Thursday Themes

I wasn't fully committed to blogging this morning, so is it too much to ask that you grade me on the curve?

Patrick is back in the news, which always assures that the C-word will come into use.  I'm especially discouraged today because of the confluence of cheating scandals in all the major sports.  First chess:

A conspiracy theory about a player using vibrating anal beads to cheat has rocked the world of professional chess players for weeks — but the serious allegations are just as eyebrow-raising.

In a shock upset, 19-year-old Hans Niemann from the US defeated 31-year-old world champion Magnus Carlsen from Norway on Sept. 4 in the Sinquefield Cup, a $350,000 tournament in St. Louis. Carlsen withdrew from the tournament the following day — the first time he has ever dropped out of a competition — and tweeted a video of Portuguese soccer manager José Mourinho saying, “If I speak, I am in big trouble.”

I'm just hoping that no one has told Patrick....

As if that's not bad enough, we have this shocking news:

Irish dancing rocked by major allegations of competition fixing involving dance teachers and judges

 Employee No. 2 was unavailable for comment....

Now, perhaps you consider those fringe sports, or perhaps you're the kind of guy that doesn't want to consider vibrating anal beads with your morning croissant, but this one will rock you to the core:

It’s the biggest professional sports scandal you’ve never heard of.

Professional cornhole has been rocked by controversy after the top-ranked team was accused of using illegal bean bags at the 2022 American Cornhole League World Championships in August.

Dubbed “BagGate,” the now-infamous incident began when player Devon Harbaugh complained that rival opponents Mark Richards and Philip Lopez were using bags that were smaller than regulation during the finals, which were broadcasted live on ESPN from Rock Hill, South Carolina.

“I thought the bags were too thin,” Harbaugh told The Wall Street Journal — and he was right.

For a guy not inclined towards cynicism, I don't think I've been this disillusioned since I learned that Stacey Abrams isn't actually the governor of Georgia.  I haven't been able to confirm that Patrick is working on his cornhole toss, although cornhole draws substantially more viewers than LIV events.

Stay Tuned -This rumor has been making the rounds:

Speculation in Miami has linked Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Mito Pereira and Thomas Pieters with LIV. The loss of Cantlay and Schauffele would serve as a blow to the PGA Tour. Only a 72nd-hole disaster cost Pereira this year’s US PGA Championship. Pieters would ordinarily be in the mix for a place in Europe’s 2023 Ryder Cup team, a scenario that would be undermined by any switch to the Saudi Arabia-backed tour. LIV refuse to comment on individual discussions with players

Can you see now why I need that amusing bit above?  I mean, how would Jay withstand the loss of Mito?  There have been so many Mito rumors since February that to me it constitutes news that he hadn't turned yet...

It has seemed to me that either no one else significant goes, or that they all go.  And if these two cash the checks, Jay might well be reviewing architectural renderings to convert the Global Home into an assisted living facility.

I'll once again ask that depressing rhetorical question, how sure are we that we'll have a Ryder Cup this September?  That said, many of the recent rumors, can you say Rickie and Rahm, haven't panned out, at least not yet.

You're Gonna Need A Bigger Blog - So a while back we had this from Sergio:

Sergio Garcia says he has no regrets joining LIV Golf at the expense of the Ryder Cup

Now, you might assume that he did it for the money, but why the hate?  It turns out that he's just taking one for the team:

Sergio Garcia says he knew his decision to leave the PGA Tour and DP World Tour to join LIV Golf would likely impact his future in the Ryder Cup, where he had become a hero in 10

appearances. But with the tensions that have brewed between LIV golfers and players who have stayed on the traditional circuits, Europe’s all-time leading points scorer said Thursday he is comfortable stepping away from the team if it gives Europe a better chance of victory in Italy next September.

Garcia is no longer in a position to make the squad. The former Masters winner is set to lose his membership on the DP World Tour in 2023 after failing to play in enough events during the 2022 season. Without tour membership, he is ineligible to earn qualifying points or be one of captain Luke Donald’s six picks.

Finally, Sergio, we've found common ground.  You  have no regrets about squandering your reputation for thirty pieces of silver, and I have no regrets about you burying yourself on YouTube.

You'll not be surprised that this Gary Van Cynical item caught my eye:

Ranking Sergio Garcia’s Wild Tantrums, Epic Meltdowns and Controversial Moments

Let me put on a fresh pot of coffee, as we could be her for a while.  But while he professes his love for his former tour, this is actually a reminder of how he's treated them:

10. Garcia was a controversial participant in the 2022 BMW PGA Championship, as were 17 other LIV Golf players. Queen Elizabeth’s death postponed the second round so Garcia, who’d shot 76, withdrew without explanation and was next seen posing for photos at the Alabama-Texas football game across the ocean in Austin. Garcia thus wasted a spot that could’ve gone to first-alternate Alfredo Garcia-Heredia, a rising young player battling to keep his tour status and who is a close friend of Garcia’s favorite Ryder Cup partner, Jon Rahm. Too bad, Alfredo. Roll Tide …

I thought I was a bit of an expert on the Sergio oeuvre, but Gary has a couple I don't remember:

9. When his 7-iron shot came up short of the 3rd green in the 2012 U.S. Open at Olympic Club, Garcia swung the club in anger so hard at the ground that it chopped an ESPN tee-box microphone in half and, according to GolfCentralDaily, sent a blast measuring 225 decibels through the headphones of sound man Marty Bunkum, who was listening in the broadcast truck. Sergio bogeyed the hole. (“Speak up! My ears are still ringing! What’d you say C-3PO was doing with a pole?”)

8. After slipping on a tee shot at the 1999 World MatchPlay Championship at Wentworth, Garcia removed the offending shoe and angrily fired it against the tournament sponsor’s sign. His manager, Jose Marquina, dutifully retrieved it. Garcia then kicked the shoe, which just missed hitting the match referee in the face. Well, Sergio never was worth a damn on corner kicks …

To your humble blogger, one of the interesting subtexts to the LIV story is revisiting the extent to which both tours have covered for these a*****es, trying to convince us that they're great humanitarians.  They didn't fool me, but I suspect many folks are seeing these guys in a completely new light.

But the issue of the day is quite obvious, how do you decide which gest the gold among these two worthy entrants:

2. A writer for ESPN.com called it “gag-inducing” when Garcia spit into the cup at Doral’s 13th hole after missing a par putt during the 2007 CA Championship. Besides being disgusting and unhygienic, Garcia showed an utter lack of respect for his fellow pros the gallery, television viewers and golf. In a matter surely unrelated, Tiger Woods stretched his lead to four shots during that round en route to victory. Hereby dubbed The Clobber By The Slobber …

1. Garcia was disqualified from the 2019 Saudi International’s second round because of “serious misconduct” in which he intentionally damaged five greens with his clubs, badly scuffing five of them (marks equivalent to deer or camel tracks, a tournament official said) and taking a divot out of another. Just one day earlier, Garcia suffered a meltdown after a bad bunker shot, taking multiple manic swipes in the sand. Garcia, who’d received a large appearance fee to play, apologized for vandalizing the greens and said he accepted his disqualification. Yeah, as if you had a choice in the matter.

I think Gary misses the tip-in on both those.

In spitgate, the sine qua non of that disgusting act was his "nothing but net" excuse, to wit, his loogie was perfectly centered on the cup and therefore no other player risked contact with his bodily fluids.  No, seriously:

What, you thought I could make that up?

At the time of that Saudi incident, Sergio was whining about the quality of the greens.  Of course, you'll note that damaging them (and do take a moment to dwell on the fact that he did so to five greens, no heat of the moment reaction) rarely improves them.  But where is the one place Sergio will have to play having cashed that LIV check?  Yup, he'll have a chance to damage those greens on an annual basis, the best part being that no one will be watching.

Well, Bubba - This bit about the best players being underpaid has long rankled me, because of things like this Bubba disclosure:

Bubba Watson, like all players that made the move, received heavy criticism for taking money

from the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund when he left the PGA Tour behind for the Greg Norman-led LIV Golf Series.

The Telegraph reported the two-time Masters champion signed a $50-million contract with the upstart circuit.

Well, Watson has told ESPN that LIV isn’t the first golf league to offer him guaranteed money.

“It makes me laugh because on the PGA Tour, I got paid behind closed doors to show up at tournaments, many tournaments,” he said. “And if Bubba Watson’s not the best, that means the best were getting paid better than me and more than me. And so it’s guaranteed money. I miss the cut, I still make money. I make the cut, I make extra money.”

So I guess the issue is that they didn't pay you enough to miss the cut?  I think this is what he's talking about:

On Wednesday, ESPN reported it received a memo from the PGA Tour claiming it “prohibits the payment of appearance money to players as an inducement to play in a particular tournament.”

Later in the memo, the ESPN states that the Tour says it’s aware “certain tournament sponsors may contract with a player to perform a sponsor-related activity during tournament week for which they receive nominal compensation,” and that action is “permissible under our guidelines.”

The funny thing is that Bubba is very open about his faith, though he shows little interest in how Muslims view Christians (or, more specifically, how the Saudis treat their Christian minorities).  In fact, I'd love some enterprising reporter to ask if he's familiar with the concept of jizya. 

Day Of The... -  I promised you a Patrick item, but it might be getting just a tad personal:

Just over a month after Patrick Reed’s attorneys refiled a $750 million defamation lawsuit — adding Golf Channel’s Damon Hack, Shane Bacon, as well as Golfweek, columnist Eamon

Lynch and its parent company, Gannett — a new $250 million suit has been filed against a number of other prominent golf media members and organizations.

According to a release from Reed’s attorney, Larry Klayman, the new suit includes author Shane Ryan, Hachette, the New York Post and Fox Sports, as well as Associated Press golf writer Doug Ferguson and the organization for whom he works. Golfweek confirmed with the Middle District Court of Florida’s Jacksonville Division that the suit was filed this week.

Is it me, or has the rest of the world gone bat guano crazy?  As a public figure, you simply can't win a defamation suit, so I see no purpose herein.  

A while back we had the disclosure of a draft LIV contract, which had some surprising limitations on the players conduct:

The report continues by saying that players are asked not to give interviews related to an “event or league activity” without approval from LIV management. They also must help in the recruiting of other golfers to join LIV. The language in the contract specifies that players agree to “where requested, assist the League Operator in seeking to persuade players to enter into multiyear player participation agreements with the League Operator.”

The contract is structured so that players are defined as independent contractors, but it does state that the players must participate in all of LIV events, without the option to pick and choose an individual schedule. The contract also limited players' media rights, an interesting fact given that one of Mickelson’s chief complaints with the PGA Tour and one of the reasons he’d cited for considering joining LIV Golf was because of the tour’s restrictions on players’ media rights.

So, let me see if I have this right....  You're so worried about PR the guys need approval to speak to a reporter, but you have no problem with one of your players suing the entire golf media?  That's gonna garner all sorts of favorable ink, no?

But that's not the funny bit.... This statement from attorney Larry Klayman, who comes with enough baggage to fil the storage hold on the QEII) issued this statement that comes with a spit take warning:

“Mr. Reed, on behalf of himself, his family, and colleagues, simply will not take it anymore and he is fighting back in the courts to not just redeem his rightful reputation for honesty and superior golf achievements and successes, but also to protect his loved ones from the likes of Shane Ryan, Doug Ferguson and the rest of the jackals who make their sorry and pathetic living spreading lies and false information about him. These types of journalists, publishers and networks give the good ones a bad name, by publishing and broadcasting false information to the masses for their own financial gain to generate readers, viewership, clicks, and for no other reason than to use Mr. Reed callously and cruelly as a tool to make money, no matter how harmful it has been or will be to his career, his family, colleagues and his life.

“Let it be known that anyone who emulates Shane Ryan and the other defendants in these two lawsuits, in order to make a cheap profit and harm Mr. Reed, his family, and colleagues, will be held accountable under the letter of the law.”

I confess that the boldfacing is my own, but I simply can't stop laughing at the concept of PReed and Larry Klayman finding moral failings in others.... I can only assume that a similar lawsuit is in the works on Sergio's behalf.

More importantly, let's get discovery under way, shall we?  I really look forward to blogging the release of Patrick's PGA Tour disciplinary file, wherein we'll see who the real jackal may be.

That's it for today, kids.  Not bad, methinks, for a day on which I hadn't planned to blog....