Monday, February 27, 2023

Weekend Wrap

Greetings from the Wasatch Range.  They've had plenty of snow, 49" in the last seven days, but yesterday proved quite the disappointment.  A warm Saturday was the culprit, subjecting all this wonderful white stuff to the dreaded thaw and refreeze cycle.

More snow is coming, although I am headed up to Sun Valley, ID today, road conditions permitting, to spend a few days with my brother.  Alas, 33" of freshies are projected for Park City but only 11" for Sun Valley.  The old saying is that there are no friends on powder days, although there's seemingly a sibling exclusion to that adage.

The laptop will not be making the journey, so this will be it for a few days (not sure whether I'll come "home" on Thursday or Friday.

The Honda - I watched exactly none of it, so will just grab some notes from Geoff for you:

FWIW, this was Geoff's header:

Weekend Wrap: Kirk Returns To The Winner's Circle And Heads To The Masters

It's OK.  I've stolen so much content from Geoff over the years that I can't begrudge him stealing this from me...

Jack seems sanguine about the event's prospects:

Well, the field would almost have to be better... But, even with a week between it and Riviera, it's still going to be a have-not event.  The bigger aspect that may improve its field is the reduction in field size at the designated events, which ensures that all those guys from 70-156 on the pecking order will need another place to peg it, and for some of those guys its a home game.

Charles In Charge - God, life is funny.... The man perhaps most famous for making bank on the PGA Tour without winning, runs away from the suspect LIV field.  Sorta proves what we've been saying all along.  Geoff doesn't have much on the actual golf:

  • Charles Howell cruised to a 4-stroke victory in the LIV Mayakoba season opener. His Crushers also captured the team title, holding off the 4 Aces by nine strokes. The pair of victories made Howell $7 million richer.

Let me confess that I actually taped the LIV broadcast and made it through a good twenty minutes.  Geoff had this on the broadcast:

The LIV product reached a hundred million American homes but remained a tough watch. That’s assuming your market carried the telecast. A Quad reader reported how the Sacramento CW affiliate opted for a 2006 masterpiece, The Last Kiss, staring Zach Braff and Casey Affleck. Their loss.

LIV still delivers Twitter content and comic relief. Though you won’t be shocked to learn that the following Tweets failed to make the telecasts that were constantly interrupted with carefully cultivated missives from the bots and wannabes…

But, like Geoff, I did catch this bit (and had about the same reaction):

This sportswashing thing is just da' bomb.  It allows us to play the Jamal Kashoggi murder and dismemberment on an endless loop, and now we can add the final round of the '96 Masters.... You'd think those paymasters would we curious as to what they're getting for their billions, but they're much smarter than we are.

So, can you feel the game growing?  Because apparently Geoff and I were about the only ones tuned in:

Didn't McKinsey mention that no one watches golf?

I found the broadcast painful to watch.  Feherty and Foltz were in obvious used-car salesman mode, but the more curious bit was the music that at times intruded into the broadcast, not that drowning out Jerry Foltz is ever a bad thing.  I just couldn't tell if it was ambient music being blared on site, or something intentionally fed into the broadcast audio.  

The Tour Confidential panel has become almost a parody of itself, but let's see what they have on LIV:

3. While the PGA Tour kicked off its Florida swing with the Honda Classic, LIV Golf opened its second year at Mayakoba, which up until last year was a former PGA Tour stop.
Now with a beefed-up schedule, TV deal and one year under their belts, what do you see as the biggest Year 2 goal for LIV as it tries to gain traction?

Dethier: Viewers and sponsors, I suppose. The two are connected — if there are plenty of viewers, sponsors are presumably more likely to follow — and they have the same end result: cash flow. This week, we saw the first signs of corporate involvement, which feels like a big first step. But not all of it feels like a final product, down to the mismatched team uniforms. Still, they’ll be in plenty of households on the CW, so on PGA Tour down weeks like this one (the Honda Classic had a remarkably weak field and zero star power in the mix on Sunday), I would think some golf fans would flip over to LIV. We’ll see how many. And we’ll see whether major advertisers follow.

Melton: More legitimacy. LIV is still somewhat of a punchline in the golf world, but if they can put on some compelling tournaments, sign more big name players, and draw in new eyeballs this year, they’ll be trending in the right direction.

Barath: Traction. So far LIV has created only the slightest amount of interest outside of the golf world, and considering their TV deal constricts their distribution compared to the previous free stream on YouTube, getting casual fans to tune in is still going to be a challenge. Maybe this is a stretch analogy, but at this point, LIV is like the XFL going up against the well-established NFL. Sure you have a TV deal, and you are going to markets that want golf, but if the audience doesn’t have any clarity for what’s at stake, how do you build any long-term interest and gain traction?

Gee, thanks guys.  Asked what LIV needs to do to gain traction, Ryan Barath answers "traction".  I guess that's why he gest the big money....  That's not even his worst bit, because he thinks the move from YouTube to TV "constricts" the audience.... 

I just want to point out that what follows below was drafted on Sunday morning, so any gaps in continuity or repetition is unfortunate.  

LIVing Its Best Self - They're back.... can you just feel the game growing?

Your humble blogger has faces a dilemma..... a couple of scathing articles present but the choice of the led is daunting.  In one corner I find the incendiary Eamon Lynch, who always has a handy shiv to stick in Greg Norman's back.  But competing for primacy is a WaPo piece by Sally Jenkins, about whom I know next to nothing except for one interesting tidbit, that she's the daughter of the late and lamented Dan Jenkins.  So, ladies first?

The airborne toxic event called LIV Golf is slowly dissipating, and soon all that will be left is the mere faint scent of its portable toilets. The failures are piling up so fast that the PGA Tour may
not even need lawyers to beat LIV. It’s going to beat itself with its own sour-smelling hustle, its jinks-on-the links-for-clinks gutter golf.

The news value of its debut last year, championed with patent unease by Phil Mickelson, has long faded. What’s left is just the militant fruitcakery of Greg Norman, whose emanations from his empty luminescent head never quite form into actual substance. To hear Norman tell it, LIV 2023 would begin with a “momentous” TV deal and seven more top-20 player signees. As the second season opens this week in Mayakoba, Mexico, it’s got a laughably desperate TV pact with the CW Network, which also boasts “World’s Funniest Animals,” and no new big names. It was just more blowharding that evaporated into a few lower-level defections such as Dean Burmester and Danny Lee.

Top that lede, Eamon!  But, Sally, Dean Burmester changes everything, no?

But you could almost think she's got something against these guys:

“Golf, but louder” is one of LIV’s slogans, but all that apparently refers to is Ian Poulter’s pants by Pixar. Poulter is at least a likable star, more audience-friendly than laconic burnout cases such as Brooks Koepka or that aging inveterate scrounger Mickelson, who apparently would take checks from the slaughter of dolphins to get whole. Starting Friday in Mexico, all of them will resume crapping around in an incoherent, noncompetitive, no-cut, drama-repellant 54-hole format with locked-in appearance fees.

Crapping around?  Though I would like to see the actual evidence that Poults is actually likable....

She does kind of nail it, though.....Her old man would be proud:

Koepka and Poulter allowed the cameras to follow them especially closely and gave revealing interviews that show just how hollow-eyed and desperate they were over downturns in their careers and fears that they had become second-rate. Their motives for jumping at LIV’s cash are there for all to see; they say it all straight into the cameras. They didn’t leave the PGA Tour because they wanted to play better golf against the best in the world. They left because they couldn’t anymore.

Koepka had lost his edge physically and mentally after a string of injuries, and he knew it. The cameras capture his recognition of that fact as Scottie Scheffler stormed past him to win at the Phoenix Open, what used to be Koepka’s favorite tournament. “I probably lost confidence, if I’m honest,” Koepka told the filmmakers. Jena Sims, then his fiancee and now his wife, acknowledged, “He’s hearing voices in the back of his head, ‘You can’t do this; you can’t do this.’ ”

This is the fatal disconnect, no?  Golf without the grind, as first articulated by Graeme McDowell, isn't of much interest to the rest of us.  Heck, golf with the grind barely draws an audience.

But she's got more on Brooksie:

At the Masters, he horseshoed short putts to miss the cut while Tiger Woods ground out a limping resurgence on his surgically repaired leg. Puffy-faced and peroxided, Koepka finally admitted, “I’ll be honest: I can’t compete with these guys week in and week out.” It didn’t seem to occur to him that defecting to LIV for the money wasn’t the cure to his bored, vapid and anchorless existence.

Not sure they come any more vapid than Jenna, unless it's Paulina.

 But, Eamon, I do hope you're taking notes:

From the outset, LIV was a home for buttercup-bellied moral cowards clutching at cash from a murderous regime, but it quickly has evolved into a refuge for guys who have lost their taste for competition. Who cares who “wins” more money among such a scrabbling bunch? Only the torrent of blood-spattered Saudi coin made Norman’s follies viable in the first place, and now the best young guys are turning down the money. LIV’s incursion is failing, and eventually all that will be left is the unpleasant smell of its corruptions.

That was good fun, but Eamon has his own thought son the matter, including his own strong lede:

While traveling to LIV Golf’s season-opening event in Mexico, Greg Norman posted to social media two photos of himself on a private jet, one as he read, the other while gazing meditatively
through the window. The accompanying caption read: “Books are the training weights of the mind — Epictetus.”

In keeping with the custom of his every waking hour, it was carefully staged image-building, suggesting a swashbuckling captain of industry on another successful sortie. With the time spent curating selfies, Norman could have scrolled to another quote from Epictetus — or, more accurately, from his transcribing student Arrian, since the Greek Stoic himself left no writings: “Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope.”

Norman’s LIV Golf has a solitary anchor that prevents it from being dashed on the rocks of commercial reality, the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. When it comes to an ability to throw good money after bad, the PIF is an enviable ally to have. But as Norman opens LIV’s second season with his trademark delusional enthusiasm masquerading as unstoppable momentum, he must worry that legal developments in California’s Northern District might prompt that affluent anchor to cast him adrift.

Got to admit, I didn't see Epicetus coming.... though Greg Norman reading any book without pictures seems dubious.

Eamon seems inclined, at least per his header, to pin the recent legal setbacks on our Greggy:

The Saudi reluctance to submit to America’s permissive discovery process hardly requires explanation. Even if the court placed strict parameters on discovery, the process carries huge risk as PIF investments — known and stealth, commercial and political — are subjected to scrutiny and potential exposure. That might strike Al-Rumayyan as an awfully high price to continue underwriting Norman’s folly.

This litigation exists for one reason: to make real the fantasy that Norman sold his players — the PGA Tour had no right to ban them (it does), and that they would be permitted to play LIV events and whatever Tour stops they wish to cherry pick (they won’t). Players who bought his bill of goods must by now realize that Norman’s vows dissolve quicker than those of Zsa Zsa Gabor (Google her, kids).

Was Zsa Zsa another of the Greek Stoics?  Not sure Epicetus will be flattered to share the billing with Zsa Zsa, but perhaps it's Sally that should be taking notes.

 But Eamon's got one more bit for us:

Sharks have a blind spot right in front of their snouts, so it’s unsurprising that Norman swaggered into federal court and declared victory before the ink was dry on his specious claims. But even he must by now grasp the predicament in which he has placed his employer. Thanks to Norman, Al-Rumayyan is learning that the U.S. judicial system doesn’t grant MBS’s agents the kind of untrammeled latitude they are accustomed to at home, or for that matter in Turkish consulates.

Why, did something happen in a Turkish consulate?  Thanks to LIV we get to revisit that on an almost daily basis, so remind me of how this sportswashing thing works?

Mind you, I don't think his article, amusing as it is, delivered its header:

Lynch: Saudis have Greg Norman to thank for their U.S. legal nightmare

I don't think that's actually right.  In fact, it conflicts with the court ruling on sovereign immunity, which basically confirmed that the Shitless One is a figurehead, that all significant decisions are made by the Saudis.   

So, how are things going in Mayakoba?  I wanted to insert comparative leaderboards, but my laptop doesn't save screenshots and I've forgotten the workaround I created in Scotland.  So let's just say that Mayakoba and Honda leaderboards look equally dreadful.  The LIV folks want to take comfort from that, but it's a pretty low bar given that the Honda is a dead man walking.

There's been some Twitter bot action that might amuse:

Yeah, OK....  But what time on Sunday?  First group out I'd guess, but even if true it's a low bar.  And Alan Shipnuck provides clarification:

Eleven?  Wow, these guys are really growing the game right before our eyes....

Of course Alan also had this about one of those guys he followed:

Again with the low bar.... What's the second most electric moment?

This guy wasn't impressed either:

They're at the height of the tourist season, so I'd be surprised if they didn't get a few folks out there.... 

Of course, both fields pale in comparison to that for the first major of the year:

But let's see what we think of this:

Selling LIV Golf: Inside the upstart league’s campaign to build a fanbase

This should be good:

At the Dye Preserve, the ads and social-media snippets all hammer at the notion that the teams, and the individuals on them, are cool. The captains themselves speak to this, too. In sit-down
interview after sit-down interview, Bubba, Bryson and Co. sound similar refrains (an exception is Mickelson, who declines to be interviewed) when explaining their decision to join LIV. The lavish contracts didn’t hurt, they concede. But they were also lured by the prospect of playing for a team while expanding golf’s appeal.

In DeChambeau’s account, “It’s so cool hearing ‘Go Crushers’ out there. And it’s not just me. I feel like I’ve got a band of brothers out there.”

As Watson tells it, he was inspired to join the circuit last year when, while sitting at home rehabbing his knee, he wound up tuning in to a LIV event on YouTube with his kids.

“And that’s what hit me,” he says. “A 10-year-old and an 8-year-old are watching this, and they know the Aces. They don’t know the people. But they know the flip-flop of who’s winning, who’s losing. I called my manager right from bed and said, ‘Hey, man, is it too late? I know they asked me, and I’ve been dragging my feet. I want in now.’”

So, Bubba was the guy watching on YouTube?  Is there anybody that believes this nonsense?  

They continue to insist that these teams will have market caps of a billion each, and after hearing about King Louis victory dance I totally get it.  Now, about Martin Kaymer as a captain... remind me of what he's done since 2014?

ESPN has a preview of LIV's second season up that includes one bit that I found interesting, mostly because those that sponsor the players seem to have been mostly quiet.  Perhaps that's because they've been busy in the counting house:

According to representatives of a handful of apparel and equipment companies contacted by ESPN, their contracts with golfers include annual event minimums. For instance, if a player was
competing on the PGA Tour when he signed, he might be required to compete in 20 tour events. There are other qualifiers, including those tournaments not being a team event like the Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup, in which players wear team uniforms, and the event being recognized by the OWGR.

Once players jumped to LIV Golf last year, according to representatives of the equipment and apparel companies, most didn't meet the minimum event requirements and were paid only a fraction of what they would have been otherwise owed. One executive described last year as "Christmas" because his company was being promoted by a highly ranked player for "pennies on the dollar." Another equipment representative said it was difficult to make accurate evaluations of players because there was so little data available in terms of marketing and TV metrics because LIV Golf's events in 2022 were available only on YouTube, the tour's official website and a streaming service.

What am I missing?  They're gloating because they payed the guys less based upon the number of events, but they're also getting fewer impressions.... Seems to me that, if you think it worthwhile to have your logo on DJ or Bryson's shirt, that the guys descending into a black hole can't be good for business.  Left unclear is whether those streamed LIV events were treated the same as PGA Tour events on national TV.  I'd have thought there'd be a requirement that they play on the PGA Tour specifically, though it's quite possible the lawyers never conceived of this exact situation.

There's a minor legal follow-up in which the Tour lost this round:

Despite ongoing discovery disputes and the legal complications caused by recent rulings, a U.S. District Court judge ordered the antitrust case between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf to move ahead as scheduled.

The case, which was filed against the Tour last August by a group of players who had joined the Saudi-backed league, is on an expedited schedule and set for trial in January 2024. That, the Tour’s attorney argued in a video conference call with the judge Friday, is untenable given how complicated the case has become.

On Thursday the Tour filed an amended motion to include the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia and its governor as defendants in its countersuit against LIV Golf. The PIF plans to oppose that motion on multiple grounds, including sovereign immunity, but that, argued the fund’s lead attorney John Quinn, is “no reason to hold up this case.”

The key concept here is "for now":

Judge Beth Labson Freeman agreed with LIV Golf and PIF’s push to remain on the expedited schedule but appeared to warn that could change.

“I’m concerned that everyone is dragging their feet on discovery on both sides … [but] it’s premature to postpone the case now,” Labson Freeman said. “I know we all want this to move to trial as quickly as possible, but it has to be done in the right way.”

Yeah, to me the odds of this trial going forward in January 2024 are equivalent to those of your humble blogger qualifying for the U.S. Open....  There are years of discovery fights to come, the bigger question being, given those two devastating decisions from last week, is whether this trial ever happens.

In other LIV news, I'm happy to report that we've achieved peace in our time:

From ‘Brooksie’ to the free Michelob Light post, the two players have a complicated relationship. The conversation should have ended after Koepka beat DeChambeau in a 1v1 battle during The Match series at The Wynn in Las Vegas. Or after their hug at the Ryder Cup in September ’21.

However, during a recent Instagram Q&A with Smash GC, Koepka’s team on LIV Golf, the four-time major winner said the two players are all good now.

“Believe it or not, we squashed it,” Koepka said. “We’re good. I actually talk to him quite frequently because of what’s going on here at LIV. Pretty much on an every-other-day basis. So we’ve got a good open line of communication. We’ve figured it all out, and we’re good.”

If he's speaking to Bryson frequently then he has my sympathy....  

But how about those brave golf journalists?  they fed him this softball, but seemingly failed to asked about his reported case of buyer's remorse.  I'm sure they're now BFFs in the same sense that Tiger and Phil were.... it's just business.

We seem to have no shortage of bad headers today, as this is another that isn't supported by the underlying article:

Captains Luke Donald, Zach Johnson already pondering LIV golfers at Ryder Cup

Except, not really.... Oh, Luke Donald could find himself in an interesting situation, at least theoretically:

Luke Donald’s job as captain of the European Ryder Cup team is challenging enough without trying to figure out who is eligible — or doubling as a referee — while playing a full PGA Tour
schedule.

The bad blood between former friends and Ryder Cup teammates Sergio Garcia and Rory McIlroy, and the rest of the uncertainty surrounding players who have joined LIV Golf, could add another stressful layer to Donald’s job.

“If we get to a point where someone’s qualified from LIV and there are disagreements between players we’re going to have to figure it out before,” said Donald. “My job as captain is to create a great culture for the team to be successful. Whatever that may be, whoever those 12 guys, that’s my job.”

Notice how he limits it to those that have qualified?  This doesn't look likely, given how badly the guys have been playing in those Euro events.  The only LIVster with a high finish I can think of is PReed, and I'm pretty sure he's ineligible for that European Points List...

There is a crazier scenario out there... If the court rules that the Euro Tour can't penalize the players who went to LIV, does that included Henrik's captaincy?  Probably not, especially since it's a non-paying gig, but fun to think about.

But this is apparently the extent of Zach Johnson's "pondering":

“I’m not concerned about it right now at all, frankly,” Zach Johnson said. “There’s so much fluidity and uncertainty still involved.”

That's not so much pondering as ducking a silly question....

Still, I've yet to find anyone besides your favorite blogger that has pondered the Armageddon scenario, to wit, what does Jay do if Europe sends LIV players to Rome?

This last bit of equivalence from Mike Bamberger:

Fair enough, though if you're setting the Over/Under at 42 years, I'll take the under.

 Have a great week and we'll catch up later in the week as the circus heads to Bay Hill.

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