Thursday Threads - Electrolyte Pumping Edition

OK, I'm slowly getting back to normal, including this thing they call solid food.  Good stuff for sure...

Let's get the strange dings at The Wyndham out of the way, shall we?

Don't Be That Guy - First, to state the obvious, I saw none of it.  It's the Wyndham, for God's sake, and I'll need to get paid more if you expect me to watch that....  But, while I won't cover Max Greyserman's epic collapse (if I have it right, at one point he went eagle-quad), I will cover his rather poignant reaction to it (via Dylan Dethier's Monday Finish column):

NOT-WINNERS

Some 8s are handled better than others.

How do you respond to massive, shocking failure? To taking a four-shot lead on the back nine of the final round of a PGA Tour event and immediately making quadruple bogey to kick it away? Max Greyserman could have moped, raged or made excuses. Instead he took it on the chin — and kept his chin up, too.

“Played really well today, obviously had a couple blunders but came back with a birdie on the par-5 after that quad,” he told CBS’s Amanda Balionis. “Just gonna take away that I hung in there, that I’m playing good golf … I mean, it’s golf. Stuff happens. I’ll go pet my dog after this, I’ll hang out with my wife, fly tomorrow to Memphis and right back to work just like I did after the 3M.”

Greyserman’s 3M reference is a reminder that he’d finished runner up in his last start, too. Not bad for a rookie.

“I don’t know,” he concluded with a grin. “It kinda feels like my own 2006 Phil Mickelson moment. So hopefully that equals good things to come [for me] like it did for him.”

I like it and it makes me want to root for him in the future.  I don't know your own personal experience, but there aren't too many of these guys that I can still say that about...

Now, the Kooch bit, which was really odd.  Here's Dylan's framing of it, which seems to leave out one important bit:

ONE BIG QUESTION

What on earth was Matt Kuchar doing?

It was a moment so strange, mysterious, so meaningless and so deliciously golf that it immediately caught the attention of the entire sport. Matt Kuchar, comfortably outside contention, mathematically eliminated from golf’s postseason and stuck in the left rough on the 72nd hole at the Wyndham Championship, decided that he and he alone would keep the tournament going for another day. Just before sunset on Sunday Kuchar marked his ball while the rest of his group played on. The golf world responded with a mix of incredulity, amusement, bemusement, criticism, [limited] defense and more.

 But how did he find himself in the left rough, Dylan?  

The lone golfer to not finish Sunday at the 2024 Wyndham Championship, Kuchar was in a tie for 12th when he hurriedly teed off on the 18th hole. Minutes later, he informed a rules official he

was done for the day, electing not to complete the round in the growing darkness. Everyone else did, including tournament winner Aaron Rai, playing in the group ahead.

Tour rules official Orlando Pope explained that rather than blow the horn to suspend play due to darkness, all three players in Kuchar’s group were given the option to finish Monday but only Kuchar opted to do so, reversing course after driving left into trouble.

That's what's so puzzling about it, so eerily reminiscent of Rory at Valhalla in 2014, when in his rush to hit his drive on the 72nd hole he almost found the water....

If the last few years have taught us anything, it's that these guys aren't what they seem to be.  And this man, specifically, has an item on his C.V. where he showed us a darker side (think Mexico, if you're not catching the reference), though his explanation makes me think he might have been trying to help the young man:

After taking relief, hitting his approach just short of the green, lipping out his birdie chip and finishing out for par, Kuchar explained himself. He said he thought Greyserman would probably wait for the morning, given he was just a shot back to begin the hole.

“I’m figuring no way Max is going to finish out with a chance to win a tournament. I thought Max for sure had a shot to win and I thought no way in this situation do you hit this shot; you come back in the morning 100 percent of the time,” he said. “So I said, well, Max will stop, I’ll stop, kind of make it easy on him. And for me, coming back in the morning, like, I never would have taken [the relief that he was able to take] last night, I never would have thought to ask. I knew I was in a terrible situation, I was praying to make bogey from where I was. To walk away with par, nearly birdie, is a huge bonus.

“Again, it stinks to — nobody wants to be that guy that’s showing up today, one person, one hole. Not even one hole, half a hole to putt.

“So apologies to the tournament, to everybody that had to come out. I know it stinks, I know the ramifications, I know it stinks. Certainly I apologize to force everybody to come out here.”

It seems possible, no?  Especially since the alternative explanations make little sense, but wasn't the time for that discussion (one of the Golf Channel folks confirmed that Kooch said something along those lines to Max, although he'd need to be circumspect under the rules) before the tee shot?

The Am - One of the great events in golf is ongoing this week, and I sure ain't speaking of anything happening in Memphis.  But, like all match-play events, the best parts tend to be earlier in the week:

Match play is set to begin Wednesday at the 2024 U.S. Amateur, but first, a playoff.

Stroke play concludes Tuesday at Hazeltine National Golf Club and co-host Chaska Town Course, but come Wednesday morning, there will be a 14-for-11 playoff to determine who gets the final spots for match play, with the Round of 64 to follow.

Perhaps the story of the tournament so far is 39-year-old Jimmy Ellis, the mid-am medalist who fired a 61 on Tuesday at Chaska Town Course to win medalist honors by three shots. He’ll be the top seed for match play but will have to wait to find out who he will face.

Clanton is safely through the Round of 64, but this guy isn't:

Tiger (yes, really) knocking off World No. 2 among highlights from 2024 U.S. Amateur Round of 64

Well, it depends upon your definition of "really":

Tiger (Christensen) topples Gordon Sargent

There’s another Tiger in the field this week hoping to add his name to USGA lore, but his last name is Christensen.

The rising senior at Arizona topped World No. 2 Gordon Sargent 4 and 3 on Wednesday in perhaps the upset of the day. While Christensen is ranked 51st in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, he feels like one of the best amateurs in the world, and he played like it in the Round of 64.

This is where the golf world sucks.  Golf Channel had a generous coverage window on Wednesday, before the Tours kick off on Thursday, but we're limited to two hours (6-8 p.n.) today.

Wither Golf - There was a flurry of activity a couple of months back, but now radio silence seems to be dominating.  For those focused on tea leaves, there's this:

With no further updates on negotiations between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public

Investment Fund, the tour released its 2025 schedule of FedEx Cup regular-season and playoff events Wednesday with only a few minor changes to its lineup of 39 tournaments.

Featured for a second year is a regular season highlighted by the four majors and eight signature events that offer increased purses and FedEx Cup points. But in 2025, the signature events also guarantee fields with a minimum of 72 players. The tour did not release prize money for any of its events.

 And, whatya know, a Jay sighting:

Meeting with members of the media on the eve of the opening round of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan provided an update Wednesday on the ongoing

negotiations with LIV Golf and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. Essentially, there isn’t an update.

Monahan preferred to focus on the success of the revamped PGA Tour schedule featuring its series of limited-field signature event and to trumpet the creation of PGA Tour Enterprises and closing of the $1.5 billion investment deal with Strategic Sports Group in late January . The tour released its 2025 FedEx Cup schedule earlier in the day indicating that a deal that would include the LIV Golf League wasn’t imminent—at least not in time to integrate into its scheduling model.

“They're very complicated discussions,” said Monahan, who met personally with PIF and its governor, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, in New York during the week of the Memorial Tournament in June. “There are a lot of elements to them, but when you have the level of interaction, when you've got … you're continuing to meet and move forward and discuss and debate, you can't be anything other than hopeful. And as it relates to times and timeframes and where we are, I just say that we're in a good place with the conversations, and that's the most important thing.”

To paraphrase, blah, blah and more blah.  But are they complicated or, yanno, nonexisatent?

Perhaps indicative of the slow nature of the negotiations, Rory McIlroy, a member of the tour’s transaction subcommittee, said he hasn’t participated in any conference calls related to PIF negotiations since June.

But Tiger can't captain the Ryder Cup team because of his extensive time commitments...  remember the old rule of thumb, that you knw they're lying because their lips are moving.

But you're probably asking yourselves, how are things going at LIV?  Shockingly, they haven't been providing viewership numbers since, checking notes, forever, so is it possible that the CW hasn't delivered a massive audience?

After two short years and a few too many bleak ratings reports, LIV Golf and the CW are preparing to change the channel.

That’s the latest according to LIV star Phil Mickelson, who let slip during a press conference

previewing the league’s championship in Chicago that the league has its sights set in a new broadcast direction for 2025 and beyond.

“Well, television and viewership for sports, especially golf, is changing. So the old-school media and way that we’ve done it, which is be on a network and so forth, is not the way of the future. It’s going to be more digital, more streaming,” Mickelson said on Wednesday, speaking about the league’s current agreement with network TV partner the CW. “Our new partner, because our new partner, whoever that is after this year, I think is going to be more focused and centric there because of the opportunities that will open up. But I am not part of those television contracts.”

Sources at LIV confirmed the league is “exploring partnership opportunities” with current and new broadcast partners in the U.S. and abroad, as it has done in each of the last several offseasons.

Mickelson, though, indicated the league could look to move away from linear TV rights altogether. That would be, to put it lightly, a radical shift in the modern sports media economy.

Yeah, that's the ticket, the reason nobody watches is what's happening with linear television....As Ian Faith put it, Phil's appeal is just getting more selective.

The Tour Confidential panel did have some thought son this knotty problem:

4. LIV Golf tees off at The Greenbrier this week for its regular-season finale (with just its individual and team championships remaining), and in a recent press conference, Phil Mickelson went into detail about LIV Golf’s new broadcast direction for 2025 and beyond, which could include new partners and more streaming options. After a couple of years of low ratings and one streaming partner abruptly shuttering, is finding a reliable, far-reaching partner LIV’s No. 1 goal this offseason? Or is a deal with the PGA Tour or something like signing more stars more important for LIV?

Barath: So far streaming for LIV has been a bust, but on the other hand one of its biggest stars also happens to have one of the biggest golf YouTube channels, so I feel that if they wanted, LIV could once again lean back into YouTube as a broadcast partner. It’s not a major TV network, but the reality of live golf on TV is changing, and the younger audience is looking for other options.

Melton: Finding a reliable TV partner has to be their biggest priority. They can sign as much talent as they want, but if no one is watching, it doesn’t matter. If LIV wants to be taken seriously, their leaders have got to figure out a way to get eyeballs on their tournaments.

Dethier: I’m curious what that TV deal would look like, who’s in the running and what the level of interest is from nontraditional broadcast partners. Unless unreleased streaming and app numbers are big-time, LIV’s viewership is still negligible. So I’d say LIV’s biggest priority is making a deal. LIV Golf needs the PGA Tour’s legitimacy. The PGA Tour needs some of LIV’s star power. The fans want it. But the way Mickelson is talking, LIV will be around the rest of his golfing life so yeah, there’s certainly no guarantee anything will happen. (Hoping to report out a story on this in the coming weeks.)

Dylan, if those numbers were meaningful, I think they might shared them.... If there's one common thread among those who have turned on a LIV broadcast, it's the word "Unwatchable", so maybe the problem isn't with linear TV?  Except, of course, to remind of how few people watch televised golf of any kind, so one might want to think in terms of creating a compensation structure consistent with the revenue stream... Nah, that's crazy talk.

There's little doubt that LIV has damaged the PGA Tour.  But LIV has created nothing that's viable or sustainable, absent being 100% funder by PIF.  So, good luck, Yasir!

Exit Question:

Glory's Cost: Will money ruin the chase for golf greatness?

How LIV Golf pushed the game into a lucrative limbo and drained some of its passion and intensity.

Ummm, don't forget integrity.....

That's behind a paywall, and I'll give you a moment to stop laughing at Golf Digest thinking that anyone would pay to scale said wall.  But the answer to the headline query is simple, it'll only affect those that took the money.

That'll be it for today and, I assume the week.  Enjoy the weekend.