The PGA Tour model of $20 million signature events with short fields — 72 players at Muirfield Village, but at least this tournament has a cut — required them to be bunched together to give a dozen or so players a chance to qualify.The Memorial was named that for a reason — it's typically around Memorial Day — and it traditionally falls two weeks before the U.S. Open. Now it's the week before, with another signature event on the other side of a major.Nicklaus would like to see it moved back. Asked if there could be a conversation with the PGA Tour after this week, Nicklaus replied, “The discussion is in progress.”
Ya got that? They tell us that only these eight events matter, then they can't even space them out logically on the schedule. What I don't understand is why Jack didn't tell Jay where he could stick his pre-Open date....
Geoff succinctly explainssuccinctly explains how it's all gone pear-shaped:
Meanwhile, what should be one of the biggest non-majors of the year arrives with The Memorial essentially serving as a limited-field U.S. Open tune-up. Worse, America’s national championship is again arriving too soon after May’s PGA Championship only to serve the needs of two lightly-watched inconveniences called the FedExCup and Olympic golf.
Hard to understand why no one is watching....
Jack had a couple of other interesting comments, first about Pinehurst:
Jack Nicklaus on Pinehurst No. 2. “It's a tree-lined golf course without a tree in play. It's the epitome of repelling golf. Donald Ross liked repelling golf, that's quite obvious, because everything there, if you miss it, it, off it goes. I love Pinehurst. I think what -- the pictures I've seen of it lately look better. I think it looked terrible the last time they played there because they just started planting that rough and it was all big clumpy, ugly plants. Basically it looks to me like they got it back down into the wire grasses.”
OK, Jack, but I'm not sure I've ever seen a golf course that repels more than Dove Mountain, so maybe your architectural criticisms should be limited to the dinner table. As I recall from 2014, they removed all the hideous rough and replaced it with waster areas featuring wire plants, so is he thinking back to 2005?
The only man to speak fondly of those dreadful Open set-ups:
Nicklaus on U.S. Open setups. “I used to like the course setups the way the USGA did, where you had 25-yard fairways or whatever you had, and you had, you know, three, four inches of rough, and then you had high rough. But, by gosh, there was no mistake, you either hit it in the fairway or you hit it -- or you struggled. I liked that. I like greens just like this [indicating table firmness], where you got to send the ball up in the air and bring it down like as they say, a butterfly with sore feet, you know, you got to be able to play that way. That's what I enjoyed. But you know why I enjoyed it? Because I could do it. And when you could do something that somebody else couldn't do, then you enjoy competing on that type of a situation. That's competition.”
So, competition involves doing something only you can do? Noted.
It still beats our current crew, for whom competition involves endorsing checks....
And just for amusement, this header:
Memorial Tournament 2024 picks: Jordan Spieth's 'concerning' range session has our PGA pro betting against him
Had you actually seen Jordan Spieth playing real golf, a range session would be the least of your worries.... There's still some time, but I've been speculating that we could see a Prez Cup in September without either Jordan or JT.
Is Anyone There? - Shack does a deep dive on the U.S. Women's Open ratings, and it's not for the faint of heart:
With last year’s U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach airing in prime time, ratings were expected to drop. And they did.
- This mirrored the RBC Canadian Open’s drop on CBS that aired at the same time as the women. SMW reports that the final round drew “2.02 million on CBS, down 37% and 39% respectively from last year (2.0, 3.30M) and the lowest rated and least-watched final round of the tournament in at least a decade.” Last year the Canadian was played a week later than 2024’s edition won by Robert MacIntyre.
- Saturday’s third round from Lancaster drew a 0.54 and 825,000 average on NBC, down 22% and 24% respectively from 2023 (0.69, 1.08M). Notably, it was not competing with the Canadian on Saturday, which aired later so CBS could show the UCL final live (0.6/1.14 avg.)
- Thursday’s opening round of the U.S. Women’s Open drew 151,000 on USA, down 59% from last year when it averaged 364,000 at Pebble Beach. The Canadian Open first round drew an equally paltry 209k average in a three-hour time window compared to six for the women.
Perhaps they weren't competing with the PGA on Saturday, but mostly because they came on the air earlier than anyone knew to look for them.
It was obviously going to be tough sledding for the ladies, with all their mononyms wiped out on Thursday, but those ratings for the men aren't any better.
Sometimes the dogs just won't eat the food, no matter how often they're told it's good for them....
Criminals On Tour - Still hard to believe this actually happened, Scottie is moving forward:
Scottie Scheffler isn’t perfect, at least not outside the ropes. He makes mistakes just like the rest of us. A speeding ticket here, a parking violation there. But 19 days after his shocking arrest outside the gates of the PGA Championship, the world’s top-ranked male golfer is still trying to come to terms with how he ended up in handcuffs in the back of a police cruiser and later taken to a Louisville jail where he was booked with four charges, including assault of a police officer.“I think that’s part of the recovery process from the whole scenario, is your brain tries to figure out how this happened,” Scheffler said Tuesday from the Memorial Tournament, in his first extensive remarks about his arrest since PGA Championship week. “I will probably never figure out why or how this happened.”Indeed, even two-plus weeks later, that gloomy Friday morning still feels so surreal: the shackles; the plea for help as he was led to a police car; the jail-cell stretching routine; the return to Valhalla, where, with a felony charge hanging over him, he carded a second-round four-under 66. Aaron Sorkin couldn’t have conjured such a script.
Still can't quite believe they threw him in handcuffs....
Scheffler seems a genuine guy, but if only we3 could say the same about the Louisville Police Department:
“When the charges are dropped, that’s kind of only the beginning of kind of getting past it, if that makes sense,” Scheffler said Tuesday. “So kind of operating through that now. It was definitely a bit of a relief, but not total relief because that’s something that will always, I think, kind of stick with me. That mug shot, I’m sure is not going anywhere anytime soon.”Scheffler described the arrest as “fairly traumatic” and “not something that I love reliving.” Given the mental and emotional anguish, he was asked, had he considered suing the Louisville Metro Police Department? “For me personally, no,” Scheffler said. “That was something that if we needed to use it, I think Steve was more than ready to use that, just because, like I said, there was a ton of evidence in our favor. There [were] eyewitnesses on the scene that corroborated my story and the video evidence, the police officer talking to me after. All the evidence pointed to exactly what my side of the story was, and so if we needed to, if it — if I kind of became, like — I don’t really know how to describe it, but basically, if I had to show up in court, I think Steve was more than prepared to pursue legal action.”Scheffler added that given reparations would in effect be paid by way of tax dollars, he didn’t want the people of Louisville to have foot the bill “for the mistakes of their police department.”“That just doesn’t seem right,” he said.
Yes, but that Police Department doubled down and wouldn't stop the waste of public resources on a silly prosecution. So, Scottie, perhaps you're mistaken. perhaps the good citizens of Louisville needed to see a dramatic demonstration of their self-centered and misguided public servants?
Although I remain pretty torn up over those $80 pants....
Bobby Mac - The travails of last-week's winner on Tour point out that insanity I referenced above:
Robert MacIntyre has defended his decision not to play in the Memorial Tournament, insisting that it was the right decision to prepare for next week’s US Open.The 27-year-old won his maiden PGA Tour title on Sunday at the RBC Canadian Open, earning himself a spot in the field for this week’s $20million hosted by 18-time major champion Jack Nicklaus.However, he decided to pass on that opportunity, preferring instead to travel home to Oban, on the west coast of Scotland.Whilst many have endorsed that decision, others have not, some even going so far as to suggest skipping the tournament demonstrates a lack of ambition.
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MacIntyre, though, disagrees, insisting that he needed a week off after a long stretch of tournaments running back-to-back, particularly with another major looming large on the horizon.“I actually miscounted the tournaments that I’d played when I did a press conference last week,” he said. “That was actually week six. And it’s been a good six weeks.“The mental aspect of that six-week stretch was high and then obviously winning last week was an even bigger high, so if I played Memorial, the US Open and the Travelers, that would have been nine weeks in a row.“Not many players would play nine weeks in a row, except probably me, the madman.”
Is it any wonder that no one is watching?
Scenes From The Kingdom of Fife - I've spared you any teases thus far for our traditional Scottish sojourn, but it's coming in late July. Shack had this update from the Links Trust:
Operators of the Old Course and six other venues, the St Andrews Links Trust, announced a record year in 2023.
- 283,082 rounds played last year, a 11% increase from 2022.
- An £11.5m operating profit.
- Course occupancy across the seven links was a record 78%. Imagine if what it would be if the Castle Course weren’t weighing them down!
- Golf income rose from £18.1m in 2022 to £24.2m.
- £3.5 million was spent by the Trust to complete an acquisition of 70 acres adjoining the Strathtyrum course in February.
We've taken the bagel in 2022 and 2023 on our Daily Ballot entries, so here's hoping that our luck takes a turn for the better in 2024.
We are headed back to Pittenweem, although we will make a move in the middle of our trip and spend a week in St. Andrews as well. Last Fall Pittenweem was hit by a massive storm, resulting in substantial damage to homes near the water, such as this:
This is mere footsteps from our rental house, the same in which we stayed in 2023.
Anniversary Thoughts - It hasn't exactly played out as presented that morning on CNBC, and no one seems to know where we're headed. Joe Ogilvie was interviewed by Eamon Lynch and had quite a few interesting comments as to the state of play. Shall we sample some?
We have the Policy Board of the non-profit PGA Tour, Inc. And now also the board of the for-profit PGA Tour Enterprises. Is it clear which board has ultimate authority on major decisions?Enterprises is where the cash flow is going to go through, but Inc. is a huge part because they own about 88%, 88.4% of the business. Something like that. The way it happens is the money waterfalls down, 88.4% or whatever Inc. owns, they get that amount of the cash flow and that’s paid out as purses. The Enterprise board will have an outsized influence over the business. And I think Inc. has been somewhat, well, I guess a kind word would be dysfunctional. The Enterprise board is the one that’s making a lot of the decisions for the business.
Isn't that interesting? We've long been focused on those six Player Directors of Inc., but Joe is telling us to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain....
Not sure what t make of this:
You say the Policy Board has been dysfunctional. There's a perception that it’s very divided. Fair?Yeah, that is a fair statement. In retrospect, if you had a big mulligan you’d certainly handle theFramework Agreement differently. I think everybody involved would say they bungled the rollout of that. If you’d have had a kind of mea culpa and all got in a room and said we botched this, if everyone had humility. It’s really unfortunate because the independent directors — I mean, I’ve seen stories about how much they’re making, things like that. It’s the only board where I guarantee you it’s costing them a quarter of a million dollars a year to serve. They don’t get paid. A lot of them fly privately. They’re paying that cost. The PGA Tour doesn’t pay that cost. These are great businessmen and women that love the game and they’re lending their expertise to the PGA Tour. It was basically a very closed decision-making process on doing the Framework Agreement. It was almost unrecoverable from there. Something had to give once there wasn’t a two-week therapy session between the board. I don’t know if that’s the right way to term it, but it never happened. Humility goes a long way and I don’t think there was a whole lot of humility. That’s my take. I wasn’t involved in those discussions, but it did get divided. There were massive trust issues and once you lose trust, it’s incredibly hard to earn back.
OK, so you can't recover from the bungled Framework Agreement roll-out, but you want us to accept that the bungler still has his job? How about a mulligan on the choice of Commissioner?
I guess Jimmy is taking the fall for Jay?
Two independent directors have resigned recently, Jimmy Dunne and Mark Flaherty. Jimmy was involved in the Framework Agreement. Was his departure necessary in your mind?Unfortunately, I think long-term it probably helps. Jimmy’s a force of nature and a highly-regarded figure in golf and investment banking. A legend. I think it was handled very poorly to not bring other board members in. The fact that he broke through that wall and actually started discussions will probably be looked at very kindly. But him going off the board was I think very helpful.
So, where are we?
When Dunne left, he bemoaned a lack of progress on the Framework Agreement. Around the same time, Jordan Spieth, a player-director, said there has been progress. How do you see it?
When the PGA Tour negotiated investment from Strategic Sports Group, there was a lot of heavy
lifting that went into that agreement. That would probably be the basis for any other investor to come in now, whether they have to pay more or whatever. The basic structure is more or less the same. Keep in mind, in the year since the Framework Agreement the Department of Justice has come down on companies that have board representation with a conflict, where they had ownership stakes in companies that could be perceived as a competitor. You have that situation if the [Saudi Arabian} Public Investment Fund invested in the PGA Tour. Clearly with LIV, they’re a competitor. So there’s some nuances to it, but I think with that SSG deal a lot of the heavy lifting has already been done.
Will the judge please instruct the witness to answer the question....
Might get fun here:
There’s a perception that among the player-directors Patrick Cantlay wields a great deal of influence over the board. Is that accurate?
Patrick’s obviously a voice. When he speaks, and he doesn’t speak very often, he carries a lot of weight. But I’ve only been on the board since March 9. Patrick is incredibly detail-oriented. I joked with him one time that if he wasn’t a professional golfer he could be a distressed debt investor and probably make more money. He remembers facts and he’s a bulldog. He has strong opinions. I’ve read what’s been said, about he’s controlling the board and all that kind of stuff. I don’t want to say it’s wildly inaccurate, but I would say it’s very inaccurate.
That's some epic parsing.... As I take his comment, the perception that Patrick is a major arsehole isn't wildly inaccurate.... Noted.
Rory McIlroy recently signaled a desire to return to the board to replace Webb Simpson, who wanted to quit. Rory quickly stepped back and said some people were uncomfortable with the idea. Were you uncomfortable with him returning to the board under those circumstances?Under those circumstances, it was difficult. I realize Tiger Woods went on the board without a process, but the governance documents hadn’t been done yet. When Webb said he was going to resign and he was going to name his successor, there’s not a corporation in the world that would allow that to happen. Unless Webb was a 90% owner in the business. When you’ve been trying to fight for governance, under those circumstances, I think it was tough, no matter how important Rory McIlroy is. Rory’s opinion matters as much as any director in that room. I hope he eventually comes on the board.
You'll be shocked to know that they break their own rules when it suits them, and they rigidly adhere to them at other times. I just can't see why folks don't take these clowns seriously....
But at least they're focusing on the important stuff:
You were in the room when the player-directors first met Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the PIF, in the Bahamas. How would you characterize how the meeting went?
It was a perfect first meeting. When we were going into the room, one of the big things was how do we address him? If we’re gonna address him as His Excellency, that’s just kind of weird. He comes in the room, shakes everyone’s hand, and looks you right in the eye and says, ‘My name is Yasir. Please call me Yasir.’ I had heard that he’s a nice man and that he loves the game of golf, and nothing told me otherwise after meeting him. It would be naive to think that we’re going to come out of that meeting with a handshake deal and say, ‘We’re done here.’ It was a very good meeting and you could see that there was a mutual respect between he and Jay, which is also good.
Anyone willing to call him Your Excellency shouldn't have been in the room. But Ogilvie seems like a fan boy talking about NSync, no?
I can't decide if this question is silly or illuminating:
Did anyone in the room raise human rights abuses by the Saudi Arabian government?That was not raised.
If you gave a thought to their human rights record, you wouldn't be able to be in a room with him. But, Eamon, you yourself connected the dots long ago. After 6/6/23 it was apparent that the source of the money was never an issue, only its end destination.
See if this last bit encourages you:
'You have to break the ice': Adam Scott says PGA Tour-PIF negotiations to heat up 'very soon'
So, it's like a prom date?
The problem? He said he was still waiting to hear PIF’s end game.“I think the PGA Tour has a vision of what it wants to look like 12, 18 (months) and then goingforward, five, 10 and 20, you know, or at least 10 years down the line, let’s say, and what it should evolve into,” he said. “But at the moment there’s another party that they’re negotiating with that has to believe in that vision as well, and I don’t know exactly what their vision is.”Speaking to Golfweek at the RBC Canadian Open, Scott said he was confident he will learn that vision soon.“I think we are getting there, for sure,” Scott said. “Eventually someone is going to have to put it out exactly what it is, and I think that will happen very soon. I think so. You have to break the ice, kind of, and someone has to show a hand. It’s got to happen soon. It’s moving along as quickly as it can.”
Your vision for the Tour sucks big time, and you're telling us that in a year since the Framework Agreement you still don't know what they want? But at least you've worked through what to call the man, so all is good.
But there's a good reason for the stasis:
When Scott was pushed on if he really believed that the negotiations – which technically began nearly a year ago with the signing of the Framework Agreement on June 6 – were moving fast enough, he said, “It’s not all up to us on our schedule. The head of the PIF sits on 125 boards or something. He’s busy, too. Some would say the buck stops with him and he has to make some decisions on what he’s investing in.”
OK, did the dog eat his homework as well?
Does any of this inspire confidence?
A source for Golfweek said that “very soon” could be as early as next week. The Memorial, the next stop on the PGA Tour and hosted by Jack Nicklaus at Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio, is typically a gathering spot of leaders of the golf world, and talks could accelerate at Jack’s Place.A source told Golfweek that the question is how much will the players on the board be willing to compromise? And how much money is PIF prepared to lose?“It’s who blinks first,” a source said. “It’s not rosy in either camp, so empower Jay (Monahan), put him in a room with Yasir and do a deal.”
So, just empower the guy that Ogilvie admits effed up the Framework Agreement?
Can you say clown show? I thought you could.
That's it for today and likely for the week. Have a great weekend.
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