Weekend Wrap - Post-Wedding Hangover Edition

Just a few brief items as we recover from the holiday weekend and family wedding.  

We'll take things easy for the next week or so, before we gear up for Pinehurst.  Although there's mush of interest in the coming week, including the Women's U.S. Open and, for today and tomorrow, the Men's NCAA Championship team match-play bracket.

Colonial - These non-signature events are shells of their former selves, and I didn't watch a single shot in the four days.  Here's Dylan Dethier's take from his Monday Finish column:

As I tried to make sense of Davis Riley‘s Sunday steamroll over the rest of a talented PGA Tour field, one detail stood out: He’d recently reunited with his former swing coach Jeff Smith.

“We haven’t re-invented the wheel or done anything different,” Riley said after a Friday 64. “I feel like I’m in a good head space and comfortable there and I feel like simplicity has been the key for me.”

Riley made things look simple on the weekend, particularly on Sunday; while most of his competition struggled with gusty conditions and a firm golf course, the talented Alabama grad plotted his way through a challenging golf course, making a birdie for every bogey and cruising to a five-shot victory.

What’s interesting about Riley returning to an old coach and finding success? The fact that we’ve recently heard other top pros say the same thing.

There's been a gaggle of similar stories, including Viktor Hovland, Collin Morikawa and even Rory visiting Butch Harmon, only making us wonder about their leaving these coaches in the first place.

It was quite the diluted field, even if the guy in the final group with Riley was no slouch (a criminal, perhaps, at least in the State of Kentucky.  But the talent pool is so deep that guys like this can come out of nowhere.

Louisville - Public officials beclowning themselves are now dog-bites-man stories, but are there no adults in Louisville?  The Tour Confidential gang doesn't have too much to add:

1. More news has come out in the days after Scottie Scheffler’s PGA arrest, as the Louisville Metro Police Department continues to investigate the incident and the protocols of the officers involved. What’s mostly circulated since, however, have been two partial videos of the incident. What did you learn from them?

Jonathan Wall: Honestly, not very much. The video footage was captured from poor locations

where it’s difficult to confirm if Louisville Metro Police detective Bryan Gillis was truly “dragged” and injured by Scheffler’s vehicle. Throw in that Gillis’ body camera wasn’t activated — which violates LMPD policy — and you have a highly questionable case at best. The footage doesn’t strengthen the department’s case at all. If anything, it increases the possibility that the four charges against Scheffler will be dropped.

Zephyr Melton: The video — while grainy and largely unclear — seemed to corroborate Scottie’s side of the story. It didn’t appear that he “dragged” Officer Gillis, and it looked like Scottie stopped his vehicle as soon as he was approached turning into the parking lot.

Dylan Dethier: I’ve parsed through the video footage and I’ve read the case file and I’ve thought plenty about this and the only thing I can come back to is this: What on earth are we doing here?!

We know Scheffler was waved through to the entrance, just like several of his peers. We know Officer Gillis tried to stop him. We know some sort of misunderstanding ensued. And we know it was a chaotic morning with heightened emotions. Why we’re spending any more time, energy or resources on this is beyond me.

More substantively, Shane Ryan interviews local attorney David Barber, who had this take on the new videos:

Golf Digest: Let's start with the new video footage released Thursday. What are you're seeing there?

Barber: Let's go to the dash cam video, just before 6:01 a.m. (time-stamped here), you'll notice a guy in the upper left corner who's waving his arm. He comes from behind the bus, you see him move to the left. This is like watching the Zapruder film or something. He's waving, and you interpret that immediately as he's waving somebody on. Right after that, you see headlights going to the other side of the bus, and that turns out to be Scottie’s [car]. Then [the car] comes around the front of the bus and into Valhalla, and that's where they stop him. The bus blocks everything that happens with [arresting officer Bryan] Gillis. That’s when you see him run up to the car in the pole cam [video], so whatever happens there is invisible. There's at least no video proof of him getting dragged on the ground. But that other officer waving the car through is important because it fits with the story that Romines has been saying, that Scottie was following directions. The video seems to bear that out.

It's also interesting that the crime scene from earlier is further down the road, and there's no westbound traffic at all that we can see. So the idea that Scheffler drove through a crime scene, or that he drove into oncoming traffic, which is misinformation that was out there, just isn't true. You can see that from the pole cam.

The other thing is that while the pole cam doesn't have audio, the dash cam should, and it's kind of odd that with all those cameras around there, all those cars, it looks like somebody edited that to take off the audio. Normally on a dash cam, you're going to hear all the radio traffic as well as any audio inside the vehicle, and you'd think that would be very interesting here. And what about body-cam footage from other officers?

 I assume that when the case goes to trial that Stormy Daniels will be on the witness list.

Riyadh - We're approaching a bog anniversary, but chaos rules.  It's unclear what will happen, but also unclear what the decision-makers want to happen.  The TC gang had this:

3. Jordan Spieth, a PGA Tour Policy Board member, doubled down on his claim that talks between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf are not in a bad place, calling rumors saying otherwise a false narrative. Yet this came just days after the latest board member, independent director Mark Flaherty, stepped down from the board (six days after Jimmy Dunne resigned). Which spin are you buying?

Wall: I’m not buying anything Spieth is selling. The Tour’s Policy Board is in damage control after Dunne and Flaherty stepped down from their Tour posts. Do you expect anyone to admit

talks are on life support? Of course not. But there’s no question smoke is emanating from Tour headquarters.

Melton: I’m not sure what narrative I buy, but I do know that losing two board members in six days isn’t exactly encouraging news. I’m not optimistic that a deal gets done at this point.

Dethier: What indications do we have that a deal is close? Rory McIlroy said there’s been no progress made. Tiger Woods said there’s a long way to go and that the situation is fluid. Jimmy Dunne was so frustrated with the lack of progress that he stepped down from the board. My best guess is that Spieth is okay with where things are because he’s okay with not getting a deal done in the immediate future. Here’s what I’m buying: Nobody knows what’s going to happen. In the event of some sort of reconciliation between tours, nobody knows what would happen to LIV. And without some sort of reconciliation, what’s the point of any of this? So Spieth and his peers are focused on not making a bad deal. They may secure a PIF investment for the PGA Tour without meaningful change in the professional golf landscape. But if I’m a golf fan rooting for LIV stars to return to the PGA Tour by the end of the season, I’m not holding my breath.

It appears from the outside that Cantlay, Tiger and Jordan are united in obstructing a deal with the PIF, and that Dunne and Flaherty left because of that impediment.  There's no doubt that Cantlay would prefer the current state of play, he gest Saudi level compensation without the moral ramifications (or actually having to play well).   The question is whether it's sustainable.

Dylan Dethier had these thoughts:

ONE BIG QUESTION

Will we have any PIF-PGA Tour clarity by June 6th?

The one-year anniversary of the framework agreement fast approaches. So … now what?

We discussed this in Tour Confidential, too, but what indications do we have that a deal is close? Rory McIlroy said there’s been no progress made. Tiger Woods said there’s a long way to go and that the situation is fluid. Jimmy Dunne was so frustrated with the lack of progress that he stepped down from the board. Mark Flaherty stepped down, too. Jordan Spieth called stories of stalled talks a “false narrative,” which may be true, but Spieth also said earlier this year that he’s okay if a deal doesn’t get done right away. Immediacy does not seem to be a priority.

So is a deal close? It doesn’t seem like it. What seems more likely is that nobody knows what’s going to happen. In the event of some sort of reconciliation between tours, it’s still up in the air about what would happen to LIV. And without some sort of reconciliation, what’s the point of any of this? In the meantime, Spieth and his peers are focused on not making a bad deal. That’s priority No. 1: not ceding control to an unpredictable investor. Maybe there’s an in-between stopgap solution here where they secure a PIF investment for the PGA Tour without meaningful change in the professional golf landscape. But if I’m a golf fan rooting for LIV stars to return to the PGA Tour by the end of this season or next? I’m not holding my breath.

Control?  Funny how, when they announced the pending deal with the Saudi's, they were quite disingenuous in denying that the Saudis would seek control in return for their billions.  I was reliably informed that they would fund the Tour out of the goodness of their hearts....

No one exactly knows how to collapse LIV and satisfy the competing demands, so there's an inertia to the current impasse.  The problem is that they have to be blowing through the private equity money like a sailor on leave, and there's little stopping Yasir from additional poaching, although Rahm doesn't seem especially happy with his decision.

But it doesn't feel like a deal can happen in the current environment.

Grayson - No illusions that I have much to add to this profoundly sad story.  Dylan had this, including a link to a touching Gary Williams reflection:

REFLECTIONS ON GRAYSON MURRAY

Gone too soon.

It was touching to read and hear tributes after the tragic loss of Grayson Murray, who died Saturday at the age of 30. A statement from his family confirmed that Murray had taken his own life. “Life wasn’t always easy for Grayson,” the statement read. “We know he rests peacefully now.”

I’ve been struggling to wrap my head around of Murray’s sudden loss and it was clear his peers were, too; from Scheffler to Bradley to Webb Simpson and more they described the eeriness of seeing him one day and knowing he was gone the next, while his name still sat on a placard in the locker room and on the bottom of the leaderboard. There’s no making sense of it, not really. But the best thing I read this weekend was a powerful essay by Gary Williams, who reflects on his own journey with alcoholism, his bond with Murray and the dangerous powers of addiction — cunning, baffling, powerful — that always lurk.

You can read that here.

I've blogged some of Grayson's difficulties, including a story from a few years ago when he thought it easier to qualify for the PGA Tour through the European Tour.  Unfortunately, he expressed this opinion by attacking a fellow professional who had qualified through the European Tour, so that wasn't going to end well.  My tragically prescient sense was that Grayson's struggles didn't seem a good fit for the lonely, challenging life of a touring professional.  It's really hard and lonely out there, and I just had the feeling that Grayson would have been better served in a more normal environment.

But there's a link to the above anniversary story, as it was Grayson that confronted Rory at the Canadian Open the week of June 6th.  When Rory tried to dismiss Grayson's (and really, the entire rank and file) concerns about the field size at those money grabs, Rory gave him a dismissive "Play better!"  That triggered the most justified "Eff You" in recorded golf history, so thank you for that, Grayson.

R.I.P.

Sorry to leave you on a downer, but I'll catch you later in the week,