Friday, February 3, 2023

Late-Week Lamentations

One last day on snow, then a return home tomorrow.  I do have a few things requiring my attention, so we'll keep things on the short side this morning.

Product Vs. Product - Thinks the PGA Tour schedule is a bot boring?  Perhaps week after week of mindless 72-hole stroke play events has cost you your will to live?  If that's the case, I'd suggest that you skip to the next item:

Rest in peace, World Golf Championships.

Golfweek has learned that this will be the final year of the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in Austin. Its spot in the 2024 schedule, which is typically in late March on the back end of the Florida Swing, is expected to be filled by the Cadence Bank Houston Open, unless it prefers a date in the late April/early May timeframe instead as part of a shuffling of events.

Interesting lede in that I don't know which fork in the road to take first.  The WGCs have been in hospice care for some time now, and no one will mourn the passing of these bloated, unsuccessful events.  Although, irony alert, rather than recognizing the good reasons for their demise, we are in the process of making the top tier of professional golf increasingly WGC-like (what's the difference between a WGC and a LIV event, except that the former at least qualifies players in through world rankings).  Good call, guys!

But the Match Play has always been different.  It make sense that it would be a WGC, given the necessarily limited field size, but it at least broke up the tedium of week-to-week stroke play.

Amusingly, those death notices come with an asterisk:

The demise of the WGC Match Play technically leaves the WGC-HSBC Champions as the last WGC standing but the tournament, which is contested in China, hasn’t been played since 2019 due to COVID-19. There’s no indication that the tournament will be able to be staged this year either, and the LPGA just canceled a tournament on Hainan Island in China that was scheduled for March due to “ongoing COVID-19 related matters.”

Goose, gander.  If LIV can scam the OWGR by acquiring a tour that hasn't held an event since the Carter administration, no reason that Jay can't declare the WGC's alive and well based on the HSBC. 

So, why is it dead in the water?  There seems to be some blame thrown at the club:

However, Golfweek reports that Austin C.C. asked for for more money to host the event, a move that did not go over well at tour headquarters. Multiple sources familiar with the situation confirmed to Golf Digest the request from the club for the price increase was made and has become a sticking point. Those sources also pointed to the continued overall flux in creating the 2024 schedule, which will include the tour’s new $20 million “designated” events created in response to the emergence of LIV Golf, as a reason for leaving Austin.

Problem solved: I understand that Dove Mountain would be happy to welcome the Tour back.... Yeah, we've suffered enough. 

But more than a little embarrassing to have one of your elevated designated events achieve walking dead status, no?  We all get why Honda has shown Jay their middle finger, but Michael Dell as well?

So, they'll replace it with something interesting, right?  But poor Jay, after blackmailing sponsors to pony up more cash to be elevated, it turns out that he just got the "Nice golf tour you have there, sure would be a shame if anything happened to it" from the owner of a certain group of cheaters:

One upshot of the tour’s decision to leave Austin C.C. is the potential change of dates for the revived Houston Open. Jim Crane, a businessman and owner of the Houston Astros who operates the tour stop, has been vocal in wanting his event moved from the fall, where it’s been played since 2019, to the spring. According to multiple sources familiar with the matter, Crane has expressed a possible partnership with LIV Golf should his wishes not be met. The open spot on the PGA Tour spring calender created by the move out of Austin could go to Houston. It is unclear if a spring move would in turn result in Houston becoming a “designated” event or a possible match-play host.

Geez, those Astros and Patrick Reed seem a perfect fit.  Perhaps we should let them jump into bed with LIV, Jay?

What seems most interesting is the attempt to blame this on Austin Country Club, whereas they seem as short of a sponsor as a venue:

Sources tell Golf Digest the tour remains hopeful that it will continue to hold a match-play tournament and is already in talks with numerous sites and sponsors, including existing tour spots.

As much as we want there to be a match play event, it's a bit of a tough sell (and the current date two weeks before the Masters wasn't ideal).  If I were a betting man, I'd guess that they will concoct some kind of match play event on the new fall schedule, so it won't inconvenience our precious elite players.

Jay has told us it's now product vs. product, but his own product is looking a little.... well, you can fill in the adjective you think most appropriate.

Update: Again a faux-update, because I hadn't published when I saw this buried at Golfweek:

This is the Tour's version of events:

It appears the club overplayed its hand and got greedy because ACC has grand plans like a brand new clubhouse, which won’t be cheap, and some in the PGA Tour hierarchy got ticked off with neither side willing to compromise and ACC unwilling to accept the PGA’s generous offer.

“They got a little greedy,” the source said of the club. “They thought the Tour was a never-ending checkbook. We offered a huge sum of money. Every party has been at fault. Egos on both sides.” … There is no alternative site in Austin because the PGA Tour considers both Barton Creek and The Hills as “operational nightmares.”

The dog that seemingly didn't bark is Dell.  You'd think if there were an impasse between the Tour and the venue, that the sponsor would have gotten the parties to the table.  Assuming, that is, that they actually wanted to continue to sponsor the event.

Maybe I'm reading things into it, but it seems to me that perhaps the Tour is taking pot shots at the venue to obscure the fact that another major sponsor is tired of being treated like crap.  

Can't We All Just Get Along? -  It's hard for these guys to all get along, when one of them has his hands in the others' pockets.  It's a bit tough to understand why more players don't react like this:

Ya think?  He just drank your milkshake, and everyone else seems fine with it.  OK, maybe not this guy:

I think this is what they call a slippery slope....

But this might be the most important bit:

That is because one of Reed's playing partners, England's Matt Wallace, has reportedly cast doubt
on how the American LIV Golf player marks his ball.

 Reed said that he marked his golf ball with a black line with an arrow. Reed told the official he was "100 per cent sure" he had spotted his ball.

But Wallace, 32, is said to have told a group of reporters in Dubai:

"He said to me he uses only Titleist [ProV1] 3s with a red dot and a black line and that is the last I am going to say on it."

Thank you, Ben, you've told us all we need to know (not that we didn't know it previously.

 Colgan had it as well:

Yes, except there was no discussion of the red dot and the number 3 with the rules official..... If that red dot is his distinctive marking, then he was require to identify that, which he quite obviously did not do.

I wouldn't play a $5 Nassau with him.  Would you?  This is what he does with cameras on him, can you imagine what he'd do without anyone watching?  Actually, you don't have to wonder, just ask any of his college teammates.

Two add-ons of limited relevance.  Not sure you've seen the newly slimmed-down Phil, but this did make me laugh:

I didn't see that one coming...

Geoff has a couple of interesting links.  Remember how folks seemed to be trying to sell MBS as a reformer who would bring the Kingdom into the 21st century?  There was the Norman guy who told us he had seen women in restaurants, and he wouldn't lie to us, would he?

Hmmm, but I was reliably informed that they're a normal country:

How has Saudi Arabia used the death penalty in 2022?

2022 was one of the bloodiest years on record in Saudi Arabia’s recent history. Our investigations show that at least 147 people were executed in Saudi Arabia in 2022. 81 people were killed in one single day, in the Kingdom’s largest mass execution in its history on 12 March.

The true number of how many people are facing the death penalty in Saudi Arabia is unknown because the authorities keep capital trials and death row shrouded in secrecy. That is why the findings of Reprieve’s report are vital in unveiling the truth about this bloody regime.

Saudi Arabia’s judicial system – the legal system and judgments made in a court of law – is known for being unjust. Legal decisions, especially around the death penalty, are taken behind closed doors, court documents are forbidden from being published, charges are changed, and court sessions are indefinitely postponed, to name a few examples. Reprieve investigations have found that fair trial violations and torture are endemic in death penalty cases, including the cases of child defendants.

Amusingly, I find myself in agreement with Phil, these are scary mofos.  

But perhaps this is the far more significant piece, if only because we should have known about the mass beheadings:


The kingdom is amassing stakes in the entertainment sector and power brokers are calculating that they can weather any negative PR.

Hmmmm, Hollywood is bleeding these days, so they're likely happy to cash checks from those scary mofos:

Saudi Arabia and its sovereign wealth fund have quietly — and in some cases, not so quietly —
built a multibillion-dollar foothold in Hollywood, four years after much of the industry cut ties with the country in response to the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

This time around, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, overseen by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, and other Saudi-affiliated firms appear to be betting that live entertainment, rich financial investments and sports can be the gateway to the American market.

They've got money to spread around for sure:

In January alone, the PIF-backed LIV Golf scored a critical U.S. broadcast TV agreement with The CW, while the government-owned Middle East broadcast giant MBC Group cut a deal with Vice Media to create Arabic-language content. Earlier, Saudi soccer team Al Nassr signed Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo for $200 million a year. And if the second edition of the Red Sea Film Festival, held in the coastal city of Jeddah in December, was anything to go by, the country’s time in the cold in terms of its relations with Hollywood has come to a close. Sharon Stone, Guy Ritchie, Spike Lee, Michelle Rodriguez, Henry Golding, Lucy Hale, Andrew Dominik and Scott Eastwood were among the attendees, while the opening red carpet welcomed enough stars to have impressed Cannes. Searchlight’s The Banshees of Inisherin and Empire of Light, Neon’s Triangle of Sadness and MGM’s Bones and All were among the films screening.

Sharon Stone?  With the Saudis?  Egads, does she know the punishment under Saudi law for that famous scene from Basic Instinct?

This is interesting stuff above and beyond our little game.  Though I'm struck by the fact that, despite spreading billions around Hollywood, that was sure one horrible TV deal they struck with the CW.  They're like the mark at a poker table....

That Other Scott Simpson - I'm not even going to pretend that this is all that interesting, it's just always funny to see one's name in print:

Boy, seems like just yesterday....

The funny thing to me is that Murray's act has gotten so tired, but apparently the players were ahead of us:

As Simpson tells it, Murray had played the previous year in the pro-am with journeyman pro John Adams. Simpson remembers watching on TV Murray’s antics with the gallery and thinking
they were hilarious, but when Adams was asked, ‘How is it playing with the fun-loving Murray’, he complained that he found it distracting and wasn’t able to concentrate on his game.

“He said, ‘It’s really not much fun,’ or something like that,” Simpson recalled. “I went to the putting green after and Peter Jacobsen, who played for years with actor Jack Lemmon, is there and I said to him, ‘Peter, can you imagine John Adams saying this isn’t fun? That’s the most fun you can have on the golf course, playing with Bill Murray.’ He goes, ‘Scott, you’ve got to play with him next year.’ My caddie was Jim Mackay, Bones – he caddied for me before Phil Mickelson. I taught him everything. He caddied for my buddy Larry Mize first – and Bones said, ‘You tell him you want to play with Murray next year.’

“Actually, when Bones left me for Mickelson – which was great, you know. I was really happy for him to get this guy who’s so talented and going to do great things. He says, ‘But there’s one thing I want, one thing I’m going to ask you for, I want to caddie with your group with Bill Murray next year.’ Even though he was working for Phil, he caddied for me at Pebble.”

The bonus Bones sighting is maybe the second most interesting aspect, after the fact that nobody wanted to play with Murray.  Of course, Bones going with Phil was great, until Phil stopped paying him.....

Anyway, I had lost track of my namesake, who seems to have landed a cushy gig:

Simpson, who is in his second year as men’s golf coach at University of Hawaii

 If you're going to be an underpaid golf coach, there are worse places to toil.

That's it for today and this week.  I'll expect to see you Monday morning from home.

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