Given my late start, thought I'd try something a little different today. I mentioned yesterday that I have a Shipnuck mailbag in the queue, so I'll dive into that and interweave other pieces on similar themes.
For instance, your humble blogger had thought the Euro arbitration decision had resolved the bulk of our outstanding Ryder Cup issues, but folks have pored over the fine print and it seems there's a technical opening. But first, Alan is asked a question that harkens back to that certain prediction. No worries, Alan, you'll always have Paris:
So with Fitzpatrick rising to give Europe a Big 4 and Zalatoris now out with injury, what’s the super early assessment of the Ryder Cup? #AskAlan@brianros1Fitzpatrick has clearly gone to a different level, but he still has a lot to prove in the Ryder Cup: Dude is 0-5-0 in two previous appearances. I agree that him, McIlroy, Rahm and Shane Lowry givesEurope four horses. Viktor Hovland is a stud too. But after that it gets pretty thin. Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton and Alex Noren provide Europe some battle-tested veterans, though since January 2021 they have combined to win only one tournament around the world. The final four spots are very much up for grabs—if I’m Luke Donald I would be leaning toward Padraig Harrington, even though he’ll be 52!The top nine for the U.S. is blue-chip: Scottie Scheffler, Max Homa, Cam Young, Jordan Spieth, Sam Burns, Patrick Cantlay, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele. The big question is what to do with the LIV guys. Despite various misconceptions, they are eligible to play in the Ryder Cup. Dustin Johnson is a no-brainer, and so is Brooks Koepka. It helps that both live in Jupiter, Fla., and mix often with other top Americans during their off weeks. I think DJ and BK will be on Team USA, which brings a lot of firepower and presence. For the final spot, Captain Zach Johnson can choose among Tony Finau, Sahith Theegala, Kurt Kitayama and sundry others. Top to bottom, the American squad is much stronger and I expect them to win in Rome, validating a great golf mind who long ago predicted long-term U.S. dominance.
I'm sorry, what planet has Alan been living on the last 18 months or so? DJ is a no-brainer, eh? Shall we but a few shekels on that, Alan, even money being pretty good odds for a no-brainer.
What's Alan smoking? This just happens to pop up at Golf.com:
Here's that technicality:
One of those factors is whether LIV players, who have been suspended by the PGA Tour, will even be eligible for captain’s picks. (LIV players’ only means of collecting Ryder Cupqualification points is at the four majors, which will make it exceedingly difficult for any of them to land a spot on the team via that avenue; Koepka and Mickelson’s runner-up Masters finishes moved them into a still-distant 17th and 22nd, respectively, on the points list.)Regarding eligibility, Johnson said: “Not to get overly in the weeds of all this, but in order to garner Ryder Cup points or be eligible for PGA of America Ryder Cup points and PGA Championship points, you have to be a member of PGA of America. Those individuals that have left the PGA Tour, to my knowledge, are still members of PGA of America. There’s a grace period involved there. I don’t know the specifics.”Alas, those grace-period specifics seem important! When asked for further explanation on Thursday, a PGA of America spokesperson replied to GOLF.com with this statement:“PGA of America membership is a requirement to be eligible to participate on the U.S. Ryder Cup Team. Under the PGA of America membership rules there are classifications that currently allow LIV Tour members to retain their PGA of America membership status. PGA TOUR members are considered A3 classification. Because the LIV players paid their membership dues before June 30, 2022, they will retain their membership through the end of June 2023 and then through a grace period that runs through the end of June 2024. After that, under our current rules, they may apply for PGA’s Reserve Member classification. A3 members who resigned or are no longer PGA TOUR Members (suspended) are still PGA of America members.”
OK, that's a curious hatch not bolted down, but still.... Alan Bastable actually frames his piece on the unsupported premise that Captain Zach Johnson will be watching the LIV event in Australia because, and do take a moment to appreciate the naivete, he thinks its Zach's job to watch and to select the twelve best players regardless of the tour on which they play. Heh! That's quite the good one...
If Johnson’s “no decisions have been made” response sounds like something you might hear from a hedging politician, that’s because he is indeed in a political quagmire. Johnson can’t come out with a full-throated endorsement of LIV players’ impressive form, lest he irritate his Ponte Vedra pals, but he also can’t dismiss LIV’s biggest talents, because, well, they’re talented, and Johnson’s duty is to construct the best, most cohesive team possible.
Really? Serious question, Alan, has anyone told you about Santa Claus? You might want to sit down for that one....
And he just goes blissfully on and on beclowning himself:
Further adding to his conundrum is that, if the kumbaya vibe of Masters Week was any indication, there doesn’t appear to be any deep-seeded (or at least insurmountable) animosity between the leading PGA Tour loyalists and their LIV counterparts, and any lingering bitterness that does exist might well further dissipate over time. This could mean that by the time we get to late summer, if, say, Justin Thomas or Jordan Spieth think it’s a good idea to bolster the U.S. squad with the likes of Brooks or DJ, their captain likely will be inclined to take that endorsement on board.On Wednesday, Johnson (Zach, not Dustin) said as much in terms of how he’ll approach the selection process.“I’m going to rely heavily on the guys that actually make the team because it’s their team,” he said. “So I don’t know who those six are going to be, obviously, but their ownership and their opinions will weigh heavily into what I, what we, decide to do.”
It is true that the quality of the U.S. players drops precipitously after that ninth (really tenth because the injured Will Zalatoris is somehow in the top ten), which will feed the rumor mill. But am I the only guy that understand that Jay Monahan will simply not allow any LIV players at the Ryder Cup?That would be like bugging out of Afghanistan and leaving behind billions of dollars i military hardware, and surely no one does that.
Next up, with LIV:
Has Greg [Norman] done such a good job forcing the Tour’s hand (with huge purses and incentives) that he’s essentially doomed his league from further growth since there’s a smaller incentive for any stars to leave??? @fakePOULTERThe final round at Harbour Town was the most-watched non-major golf telecast in five years. The top Tour players are raking in barrels of cash and have never been more aligned. As you say, there is almost no incentive to leave, unless LIV pushes its tournament purses to $40 million or $50 million and offers more nine-figure signing bonuses, which the bean-counters at the Public Investment Fund are suddenly loathe to do. The unknown is how long the PGA Tour can sustain this outlay of cash—it’s operating at maximum capacity right now. It can weather the departure of Dell and Honda, but how many more sponsors will be priced out? That’s a huge question that will get answered this fall with the release of 2024 schedule. But as Jay Monahan told me at Kapalua, it’s now product against product in this war of attrition. Even if LIV goes on a big spending spree this offseason, how much can change? Tiger moves the needle, as do Rory and Spieth. They’re not going anywhere. Rahm makes the needle twitch, maybe JT does a tiny bit. They’re entrenched with the Tour too, and no one else really matters. Even if LIV signed Morikawa and Cantlay and Schauffele and Burns—and there’s no indication any of them want to to jump or that LIV is willing to spend the $750 million it would take to sign all of them—would that encourage any PGA Tour honks to tune in? I doubt it. The battle lines have been drawn: Tour fans watch the Tour, LIV loyalists follow LIV (and do a lot of trolling on Twitter). I think your thesis is correct, but don’t give Norman the credit. Give it to Monahan and Woods and McIlroy, who reshaped the Tour on the fly.
Credit or blame, given how I detest that "reshaping". Alan has made this point previously and I think it's mostly right, that we've achieved an uncomfortable stasis, but one where the Tour's product remains viable but those so-called LIV loyalists still number in the high single digits.
On a related note, The LIVsters are in Oz and the shirtless one is sounding some conciliatory notes:
Norman doubled down on previous comments and claims that the rebranded LIV Golf League will be around for the long haul and that, despite ongoing legal struggles with both the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, that the entity financially backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund wants to “coexist within the golf ecosystem.”“I do hope there gets to a position where there is resolution to this, because the game of golf doesn’t need to suffer,” said Norman on Thursday at the Grange Golf Club, the site of his first professional win. “These guys don’t need to suffer.”
Please don't fret, you've done more than enough already...
“PGA Tour has got a great tour. We’re happy for them. I’m happy for them. I grew up on the PGA Tour. So did Cam. We grew up playing on the European Tour,” said Norman. “I hope they exist and keep existing, but it’s their choice of what they want to do, and if they want to keep putting up road blocks, we’re not going to go anywhere. We’ve got a great product. We’ve got investment dollars there today, investment dollars into the future that will continue to be there because of guys like this.”
And I'm sure that they're happy that you're happy for them....
“Because I’m the chairman and CEO of LIV Golf Investments, and that’s where I focus. I focus on golf. I stay focused on golf. My job is to build out LIV and the product we have on a global front,” said a perturbed Norman. “I’ve been involved with golf, like I said, as a player, as well as golf course design.“I’ve built some golf courses in third-world countries. I’ve built golf courses in Communist countries. Golf is a force for good,” he continued. “It goes everywhere with the right platform because it delivers the right message, from education to hospitality to employment to tourism. Everywhere you go, golf is a force for good.”
Golf may or may not be a force for good, but could we say the same about Saudi Arabia? Sure, unless you wanted your head to remain on your neck... These rantings remind me of a literary precedent:
Norman boasted that a number of players are still waiting to join LIV, but as for those who didn’t make the 2023 cut over the likes of Pieters, Pereira, Sebastian Munoz and Brendan Steele, those players may add depth to LIV’s 48-player fields, but wouldn’t move the needle.“There is an incredible amount of interest. We’re full,” said Norman. “Our goal is to build those franchise values out.”Norman and those at LIV truly believe in its franchise model and that its 12 teams can be profitable, so long as the league is given time to grow and establish its place in golf.
Specifically, this one:
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
― George Orwell, 1984
Although here I think he is spot-on:
“My legacy of what I’m doing with LIV will be my legacy,” added Norman, “because it’s the right thing to do.”
No quibble there, as you own the Wahabi apologist space.
Good news, kids, the Cantlay pile-on continues unabated. First Alan:
PGA Tour golf is now incredibly boring from a personality perspective now that all the heels went to LIV. Who are the new and emerging heels in the current Tour? #AskAlan@the_agrippaThe problem is none of them want the job! Cantlay has serious potential, but he’s too uptight corporate. Billy Horschel has the look and some heel-like tendencies, but deep down he aches to be loved. There’s not even another decent candidate. Sad.
But, since we brought up that terrific penis, a couple of items related thereto:
I'm not usually very interested in such things, but there's some actual candor and i does help frame the issue. But we start with Fitzy's comments:
On Tuesday, the winner of the RBC, Matt Fitzpatrick, weighed in. Though he didn’t cite Cantlay by name, Fitzpatrick lambasted the “truly appalling” pace of play on Tour. In an interview with Jamie Weir of Sky Sports, Fitzpatrick asserted, “If you’re in a three-ball, in my opinion you should be round in four hours, four-and-a-half absolute maximum — it’s a disgrace to get anywhere near that.”
The Englishman could teach a master class on being ready when it's your turn, but it's these comments that caught my eye:
“Like I said, being on the PAC [Player Advisory Committee] has been interesting because thetimes that it’s taken to play rounds has been pretty much the same for the last 10 or even longer years. So trying to speed it up, I’d be curious to know how they’d want to do that.“I played the last two tournaments, and my group hasn’t been warned at all. So we’ve been in position the entire time. I don’t know how you would want even the groups that I’ve been in to play faster when our groups are in position and can’t go faster because the group in front of us is right in front of us.”If that sounded like more buck-passing deflection, you’d be entitled to interpret Cantlay’s comments that way. But then Cantlay was asked a question that provided him less cover: Do you feel like you are a slow player, though?“Yeah, I’m definitely slower than average, have been my whole career,” he said. “I definitely take my time. And when I hit my ball on a bulkhead, I’m definitely going to take my time to make sure I make the right decision and try to get the ball back into the right spot.”
You see the issue, no? There's no will to tackle this issue and the players will take full advantage, because that's what they do..... Hard to blame them.
Of course, golf fans will draw their own conclusions:
This is getting out of control @patrick_cantlay ⏰ pic.twitter.com/xUrRehTRGd
— Beer At The Turn 🏌🏼♂️⛳️ (@tap_it_in_golf) April 17, 2023
While we're young, Patrick!
And before we move on from Fitzy:
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately: Is Matt Fitzpatrick much, much better than even the hardcore golf fans realize? @SamHick60072515Before Fitzpatrick won—checks notes—the U.S. Open, the answer was a resounding yes. I think the golf world has caught on to what a tenacious competitor he is and how the toughest setups favor his precise, calculating brand of golf. Even so, I understand what you’re getting at. Golf, life pretty much every sport, favors the big and strong. That the wee lad Fitzy is summiting the World Ranking is a testament to his big heart and tremendous skill set.
I think we're all wondering how good he is. Though he seems to be one of the few that has actually tried to get longer and has done so without devastating effects on the remainder of his game.
I didn't quibble with Alan when he noted the Harbor Town ratings above, though elsewhere he mentioned Dell and Honda, but didn't feel the need to connect those dots. On that loosely-defined thread:
Is it bad that I kinda miss the non-designated Harbour Town tournament that was super chill and a nice hangover remedy from the Masters? @MidwesternGatorNo, I felt that too! The elevated events impose a certain uniformity upon the tournaments, with basically the same fields and the same Tour-generated hype. I guess it’s a small price to pay for a world-class slate of players, but for sure the individual events are losing a little bit of their identity along the way.
I'm glad they got boffo ratings, but the week after the Masters seems an awkward spot for a big-time tour event. Wouldn't you say that Rory would agree with that?
The reactions to these designated events as been curious, with many noting that the Tour always had a two-class system. But it was one in which the sponsors competed with each other and events like Harbor Town found a way to make that post Masters date work for them and the community. It's the top-down approach that seems off-base, not least what they did to sponsor that had supported them for 42 years. You speak of the importance of partnerships, Jay, and then you publicly screw you longest tenured partner....
And Zurich did the same, but let's not go overboard:
Will the Zurich ever be ‘elevated’? @justapedn_cobI hope so! It would be so fun to get more heavyweight teams. The key part of your question is “the Zurich”—that banking conglomerate has been a stalwart for the Tour and the elevated events are going to have to be spread around to keep the sponsors happy. So the answer is yes, it’s just a matter of when.
I'm not sure as a team event that it can be, but I'm pretty sure after this it never should be:
What do you make of the Daly-Duval team? Any chance to be entertaining?@gsmitterEntertaining? Hell, yeah! Competitive? Eh, seems unlikely. If they don’t mic up that group it will be a monumental missed opportunity, with Duval’s learned thoughts mixed with Long John’s down-home musings.
John Daly is a public disgrace, but i seem to be the only one that remembers the content of his Tour disciplinary file.
I mentioned Rory above, and we have atwofer:
Should we all not just give Rory a break after all he has done for the Tour the last year plus? Compare his absence to a corporate job: You don’t have the right to know when someone takes personal leave. @OTownPaulyIt’s true, McIlroy could have had a sick kid or a minor injury or any number of valid reasons not to show up. The problem was the lack of information and context from both McIlroy and the Tour. Where your analogy breaks down is that no one buys a ticket or a corporate suite to watch an accountant tally numbers, but McIlroy’s supposedly guaranteed presence surely created a lot of excitement around Hilton Head in the run-up to the tournament. Jon Rahm’s admirable my-word-is-my-bond stance didn’t help Rory’s cause either. No doubt McIlroy has taken on a heavy burden over the last year as the spokesman for the Tour, and the strain is showing. I don’t have strong feelings about McIlroy’s WD, but it wasn’t a good look for one of the architects of the new schedule to suddenly go missing.
I don't have anything more to add, other than they're all a bunch of mental midgets. But the funniest part is still to come, expecting all of these guys to drag their butts from LACC to Hartford the week after the U.S. Open. Who thought that a good idea?
But your humble blogger was ahead of the curve on this one:
True or false: What Rory needs most right now is to say a polite “thanks but we’re all done here” to Harry Diamond and ask nicely to indefinitely borrow Joe LaCava from TW? I feel like a senior presence on the bag would have to free him up a little, yeah? #AskAlan@luke_peacockRory has never wanted that—his previous caddie, J.P. Fitzgerald, was not exactly an activist. Would it really change anything? Bones Mackay had all the numbers and all the angles and the confidence to speak up in any situation, but Phil Mickelson pretty much ignored everything he said and did it his way. Rory is just as headstrong, and I think he would play exactly the same way whoever is on the bag—a meddling, overbearing caddie would just be an annoyance. All that said, if McIlroy goes oh-fer the coming major championships and heads into next year a decade removed from his last Grand Slam win, maybe he will be desperate enough to shake things up, just for the sake of change. LaCava is a good call; a soothing veteran presence who would at least be a different voice in McIlroy’s head.
Yes, Rory has never wanted that, which of course is silent on the question of whether Rory needs that.... Perhaps it all comes down to deciding how badly he wants that Masters....
My own personal belief has always been that there isn't a player more in need of an assertive caddie than Rory, yet his default to comfort tells us so much about him. We've seen Scottie grab Ted Scott and Cameron Young get hooked up with Paul Tesori, but Rors continues to hang wit his childhood bestie.... It should probably tell us all we need to know.
Admittedly, Alan is uniquely positioned to field this one:
Has there ever been a player of Spieth’s caliber who’s hit so many loose shots? And despite winning the Open in 2017, are the ghosts of Augusta still haunting him from his 2016 collapse? Harbour Town was his for the taking and he let it slip way.@opinionsvary328Ummmmmmm, Phil? There is no question Spieth has a lot of scar tissue and the ’16 Masters is his Winged Foot. Mickelson needed four years to get over that debacle, while Spieth’s bounce-back came much quicker. But clearly Jordan is always going to be a cat on a hot tin roof. All the tournaments he boots away will just make it more joyous when he closes one out.
The questioner is obviously on to something, as Jordan sees quite a bit of the world. Though, to be fair, Jordan's ball-striking numbers have improved substantially in recent years, so perhaps we should keep an open mind here.
I agree this was a great story, and I've been remiss in not reading that profile of Levin:
Alan, don’t forget to talk a bit about Spencer Levin coming through Monday qualifying to fire a final-round 63 to win the Veritex Bank Championship on the Korn Ferry Tour. A touch of the iconoclastic in the face of a slate of carbon copy bro dudes sure feels good. @caknox1A touch?! Levin is an all-time character. The outpouring that followed his win was touching and inspiring. What a journey that guy has been on—too good to quit but never quite able to make it in the big leagues. Maybe middle age and fatherhood will mellow out Levin just enough to let his manifold talent flourish.
I'll admit that our (my?) LIV obsession does sometimes preclude other more interesting stories.... But do you, like me, have a rather obvious question about Levin? For my non-Jewish readers the go to source for such issues is jewornotjew.com:
Dear Jewish golf fans,
Let it go. The odds of a Jewish golf champ are pretty darn low. Levin (sorry to get your hopes up) is not a Jew. The last name comes from a line of goyishe Swedes.
So what are you to do, Jewish golf fans?
Root for Daniel Berger and Max Homa?
But why do they think there are no Jewish golf fans? Do they know we have our own golf clubs and everything, or do they still think we're only allowed to be menylenders?
See you all on Monday.
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