regulations don't "restrict in any way a Player's right to sell, transfer, or hold, or exploit his individual media rights and, accordingly, the value of his name, image, and likeness."

Can you say "Obnoxious greed"?  I thought you could....

Six-time major champion Phil Mickelson, who was among the first players to defect to LIV Golf, said the PGA Tour's "obnoxious greed" regarding players' media rights was one of the reasons he was looking to play somewhere else.

"It's not public knowledge, all that goes on," Mickelson told Golf Digest in February. "But the players don't have access to their own media. If the tour wanted to end any threat [from Saudi or anywhere else], they could just hand back the media rights to the players. But they would rather throw $25 million here and $40 million there than give back the roughly $20 billion in digital assets they control. Or give up access to the $50-plus-million they make every year on their own media channel.

"There are many issues, but that is one of the biggest," he continued. "For me personally, it's not enough that they are sitting on hundreds of millions of digital moments. They also have access to my shots, access I do not have. They also charge companies to use shots I have hit. And when I did 'The Match' -- there have been five of them -- the tour forced me to pay them $1 million each time. For my own media rights. That type of greed is, to me, beyond obnoxious." While LIV players have more freedom to compete in other circuits, LIV Golf still controls the shots Mickelson was referring to in its tournaments.

How do we know Phil is lying?  Yeah, pretty much any time the lips are moving...

But then this broke in my Twitter feed?

Phil Mickelson says it's no longer "necessary" to be attached to an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour but is yet to decide whether he'll stick with it or remove his name.

Speaking to reporters at Rich Harvest Farms ahead of this weekend's LIV Golf Invitational Chicago, Mickelson expressed his confidence in the suit now that the LIV Golf entity has joined its players in it.

"Now that LIV is involved, it's not necessary for me to be involved," Mickelson said. "I currently still am. I don't know what I'm going to do, really.

"The only reason for me to stay in is (monetary) damages, which I don't really want or need anything. I do think it's immattportant that the players have the right to play when and where they want, when and where they qualify for.

Yes, and what happens when the Saudis get tired of this but you've burned the PGA Tour infrastructure to the ground?   Doesn't matter because Phil's checked cleared.  But at least he's not hiding behind the wonder of shotgun starts...

If A Tree Falls in the Forest... - It's a bidding war:

In an interview with ESPN 1000 Chicago on Wednesday ahead of the fourth LIV Golf Invitational Series event in Chicago, LIV commissioner and CEO Greg Norman said that conversations over the Saudi-backed league’s television rights have turned into something of a bidding war.

“Well, yeah, I can’t comment on that quite honestly,” Norman said. “All I can tell you is that the interest coming across our plate right now is enormous.”

“We’re talking to four different networks — and live conversations where offers are being put on the table,” Norman said. “Because [the networks] can see the value of our product, they can see what we’re delivering.”

You're delivering Talor Gooch, so I totally get it.... But...

Well, Greg Norman says a lot of things.... including telling thee guys that Jay couldn't suspend them.  So, we'll see, though we kinda know that he BSing, because we know how boring golf broadcasts are and how dreadful the ratings will be.

 Shall we exit on something a bit more fun, or at least interesting?

First, who doesn't live a Seinfeld reference?

Though, to be fair to Padraig, it seems like he put his wallet on display for a good reason:

Padraig Harrington pays bar tab for more than 40 caddies at PGA Tour Champions event in South Dakota

 Caddies drink?  Who knew?

The Lido - We have our first reaction to the Keisers' recreation of the mythical Lido, which is quite the rave (though one howler needs to be ignored):

Built as a recreation of the famed Lido in New Jersey that was purchased and then demolished by the U.S. Navy during World War II, the new Lido is a stunning test of every aspect of a golfer’s game, especially the mind. It’s no exaggeration to call it the most strategic course – at the very least among a handful of contenders – in the United States.

The original Lido was designed by Golden Age architects C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor, with several individual holes designed by contestants in an architecture contest that included Alister MacKenzie. It was built along the shore on soil dredged from the sea floor, then shaped by teams with horse-drawn equipment. The new reproduction and its many template holes were meticulously laid into place by Tom Doak with a giant assist by Peter Flory, a Chicago-based banker (and Golfweek’s Best course-rater ambassador) who used old photography to generate a digital replica of the New Jersey original. Doak used those digital models to recreate the old layout as closely as possible.

Wow, something amazing just happened.  I grabbed that excerpt and then only to find the Golfweek page unresponsive, after which that paragraph looks like this:

Built as a recreation of the famed Lido on Long Island in New York that was purchased and then demolished by the U.S. Navy during World War II, the new Lido is a stunning test of every aspect of a golfer’s game, especially the mind. It’s no exaggeration to call it the most strategic course – at the very least among a handful of contenders – in the United States.

See what they did there?  CTRL:F - Jersey initially yielded four results, but obviously someone realized how foolish they were making themselves look, and the correction came just as your humble blogger was pouncing.

But the real appeal of the piece are the photos, first of the 18th hole:


The 18th at the Lido has its own interesting background, as hinted at here:

The original Lido was designed by Golden Age architects C.B. Macdonald and Seth Raynor, with several individual holes designed by contestants in an architecture contest that included Alister MacKenzie. It was built along the shore on soil dredged from the sea floor, then shaped by teams with horse-drawn equipment. The new reproduction and its many template holes were meticulously laid into place by Tom Doak with a giant assist by Peter Flory, a Chicago-based banker (and Golfweek’s Best course-rater ambassador) who used old photography to generate a digital replica of the New York original. Doak used those digital models to recreate the old layout as closely as possible.

Mackenzie, an unknown English doctor at the time, famously won the design contest held in an English magazine, although the resulting 18th hole wasn't completely faithful to his rendering.  But I had forgotten the involvement of another of my namesakes, so this thread at Golf Club Atlas is interesting to a certain kind of architectural geek.  I am unable to excerpt it in a manner that you'll be able to rea, but I'm mostly referring to that first question and response from Tom Doak.

I haven't read the piece in its entirety and need to get on with my day, so 'll just leave you with a few more pictures:


This is another of the 18th, in which Mackenzie had two fairway options for the player:


The dilemma this presents is 2023 vs. 2024?  On the one hand, the grow-in takes time, but I'm not so good at the waiting thing....

Have a great weekend and I'll see you on Monday.


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