Wednesday, February 1, 2023

Midweek Musings

The powder days are behind me, at least for this trip.  That's not the only lull be fore the storm....

LIV Updates - The next three weeks should be veddy interesting, specifically whether LIV announces new blood in advance of their February 24th coming out party at Mayakoba.  On that front, we have news for you:

Most of the excitement around LIV Golf during its debut season in 2022 stemmed from player movement.

Since the conclusion of the team championship last October, it’s been all quiet on that front for the Greg Norman-led and Saudi Arabia-backed circuit, aside from a report on Mito Pereira and a new player joining Dustin Johnson’s 4Aces. But as LIV prepares for its 2023 opener at Mayakoba in Mexico, Feb. 24-26, another PGA Tour winner is expected to join its ranks.

According to the Telegraph, Sebastian Munoz will join LIV Golf in 2023. The Colombian, currently ranked 90th in the world, turned pro in 2015 and won his first and only PGA Tour event at the 2019 Sanderson Farms Championship. He also won the 2016 Club Colombia Championship on the Korn Ferry Tour.

The discerning reader will quickly note that all that's been provided is news of the existence of a rumor, but such is the state of golf journalism.   Credit to Adam Woodard for noting those Mito Pereira rumors that have, as yet, remained merely rumors.  

Can you feel that needle moving?  Cynically, why even sign Munoz, who won't accomplish anything more than increasing the number of top 100 players in their fields, at least for an hour-and-a-half until hi ranking inevitably falls.

Is the CW available in Columbia?  

I think any cockiness before that Mayakoba event would be very ill-advised, and later it as well.  That said, we do seem to have entered a noticeably different phase.  Whereas, in 2022 the correlation between smoke and fire was quite high.  In 2023, the defection rumors have not proven to be accurate, not least with Patrick Cantlay.  That salting of the rumor mill speaks more of desperation than confidence, though I'd again recommend eschewing the cockiness....

Dylan Dethier had this state-of-play analysis last week that I never got to:

But this hemming-and-hawing seems like he wants to have it both ways:

THE PLAYERS

While LIV has yet to finalize its list of players for the 2023 season, there’s no question that for now, the PGA Tour will maintain its edge in top-tier talent. LIV now boasts just one top-20 player — world No. 4 Cameron Smith — while the other 19 play full-time on the PGA Tour.

Sidenote: That’s somewhat misleading, given a few have slid down the rankings since ceasing to play a Tour schedule. But another illustration of talent distribution, DataGolf’s player rankings, places LIV’s top pros at No. 12 (Dustin Johnson) No. 17 (Smith, likely undervalued) and No. 21 (Joaquin Niemann). You get the idea.

But what LIV lacks in top-ranked pros it hopes to make up for in big names. If you’re willing to trade the world rankings in for name recognition, the league’s roll call sounds better: LIV snagged five of the top 10 players from the PGA Tour’s 2021 Player Impact Program — Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka and Bubba Watson — plus a bevy of past Masters champs and Ryder Cup stalwarts.

How you view LIV’s roster likely correlates with your general level of optimism for its future. You could make the case the league has enough star power to draw a crowd — both in real life and on TV. You could scoff at its roster compared to that of the PGA Tour, which boasts fields that are both stronger and deeper, and suggest it’ll never measure up. You could take a rising-tides approach and surmise that there’s enough intrigue for both leagues to coexist and even thrive. Or you could take a doomsday perspective and suggest that the sport isn’t strong enough to support both; a schism in pro golf is bad news for all involved.

Regardless, the balance of players is the most important piece of the entire equation. Most of ’em want to play against the very best, and so far the PGA Tour has retained its significant majority.

Big names, eh Dylan?  Like Sebastian Munoz?  It's more like they're specializing in damaged goods, no?

But Dylan, are you really trying to make the case that the LIV fields are credible?  Because that's a bride too far...  If you've conceded the PGA Tour the better and deeper fields, as well as being featured on TV channels where golfers know to find them (not to mention playing at occasionally attractive venues), that assertion that LIV can draw a crowd seems highly dubious, especially since the PGA barely does so.

A while back I conceded that I was too lazy to analyze that LIV schedule to see which specific events it competes against.  Fortunately Sean Zak has a higher energy level than your humble blogger (a low bar, indeed), but things aren't getting any better for those long-suffering folks at Honda:

The PGA Tour, screwing sponsors since the 1960's.  

Dylan takes a shot at other soft spots:

There will certainly be weeks that there’s more star power in LIV fields than the Tour’s down weeks; that was an inevitability given its focus on designated events plus the fact that it holds a tournament every single week. The events in Spain and England will stand up well against the Rocket Mortgage and John Deere Classic.

If you elevate certain events, that inevitably means that you're diminishing others..... Seems like a bit of an unforced error guaranteed to expose how over-extended the schedule is, and forces us to revisit how Jay allowed Bryson to screw his sponsor last year by not being available to the press.  How did coddling him work out for you, Jay?

One last bit from Dylan, covering an item that I had ignored:

All the while, lawyers battle in the background. It seems like there’s news every day on the suits between the two leagues, which are each now probing deeper into the other’s activities. LIV wants access to Augusta National’s communications. The Tour wants access to the PIF’s communications. The OWGR continues to evaluate LIV’s application for points; Monahan has recused himself from the process, acknowledging a conflict of interest. The battle for who will be playing where will play out for a long time to come.

We just happen to have news on the lawyer front, though I've come to the conclusion that they won't anything more than slow-roll LIV on OWGR points.  I think they have really good arguments in that regard, including the field size and 54-hole events.  More importantly, folks seem not to understand that events are not awarded OWGR status, but rather tours are.  Included in that concept is that there be a method of qualifying, and this is where LIV seems quite vulnerable.

What I love most about that argument is that I suspect the single biggest impediment there might well be Phil's contract, which presumably guarantees him a spot in the field, regardless of how poorly he might play.  You'll respond that even the PGA Tour would give him status based on his PGA Championship win, but that's where the tiny field size is such an issue.  Awarding him a slot in a 156-player field is quite a different thing than in a 48-player field.

But with the inevitable recusal of Jay and Keith Pelley, this will ultimately be decided by those that run golf's four majors, and I think we can guess what their lawyers will be telling them.  But that's why those new strength-of-field measures are so important, but also why Jon Rahm and Tiger's ill-considered comments were so off-point and counter-productive (not to mention dead-ass wrong as far as your humble blogger sees it).

But, as promised, bad news on a fishing expedition:

In what appears to be a failed attempt to pull more sides into the fracas, LIV Golf filed a request
earlier this month to obtain third-party discovery of communications involving members of Augusta National as part of its antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour. That request was denied in court Monday, according to documents obtained by Golfweek.

LIV Golf attorneys served subpoenas to former PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem as well as a half dozen of the Tour’s policy board directors past and present in the most recent round of legal salvos. Included in that filing was a request to produce all communications between the parties “and any member of Augusta National relating to a New Tour, including but not limited to LIV Golf.”

A reminder that this is the relevant issue involved here, despite an overly-broad discovery demand:

LIV Golf lawyers contended that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Stephens Bank CEO Warren Stephens “apparently attempted to influence the DOJ (Department of Justice) to not investigate the Tour.”

And you humble blogger continues to be the only person on the planet apparently interested in why Joe Biden's DOJ would investigate the PGA Tour, thereby aligning themselves with what Biden called a pariah country?  Anyone but me curious about this?

The larger question is likely what this means for the PGA Tour's attempt to conduct discovery on the Saudi Public Investment Fund.  Stay tuned, as the kids like to say...

But the hits keep coming for these bedraggled LIVsters, as they've been excluded from the first major of the season:

The increasingly bitter divide between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour is now impacting a high-profile event at one of America’s most prestigious clubs. Players who signed with LIV will not be
welcome at next month’s Pro-Member tournament at Seminole Golf Club in Juno Beach, Florida.

The field for the Pro-Member — held annually on the Monday after the conclusion of the Honda Classic at nearby PGA National — is often the envy of many Tour stops. The two-person team event draws dozens of the game’s superstars. World No. 1 Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm and Patrick Cantlay played in 2022. Last year’s edition also featured more than a dozen players who later signed with LIV, none of whom will be present at the 2023 Pro-Member on Feb. 27.

Actions have consequences, who knew?  the key player here is Jimmy Dunne, who has assumed a much larger profile in the last few years:

The decision not to invite LIV players was made by Jimmy Dunne, the president of Seminole.
Dunne played last year with Dustin Johnson, who joined LIV in June. Previously, he partnered with Phil Mickelson, who also left for the Saudi-funded circuit. Dunne is veteran Wall Street figure who lost scores of friends in the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, where his company Sandler O’Neill (now known as Piper Sandler) was based. This year he plans to play with Max Homa.

“We are doing what we have always done,” Dunne told Golfweek on Thursday. “PGA Tour players get the first priority. This event has always been supported by the PGA Tour. We try to make this a special and unique day for Tour players.”

So touchy, Jimmy, because I was reliably informed by Mr. Norman that everyone makes mistakes and the Saudis have taken ownership of their crimes against humanity.... Well, at least until the next mass public beheadings.

Just to demonstrate how whiny these guys can be, this nonsense has been floated:

Was Cameron Smith blackballed by Florida clubs because of his ties to LIV Golf?

Spoiler alert: No.  It seems the inhumane treatment he received was limited to not being put at the top of the waiting list at a club or two, which I'm sure will be added to Larry Klayman's lawsuit.

Treegate, A Post-Mortem- Patrick Reed has issued a "final" statement on this pressing issue:

Well, if Patrick says it's a non-issue, when has he ever lied to us previously?  Oh yeah, but I'll need a bigger blog if we go there....

Interestingly, Dylan Dethier sees fit to engage in this tortured analysis in his Monday Finish column:

So — what happened with the ball in the tree?

There are really only three options.

1. That somehow was Reed’s ball in the tree … despite the evidence showing it had landed in an adjacent tree. Weird bounce. Weird trick of the light. I dunno. This seems unlikely, but maybe it’s possible? (Brandel Chamblee doesn’t seem to think so.)

2. Reed thought it was his ball and tried to do the right thing. Maybe there was another ProV1 with a very similar marking to his. There was an official with him who corroborated his story, after all. And it’s not as if his black line marking is wholly unique — plenty of people do that. Perhaps a spotter pointed him to the wrong tree and it was an honest mistake. If you’re a Reed defender, this is likely where you land.

3. Reed knew it wasn’t his ball but tried to get away with it anyway. This is the where-there’s-smoke-there’s-fire stance. In other words, if you believe Reed was knowingly in the wrong in various previous instances, you might think he was a bad actor here, too.

BONUS: Conspiracy theories

The “premeditated” theory: Reed planted a ball in that tree in a practice round, anticipating this exact scenario.

The “institutional corruption” theory: The footage was doctored afterward in an effort to frame Reed.

The “second shooter” theory: Another mysterious person hit a tee shot at the exact same time and went into the other tree — Reed’s ball flight wasn’t actually captured by that camera shot.

Anyway, there are your options. I’ll let you be the judge.

Dylan, that's a lot of pixels wasted without coming close to the underlying issue.

It's not about where Reed's ball ended up, it's about Reed.  Let's remember Torrey in 2021, where he insisted that his ball was embedded, whereas the video clearly showed that the ball had bounced.  We know with near certainty that balls that bounce do not then embed themselves, and we also know that Patrick picked up his ball before a rules official could arrive, thereby ensuring that he couldn't be over-ruled.  Is there anything unclear from this incident?  Any lingering doubts about who Patrick is?

In the current incident the actual location of Patrick's ball seems irrelevant.  There is simply no way that that he could identify his ball to a sufficient standard of proof, but the video showing they were looking in the wrong tree is just the icing on the cake.  He knows that he couldn't identify his ball, we know it as well, and he knows that we know, hence the insistence on it being a non-issue.

Maybe it's time for Mr. Klayman to actually refile that defamation lawsuit, because discovery is gonna be lit.

I had moved on to the item below when this hit my inbox.  I don't know the Twitter bot and I assume the quote is not real, but it certainly made me laugh:

Alan, Asked - Shipnuck has finally dropped his first mailbag of the year, and shockingly much of it is on topic.  Shall we?

How do we know that this isn’t now all scripted and acted out? @EatandSleepGolf

What I love about this question is that it can mean so many things! Is it good guy Max Homa becoming the star next door that the PGA Tour desperately needs? Rory McIlroy’s walk-off putt in Dubai to end a melodramatic week? Brandel Chamblee’s Zapruder-like recreation of Patrick Reed’s fishiness? I agree that all of this is a little too on-the-nose for the current moment. I thought 2022 was an insane year for golf that could never really be topped but ’23 is certainly off to a flying start.

I don't see it abating anytime soon....

Is the scrutiny of Reed’s ball in the tree an overreaction or is it warranted because of his history? @scabel1956

Yes.

If it had been, say, Homa who identified his ball in such an ambiguous manner, it never would have been questioned because his credibility is unimpeachable. But Reed has been involved in so much tomfoolery he will always warrant heightened scrutiny. At Torrey Pines last week, Jim Herman told me a funny story about once being paired with Reed at Kapalua. Reed hit a ball into the junk and consulted with Herman as to whether or not he should summon a rules official. “I told him, ‘You should because everyone out here hates you,’” says Herman. “He kind of laughed but I wasn’t joking.”

And by "tomfoolery" you mean transparent cheating?

I get that another player would be accorded the benefit of the doubt, but how is this an overreaction?  Even if you foolishly credit Reed with honesty, it's a pretty damning demonstration of a rules screw-up.

But how is it an overreaction to focus on a serial cheater cheating again, and getting away with it?

On Rory:

Feel like Rory winning by beating the opponent rather than waiting for competitors to fall away is very good for picking up major championship #5…what do you think? #askalan @kingofwessex

We all know that McIlroy can blow away fields when he is on-song, but during the final round at Dubai it was clear that he didn’t have his best stuff. In the old days the fight seemed to drain out
of Rory when his swing was off-kilter but this time he kept battling. He nearly drove it into the water on the 72nd hold but steadied himself enough to execute under extreme pressure. Grit and grind have been missing pieces in his arsenal but the older, more mature, more focused (and more vengeful) McIlroy is one helluva complete package. Given his ongoing standard of play, it would be a stunner if he doesn’t break through with another major…but we’ve been saying that for years now. The upcoming major championships will be the ultimate mental tests for Rory. Dubai suggests he is now, at last, up to the challenge.

Isn't the issue that Rory isn't, in fact, a complete player?  Those instances of him running away from the field all came on soft golf courses in which he could throw darts at pins.  When courses get firm and fast, Rory tends to struggle....

As noted yesterday, I'm a bit conflicted here.  Obviously Rory holding off Reed has to a better omen for the Ulsterman than the alternative of letting Patrick have his way with him yet again.  That said, I was most struck by Rory's comment that he had to ignore who was on the leaderboard, as opposed to playing better because of who was involved.  Which might be fine depending upon who is actually on that Masters leaderboard...

And this on the important issues of the day:

What professional golfer could score a rushing touchdown behind the Philly o-line? @Lee35376258

Chesson Hadley (below) for sure—he would slip through the cracks virtually unseen. With Rahm’s thunder thighs I could see him powering in, and having watched him with a soccer ball the guy has good feet. Maybe Scott Stallings. Joaquin Nieman looks shifty and fast-twitch. Same with Matt Wolff. Tony Finau is a jock with a long wingspan to reach the goal line. Ditto Dustin Johnson, but it would probably too much hassle for DJ.

Pretty much any of them, no?  At least against the Giants.

The mic’d up segment with Max Homa was a huge step forward for the Tour broadcast; what’s the next step on this path? Caddies mic’d up for a full round? Designated mic’d up holes? Where would you go with this, assuming other top players beyond Homa are cooperative? @luke_peacock

That last bit is the key part of the equation. Rahm is a deep thinker and quite eloquent but I highly doubt he wants his competitive bubble invaded in this way. Ditto McIlroy and Jordan Spieth. Morikawa, Scheffler, Schauffele, Cantlay…not much there there. I could see Justin Thomas enjoying the attention but, with him, less is more. So, how good can this feature be with so few funny/interesting players to choose from? I do think every caddie in the field should be mic’d, allowing the TV producers a wealth of nerdy conversations from which to choose. That’s probably the best we can hope for.

Yanno, it'd be great if they'd just show us more live golf shots....

Phil returning to Twitter: Great development or greatest development of 2023? @DavidAStorm

Hard for me to say since he’s blocked me! But, yes, I think we all miss the jaunty, trash-talking Phil. Golf is a lot more fun and interesting when Mickelson is chewing the scenery so a return to Twitter bodes well for him to reclaim some of his old swagger.

Not all of us, Alan.  In fact, that jauntiness seems awfully forced given that he's revealed himself to all, even with you pulling punches in the biography.  Speaking of which, anything new on my refund claim?

For the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, do you think it should be added to the rotation of elevated events? You used to get Tiger, etc. into that field, now this week your headliners are Spieth, Fitzpatrick and Hovland. Seeing Rory + Tony Romo or Rahm + Bill Murray would be fantastic for fans. @JohnnyGB412

Talking to tournament folks here, it appears to be a done deal that Pebble will be elevated in 2024 and thus will finally get the field it deserves. Many top players are already compelled to play it next year as a payback for releases to the Saudi International, so granting the tournament the elevated purse will be good for morale. Hopefully, a bunch of these bold-faced names will fall in love with the Pebble’s charms and become regulars.

Will they fall in love with the 6-hour rounds?  But the bigger issue is whether those players will, in fact, be required to play.  Again, the Tour isn't so good at taking care of its sponsors, so perhaps AT&T will follow Honda's lead?

Since you live around “Dreamland” aka the Pebble Beach area, what’s the most underrated and overrated holes at Pebble? @bunkerwill

I’d say 13 is the most underrated—I *love* that drive and the approach takes a lot of geometry and imagination, even though the recently redone green is not as much fun as the old one. Six has is probably now a touch overrated. The Mike Davis bunkers jutting into the fairway means that aiming for the short grass is now the wrong play; all the caddies tell you to play way left up on the hillside, taking the ocean and the very deep, penal bunkers out of play. If you do somehow hit the fairway it’s hard to pick the right line on the blind second shot, especially with the greedy bunkers that were expanded for the 2010 U.S. Open. Of course, the best view in golf awaits when you arrive at the green, so it’s hard to get too worked up about the alterations to the hole.

Far more weak holes than is generally acknowledged....

But now we get to the juicy stuff:

Do villians have a natural tendency to join LIV, or does joining LIV make a person more of a villian? @GolfSpyMPR

Yes.

Clearly, the league’s non-conformist, confrontational vibe appeals to a certain personality type. But I do think joining LIV makes players feel more unencumbered and freer to be their true selves. Guys like Reed and Sergio Garcia (above) and Ian Poulter had so many run-ins with PGA Tour officials that they came to see them as dour bureaucrats always threatening to send them to the principal’s office. LIV offered a fresh start, and their new boss, Greg Norman, is one of the biggest shit-stirrers in the modern history of the professional game, so how can he ding them for causing mischief?

Wow, that's a quite a bit of crazy in one Q&A.  Not sure I can unpack it all...

Villainy isn't necessarily the wrong concept, although I think entitlement might be the more accurate concept.  These guys are all about themselves, hence their ability to actively undermine the organizations that made them fabulously wealthy, and still expect to be treated with deference and respect.

But this was an opportunity for them to reveal themselves, but also reminds us that the PGA Tour covered for them for years, a decisions that I certainly hope is being reevaluated given how ineffective it was at inducing loyalty.

 But, as I've been saying for a while now, LIV provided a mechanism for the a*****es to self-identify and self-quarantine, for which the rest of us should be eternally grateful.

I'll go out of order, because this is the follow-up:

Was this week a reminder that sports without players you root against as well as for lacks something essential? @TheSecretDuffer

Definitely. The PGA Tour has lost all of its villains. If LIV players get banned from the Euro Tour it will become equally anodyne. Hate-watching/rooting against certain players is an important part of being a golf fan!

There  is certainly some truth here, though I think it's more a feature than a bug.  But I'd repeat my point above, that the Tour actively protected these guys, attempting to deny us that frisson of hate.  Think how much better golf would be (have been) if all disciplinary actions were publicly disclosed.

This one deserves far greater consideration than Alan's few lines:

Wouldn’t sponsors for DP World tournaments want LIV players to be allowed in an effort to not only bring more juice but also to increase the number of top players competing? @KeithKhorton

Of course! Look at the Dubai event—take away the LIV’ers and it’s just another ho-hum win for McIlroy against a mostly starless field. Keith Pelley would never admit it but no doubt he is hoping his tour loses the imminent arbitration case in front of Sports Resolutions U.K. That would allow many of Europe’s biggest names to continue playing DP World Tour events. That would also mean LIV golfers could qualify for the European Ryder Cup team, putting pressure on Team USA to tear down its walls. This would be a very important step for reunifying a fractured sport.

I've devoted quite a bit of space to considering the implications of the weakness of the Euro Tour, so this is quite topical, though I think Alan's answer is a bit superficial.

I think he makes an important point that the Euro Tour has benefitted from being forced to allow the LIVsters to play, an obvious example being last weekend's Rory-PReed cage match.  But does that translate into Keith Pelley hoping that it's mad permanent?  I think that's a leap of logic that deserves far more scrutiny than Alan has interest in.

Pelley has at least twice made the binary choice to accept Jay Monahan's money in lieu of the Saudi blood money, and logically we should assume there has been considerable thought given to this.  For instance, Alan blithely speaks of LIVsters qualifying for the Ryder Cup, and equally blithely assumes that Jay would just accept that result.  But, Alan, what if Jay just tanks the event?  Home game Ryder Cups are an outsized revenue source for the Euro Tour, but it costs nothing monetarily for Jay to take his ball and go home.

Pelley has made the decision to support the pre-existing golf ecosystem and we should assume, absent contrary evidence, that he's done so because he views it as the best strategy for his Tour and the game.  Of course, Alan, some of us think that the best way to unify the game is to make the Saudis go away.... Because at some point they will get tired of writing those outsized checks.

One last fun bit on which I will make my exit:

If social media existed back in the day, who was most likely to have Max Homa’s presence and success on both the Internet and course? Arnie? Trevino? Or…? @ZitiDoggsGolf

Palmer was too traditional and corporate to be any fun on social media. Trevino is a very hot/cold
personality; he always turns on the charm for TV cameras but the 24/7 nature of social media tends to eventually reveal a person’s true self and the Merry Mex would probably have gotten himself cancelled for some kind of transgression. I’m going to say Walter Hagen (below) and Jimmy Demaret—both fun, jaunty characters and prolific winners. Peter Thomson was such a deep thinker with strong convictions he would have launched innumerable truth bombs. These old-timers don’t know how lucky they were.

Good one, Alan!  The concept of Hagen on Twitter is indeed an amusing one, far more so than the concept of Phil back on Twitter.

I'll see you when I see you.

 
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