Weekend Wrap - Irish Eyes Are Smiling Edition

It'll finally start warming up today, though that's not what has the aforementioned Irish eyes smiling....

Team Golf, U.S. Edition - I did actually watch some of the finish later on tape, and it was quite the hot mess.  That said, no doubt a popular win:

Over the first four months of the 2024 season, commentators have lamented the lack of big-name winners on the PGA Tour.

On Sunday at TPC Louisiana, though, the opposite occurred as the two brightest stars in a low-wattage field claimed victory at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.

Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry. You’ve heard of them, right?

With a ho-hum par on the first playoff hole, they took the title over Martin Trainer and Chad Ramey, who had been waiting around for nearly three hours to see if the 63 they’d teamed up to shoot would be good enough for sudden death.

“Absolutely amazing, ” McIlroy said. “The crowds all week have been absolutely amazing. To get the support we’ve had out there and to have so much fun while doing it, it’s been an awesome week, and obviously I feel like it’s just a bonus to win in the end.”

Is irony covered in the Golf Magazine Style Book?  Because the absence of big-name winners has been most notable in events rigged to ensure that the alpha dogs win, simply by excluding those players that could disrupt the narrative.  Yet, despite the Tour's efforts to control that narrative, the best finishes of the year have come in full-field events, here and at Sawgrass as examples.

Winning is good, though the bigger surprise is that they even played the event, because if you know any of the other players that will be mentioned, you should probably think about getting out of the house more often.  Or perhaps give the UFL a look...

The Zurich and NOLA folks have made lemonade, taking a moribund Tour stop and creating something a little different from the week-to-week dreariness of 72-hole stroke-play events, the buried lede being how the calcification of the Tour (largely FedEx Cup driven) almost precluded the team event.  It works at a certain level, especially on those days they play alternate shot (those -11 fourball scores render those days as putting contests).

Having pulled off that minor miracle, they are then totally undermined by that Tour to whom they commit tens of millions of dollars.  As a team event, the are not a candidate for Signature Event status, rendering them about as irrelevant as a Tour stop could be.  Just look at the rest of that leaderboard, no surprise with the event placed in the week after The Masters and an actual Signature Event, so we'll see how long Zurich stays in the fold.

The downer is the train wrecks, of which we had many.  These guys seemed to have things in hand, right up until they didn't:

After hanging tough on the front nine, Blair and Fishburn made double-bogeys on both par-3s on the back side to dash their chances. Other contenders either stalled or fell back.

These guys are so damn good that it takes an impossible format such as alternate shot to create any interest, as per my diss of the fourball above.  I didn't see their first double, but the one on No. 17 was hard to watch for sure.

But it's these two guys I feel so bad for:

The exceptions were Trainer and Ramey, who fired an early-day 63, an alternate-shot course record at the Zurich, to claim the clubhouse lead at 25-under, and then were forced to play the waiting game.

Obviously this is not a difficult golf course by Tour standards, but a 63 in alternate shot is simply insane.  But the reward was a three-hour wait:

Nearly three hours later, after Mcllroy bombed a drive to set up a closing birdie for his team on the par 5 18th, the playoff began on the same hole.

It was over almost as soon as it started, as Ramey and Trainer scuffed their way toward bogey with a sequence of pulled shots and a flubbed chip, and McIlroy and Lowry made routine par.

The guy I felt really bad for was Martin Treanor, who hit three of the worst golf shots you'll ever see from a Tour pro on that one playoff hole.  He pulled his drive some forty yards left of his target, but given that he actually got the clubface on the ball it was by far the best of his three shots on the hole.

I get that it's the yin and the yang of our game and they came from way off the pace (they were the second group out on Sunday), but waiting around for three hours had to feel surreal.

This was the extent of the Tour Confidential coverage, a pretty silly question that would potentially undermine the only thing this event now has going for it:

4. Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry won the Zurich Classic, beating Chad Ramey and Martin Trainer on the first playoff hole. McIlroy and Lowry, who decided to play the event on a whim, entered the week with 26 combined PGA Tour wins and five major titles, while Ramey and Trainer had won just once each. At the Zurich, qualified pros can pick any partner as long as they are a PGA Tour member. Does this straightforward format of coming up with teams make the Zurich imperfect, or perfect?

Berhow: At first glance it seems imperfect, as you might assume the powerhouse teams always win when you can just pick your partner and guys like Rory and Shane can team up, but that hasn’t been the case. Sure, Cantlay and Xander enter every year, but they have only won once. Ryan Palmer asked Jon Rahm to play once and they won in 2019 — smart move by Palmer — but you also have a tournament like last year, when Nick Hardy and Davis Riley won. Even Cam Smith won twice before he really became Cam Smith. In short, these guys are all good, and they can all win on any given week, especially with a unique format like this that tests your strategy and teamwork. So I’m going to call it perfect.

Marksbury: Great point, Josh. I’m torn on this one. As fun as it is to see Tour buddies chumming it up, I can’t help but think a blind draw could really spice things up. To your point, all these guys are good. Some unexpected pairings — for the players, and the viewers! — would be really fun.

Sens: I like it. It allows for some entertaining twists, including brothers (the Hojgaards) playing together, and senior citizens like Russ Cochran getting in as the father of his partner’s caddie. You wouldn’t want this kind of thing week in and week out. But it’s a fun break from the same old, as is the four-ball, foursomes format.

I think we can all agree that nothing on Tour is perfect these days, so quite the sill framing of a reasonable subject.

We had our opening day event on Saturday at Fairview, and they used the software to provide blind draws of A-B-C-D players, so I think we should do the same here.  Kidding, as quite obviously Rory ain't playing to be paired with a generic Tour pro, so that would be the way to make this event's dreadful field even dreadfullier.   

Adelaide's Lament - Any musical theater fans out there?  Just checking so see who susses out my obscure references.  I have exactly zero interest in the LIV event in Australia, except to acknowledge one undeniable fact, to wit, that folks turn out for them in golf-starved Adelaide.  That said, not sure I'll buy what's being sold here:

LIV Golf Adelaide proves fan-first philosophy can work no matter who ends up winning

How can we get the best players in the world together more often? It’s a phrased that’s been muttered in golf circles for much of the past two-and-a-half-years.

While well-intended, that sentiment ignored the fact golf is a game of opposites. To hit the ball

high, a golfer needs to hit down steeply. To curve the ball left, the swing path needs to sling out to the right. To create interest in those who play golf, the solution rests with those who watch it. All this time, the game should’ve been wondering how to get the best fans in the world together more often.

The answer is simple: put the fans first and work backward from there. That is evident at the Ryder Cup every two years, and the Masters every year. It is also, on a smaller scale, what LIV Golf tapped into with its successful Adelaide event last week. In Australia, the start-up league did not uncover some secret recipe. Rather, it just reminded the game what the Masters and the Ryder Cup already knew—fans are the most important ingredient.

The second edition of LIV Golf Adelaide benefitted from that approach in two ways: firstly, the tournament didn’t suffer when its biggest stars failed to reel in Brendan Steele, who fired a 68 and at 18 under par (198) earned a one-shot win over former Open champion Louis Oosthuizen. Secondly, LIV’s first team playoff was played in front of a raucous crowd.

The success of their Australian event is entirely the result of the Australian crowd's reverence for the raw animal magnetism of....Brendon  Steele.

It's some pretty tortured logic when you're searching for connective tissue to two events, the Masters and Ryder Cup, the bear absolutely no resemblance to each other.  What Adelaide most reminds of is Phoenix, such as with this:

Caddie hit in head by water bottle on party hole at LIV Adelaide

To his credit, author Evin Priest doesn't buy the "Get the best players in the world together" nonsense, though to his discredit he fails to connect the dots.  That misdirection was only utilized by the PGA Tour to create a diversion as they dramatically cut the field sizes at the Money Grabs so that Patrick Cantlay could make his rent.

Remember the possibly apocryphal comment about The Wasted, in which a ditzy blonde reportedly noted, "I love the phoenix Open.  I go every night."  I'm guessing that's mostly what's going on here, buttressed by the presence of home town hero Cam Smith in the field.

Can you feel the game growing?  I'll give you a minute to stop laughing....

Other LIV bits -  This gets interesting:

Jon Rahm and other LIV golfers can play for Europe in the 2025 Ryder Cup … with conditions

“If we look at the eligibility criteria for 2023, I think there has been a slight misconception,” said Guy Kinnings, the newly minted DP World Tour chief executive, when sitting down for an

interview on Thursday. “The reality is that, under the current system, if a player is European and is a member of the DP World Tour and abides by the rules in place, he is eligible.”

A closer look at those directives shows that, every time a DP World Tour member like Rahm or Englishman Tyrrell Hatton plays in a LIV event without obtaining a release from Kinnings, he is subject to sanctions. While each breach is taken on “a case-by-case basis,” that typically means a suspension from the DP World Tour and an undisclosed financial penalty.

“If you don’t get a release there are sanctions, so a player must accept those sanctions,” Kinnings said. “And if he accepts the penalties, there is no reason why a player who has taken LIV membership and maintained his DP World Tour membership could not a) qualify or b) be available for Ryder Cup selection.

“It requires a player to work within the rules, but the truth is that those rules have been looked and tested. Everything is done in a fair, reasonable and proportionate way. So there is no reason why anything needs to change. It is wrong to think Jon Rahm has written himself out of the Ryder Cup. People instantly thought we would have to change the rules. But actually we don’t. If Jon follows the procedures in place, there is no reason why he would not be eligible for the 2025 Ryder Cup.”

If you're confused, sanctions means paying the fines, the question being what kind of fines.  There was a similar discussion about Sergio before the 2023 Ryder Cup, to the effect that had he paid his fines of approximately $1 million, he might have been eligible.  I've no doubt that Rahm wants to be at Bethpage, but is he willing to write a seven-figure check to do so?

The other issue is that they'll need to play in Euro events, adding plus or minus four events to their schedules.  Rahm specifically has played enough weeks to make that doable, the complication factor perhaps being the far-flung locations of the LIV events.

The TC panel had this:

2. Speaking of the Ryder Cup, DP World Tour CEO Guy Kinnings met with the media last week and reiterated that European players who bolted to LIV — like Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton — can still qualify for the 2025 Ryder Cup as long as they play enough events to qualify for league membership before being selected. You can learn more about it here, but in short it means these players have a path, although it requires some effort and more DP World Tour starts during LIV Golf’s off-weeks. What are the chances Rahm, Hatton and other Ryder Cup hopefuls go this route?

Berhow: We’ll know soon enough, when one of those potential windows opens and we’ll see if any of those players enter. I think they will, especially Rahm. It’s a little extra work and travel, sure, but these guys don’t play in the middle row of a discount airline. This would be good for the Ryder Cup, too. Specifically referring to Rahm and Hatton, they bring a ton of fire to the event.

Marksbury: I can’t imagine why any European LIV player who wants to be a part of the Ryder Cup wouldn’t take this opportunity. Yeah, it’s a bit of a time and travel commitment, but it’s also additional reps for the players in full-field tournaments, not to mention a potential high-profile boost for the existing field. Seems like a win-win.

Sens: Sure, it takes some effort. But as Josh says, it’s hardly the heaviest of lifts. We will see both Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton on the European team in 2025. Bank it. The powers that be have made it relatively easy for them without having to lose too much face. And since Rahm and Hatton have both made it clear how much they love the event, it’s hard to see them not taking advantage of the window.

Effort?  Is it too much to expect that golf writers will know something about the game?  Yes, the effort is a factor, but none of the three seem to understand that large checks will have to be written, which I suspect is the bigger uncertainty.

We covered Greg Norman's recent comments about expanding to 72 holes, though no word on the rebranding that would entail.  Now we have further trial balloons such as this:

‘Home-team’ events, night golf and satisfying hungry golf fans: LIV Golf has novel future plans

They are so damn happy with their tour that they'll change anything and everything.... The whole PGA-LIV debacle is quite the hot mess, and the damage to the PGA Tour is undeniable.  But let's not lose sight of the fact that LIV itself is an even hotter mess.  We get lots of these pieces tied to the Adelaide event, but just reminder that LIV hasn't created excitement anywhere but Adelaide.

Other Bits - A couple of quick, low-impact bits that will provide some content for my loyal readers, but not require me to break a sweat.  First, the lede bit from the TC gang:

1. As GOLF’s Sean Zak wrote last week, the PGA of America is about three months behind its usual schedule of announcing the next U.S. Ryder Cup captain. Any reason there might be a holdup, and do you anticipate the announcement coming at the PGA Championship in a couple of weeks? And, lastly, any chance it’s anybody but Tiger Woods?

Josh Berhow: I would assume the captain has been picked by now — or knows it’s about to

become official — so he’s had the ability to start looking ahead to Bethpage. That said, if that’s not the case, then I have no clue what’s going on. But from everything you read and hear it’s Tiger’s job if he wants it; although that could also be a part of the delay. Is he deciding if he wants the gig? You know he’d rather play, but being a captain in Ireland (in 2027) might not be as fun as a home game. And sitting out until 2029 at Hazeltine is a long wait.

Jessica Marksbury: I like that take, Josh. The delay must have something to do with Tiger, and a looming decision one way or the other. Maybe he doesn’t want the gig, and now there’s a mad scramble to find a replacement. He does seem to have a lot going on in the coming months and years, with the PGA Tour policy board, TGL launch, and oh yeah, his own competitive schedule. A captaincy is a lot to take on, let alone a home game at Bethpage, of all places. But the PGA Championship is certainly a perfect time to amplify whatever decision is made.

Josh Sens: I agree that the lag is most likely on account of waiting for Tiger, the Hamlet of the PGA Tour. The man takes his time with his decisions. But I’d be shocked if he doesn’t take the job. A perfect man for the role, and he can take a cart!

I get that most of the golf world thinks the man walks on water, but I find him to be a complete d**k at times like this.  Loo at what's been done for him just lately, the PIP program, the $100 million equity grant and being elevated to Player Director without a termination date, but he doesn't know if he can spare three days in September 2025?  

Sure, he might lose some time with his video games, but what is he supposed to be so busy with?  He is going to be the Ryder Cup captain, although I almost wish he would say no, just so others might consider who this guy really is.

As for those equity grants:

3. In an effort to reward pros who stayed loyal to the PGA Tour and didn’t leave for LIV Golf, the newly formed PGA Tour Enterprises created a Player Equity Program to compensate its membership in aggregate equity. Emails were sent out last week, informing some of the 193 eligible players how much they would receive out of the $930 million (although $750 million would go to a group of 36 players; learn more about the breakdown here). While these numbers were not made public, The Telegraph reported Tiger was set to receive $100 million in equity, and McIlroy as much as $50 million. Is this enough to make the stars happy?

Berhow: Probably. But let’s just hope these two sides get a deal done sooner rather than later. The sport needs it, not more news about rich golfers making more millions cause they might have turned down a previous offer to become richer.

Marksbury: I’m not sure that many Tour players initially stayed because they expected some kind of future equity payment as compensation, but for the players who did end up receiving a check, I’m sure it’s very welcome. Still, for players like Tiger and Rory, I imagine it’s far, far less than what they would have commanded from LIV. The players who stayed did so for reasons other than money, I think.

Sens: I dunno. Clearly, for some people, no amount of money is enough. I figure these guys are probably satisfied with this particular exchange. The more important question in the long run is, how happy are fans with the product the pro game is putting out? Maybe they should dole out some ‘loyalty’ money to folks at home to ensure that they keep tuning in.

I need a volunteer to inform the embarrassing Jess Marksbury that the guys did not get checks.   Overvalued equity is a completely different thing than cash, something that maybe somebody at Golf Magazine should understand.

The question is how will the players interpret the piece of paper they get?  Because we have no understanding as to how or why this will convert into cash, and my personal experience with things like ESOPs is that often you don't get much bang for your buck when the grant isn't in coin of the realm.

But I can't stop laughing at how clueless these folks are, and how they're allowed to put on public display.  I don't expect golf writers to understand high finance, you'd just think that Golf Magazine would employ someone that does.

I'm going to leave you here.  Have a great week and we'll pick things up as the week unfolds.