Weekend Wrap - Indian Summer Edition

Sorry about the schedule head fake last week.  I had a jammed Monday, but a late cancellation frees up time....Even though we can blog, there remains the issue of what to blog.

Dueling Headers - Shack has the proper take:

Weekend: Echavarría Earns A Masters Trip

Well, that's awkward.  I had been reliably informed that young golfers never win anything, so there's no cost to excluding them from the Signature Events money grabs.

Nico Echavarría captured the ZOZO Championship for his second PGA Tour win and first trip to The Masters. The 30-year-old Columbian held off Justin Thomas and Max Greyserman to win the sixth and possibly final playing of an event held since 2019.

Echavarría carried the 54-hole lead into Sunday, where he birdied the 18th hole for a 67 and stout 260 four-day score, his career-low by seven strokes. The mark also set a new tournament record previously held by Tiger Woods (261).

“It's surreal,” the former Arkansas collegiate golfer said. “This moment is very special. It's been a good year for me, I just haven't had that top result. I've been very consistent, I've learned a lot this year. To finish the year this way is, it's incredible, especially doing it here in Japan in such an amazing country.”

Most of the golf press focused on this guy's performance:

Why Justin Thomas’ latest ‘disappointment’ at the Zozo looked different

Gonna guess it has something to do with breaking 100....

Yes, Thomas’ loss at the Zozo sounded a lot like his losses at other tournaments this year —

events where his game has arrived for long enough to be in the hunt but not long enough to grab a victory. After those events, Thomas has told us about his pride in his performance, and about his faith that things are moving in the right direction.

But for once, at the Zozo, it looked like those platitudes might be headed toward something.

Thomas made just one bogey over the course of 72 holes for the week at the Zozo, ranking near the top of the field in strokes gained: off the tee and strokes gained: approach — two stats that were hallmarks of his career’s high points in ’20 and ’21. He managed the pressure of the lead on Sunday with a characteristic blend of opportunistic golf, gaining close to 2-and-a-half shots on the field over a long, bogey-free Sunday.

These were not the visions of Thomas who climbed to the world no. 1 spot, nor the visions of him that snuck into a PGA Championship victory in ’22 after Mito Perreira’s 72nd hole collapse. No, they were visions of a new JT — a player who is not self-evidently relevant, but who has seen down the chasm of obscurity.

Passive aggressive much?  What the author seems to be saying is that all you have to do to best JT is outperform, checking notes, Mito Pereira.... A low bar indeed.

But notwithstanding this result, JT will undoubtedly have a tee time in those money grabs (even if it requires a sponsor's exemption), whereas Echavaria will not.  That's because the guild protects its own.

As Geoff hinted above, this may be curtains for the event,:

The event at Narashino Country Club appeared to be the final ZOZO Championship based on questions to players. Last week’s playing completed a six-event contract that started with the inaugural won by Woods in 2019. No announcement of a renewal has been made as of this time.

If this is the end of the PGA Tour’s first sanctioned Japan tournament, runner-up Thomas spoke highly of the experience.

“It's not only an opportunity for us to play different golf courses in front of a different, you know, setting, and grow our brand and kind of have the opportunity to grow the game of golf,” Thomas said. “But it's an opportunity for us to travel and see some great places and compete in a completely different part of the world, so it's always a treat.”

The ZOZO’s possible demise comes on the heals of Gregg Robertson’s report confirming Shriners Children’s Hospital’s 18-year Las Vegas sponsorship coming to an end.

I've been a broken record since the exception of this blog, but the Tour's treatment of its sponsors is one small step above what happens to those Hamas hostages down in the tunnels.  The Tour has pulled the rug out from under anyone sponsoring a non-Signature event, so one assumes it'll be musical chairs going forward.  Although Barnum seems to have been onto something, because they seem to keep finding new suckers as needed.

The Tour Confidential panel did allocate a precious question to this event, but you'll understand the significance of the questions being unnumbered this week:

Nico Echavarria won the Zozo Championship in Japan, beating Justin Thomas and Max Greyserman by a shot. Thomas, who held a share of the lead at one point, is still winless since the 2022 PGA Championship, a drought of 49 starts on the PGA Tour. Was his performance and close call this week more encouraging or discouraging?

Colgan: I would say encouraging. JT played some of the best golf we’ve seen from him in a long time, and more importantly, he played some of the steadiest golf we’ve seen from him in a long time (just one bogey in 72 holes!). That’s the winning formula for him, he just didn’t get the win.

Sens: He put himself in contention to win a tournament. That’s no small thing, especially given his recent struggles. Encouraging. I don’t know how you could see it any other way.

Berhow: Encouraging. Winning golf tournaments is hard.

I'm OK with "encouraging", though let's remember that his next competitive round will be, checking notes, on a simulator.... 

But did someone mention the TGL?  You know what Tiger fanboys they are, that of course was their lede.

Counting Down - I know it's a slow golf news cycle and you're really missing Tiger, but aren't you supposed to pay lip service to actual professional golfers?  Sure enough, this is how they led:

TGL, the indoor, virtual golf league founded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, announced its TV schedule for 2025, with the first showdown airing in primetime on Tuesday, Jan. 7, on ESPN. Tiger Woods and his team won’t play on opening night — he’ll play the next week — but how important of a role do you think Woods will have when it comes to viewer interest?

James Colgan: Uh, Tiger’s role in this league is basically the only thing that matters for viewer interest in the early days. The TGL is betting — and hoping — that fans will enjoy the concept

enough that they’ll still feel compelled to watch during the non-Woods weeks. A lot depends on how the broadcast looks and feels, but my bet is they’ll steal elements from the ManningCast to expand player access (as basically every new sports telecast seems to be doing).

Josh Sens: This is not like the James Bond franchise, where you can swap out the leading actor without dimming public ticket sales. As James notes, Tiger is key to getting this thing kick-started. Though, long-term sustainability will likely hinge more on how compelled people feel to gamble on it.

Josh Berhow: Tiger will be a huge part of it, but the key will be using his name to get viewers in and then using the product to get them to come back. But this is a TV show, after all, so the golfers playing will need to be entertaining and carry the action when they aren’t hitting shots. I’ve always felt pros in The Match have struggled with that part, so we’ll have to see how it all goes down with TGL.

Sure, guys, but those Manning boys are actually entertaining....  Berhow has his kid gloves on in describing the shortcomings of The Match, but does he remember the least interesting player of all?  That would be that Woods guy, whose next interesting comment will be his first.

The venue for TGL, the SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., seats about 1,500 and tickets start at $160. If you are a fan in the area, what’s your interest level of attending one of these in person?

Colgan: I would think pretty high! Some of the best players in golf, in a super intimate setting, in

an area that’s already golf-mad? Seems like an okay business proposition to me.

Sens: Sartre had it wrong. Hell isn’t other people. Hell is sitting in an arena with a ton of other people, watching grown men hit golf balls into a screen. If I have $160 earmarked for entertainment, I’m playing golf. Not watching it indoors.

Berhow: As someone who lives several states away, I’m not buying a plane ticket to head south and watch the TGL, but if I was in the area I’d definitely consider it, mostly due to the curiosity factor. There are lots of worse ways to spend $160, (other) Josh! Plus, holding only that many people, you won’t exactly be sitting in the nosebleeds.

I'm expecting this to suck big-time, for the simple reason that these guys are mostly humorless and overly self-interested.  And given that the Tour struggles to get folks to watch actual green grass golf, the hitting into a screen thing seems a tough sell.  

But your humble blogger fixates on idiosyncratic threads, so there's two aspects of this that have me curious.  The first is that $12 billion valuation of the Tour, that screams out for a deep dive.  I'm assuming that the Tour's ownership stake in TGL is one asset that they could wildly over-value, but the TV ratings will the point when they can no longer lie to themselves....  Unless yanno, Tiger morphs into Charles Barkley.

The second point is slightly more subtle.  The scheduling of the TGL is harder than anyone will realize, given that the Tour is on the West Coast in January and February.  Getting these guys to Florida on a Monday or Tuesday night has issues, basically pitting the TGL against that week's regular Tour event.  Do you see how the Tour treats its sponsors?

You might have heard that Farmers did not renew their sponsorship of the Torrey Pines event.  Can you blame them?  After the ink on their contract dried, the Tour has done the following to them:

1. Created the series of Signature events, essentially blackmailing sponsors to pony up additional millions to avoid have-not status.  Those that didn't or couldn't found themselves starved of top level talent, thereby seeing their event quite publicly devalued.
2. The TGL start-up further commits the Tour's top-tier talent away from the Tour's own green-grass events.

I keep asking, why would any new sponsor jump in with these thugs?

On the subject of ticket prices, this header makes a valid point:

What's the more egregious ticket price? $750 for the Ryder Cup or $160 for TGL?

Embrace the power of the ampersand.  They're both crazy numbers, but I've no doubt the Ryder Cup will sell out.  I'm sure the TGL will sell out early, especially that second week, but these guys better be funny...

Before we move on, they just can't help themselves:

Seventeen of the 20 spots were announced for the Hero World Challenge to be played in December in the Bahamas, although the 15-time major-champ host will yet again be a last-minute decision coming off his September back surgery. Given what we know so far, do you think Woods plays?

Colgan: I think he probably won’t play, considering the PNC Championship is just a few days later and would serve ostensibly the same purpose. Better safe than sorry.

Sens: Agreed. Granted, Tiger has shown a Deadpool-like capacity to bounce back from physical injury. But the agonies have now piled up to the point that I expect him to focus his energies on his hosting duties, while saving what remains of his back and knees and feet to play with his son.

Berhow: I disagree! I think he’ll play. We don’t know the specifics about his recovery, but the surgery was minor and he might very likely be healed by then.

 You might be the only three guys that actually care....

Wasted, Not Wasted - When you business model involves recreating the movie Lost Weekend, it's more than a bit odd to be asked to take this seriously:

Following a chaotic 2024 WM Phoenix Open, organizers announced changes for the 2025 edition in what they say will be a “better, not bigger” event come February. Among the changes: a new entrance and expanded walkways, a fully digital ticketing format, relocated food and alcohol vendors to reduce foot traffic and more. Do you think these changes will be enough to solve the tournament’s issues? Or will its reputation mean tweaks like this won’t go as far as one might think?

Colgan: I love the WM Phoenix Open, but I think it’s unlikely to change noticeably for as long as fans continue to attend in pursuit of getting absolutely sloshed.

Sens: Last year was a perfect storm, literally. Rain-soaked turf. Hordes of well-served fans. It was destined to turn into the Jackass Invitational. But I’m with James. Even in dry conditions, I don’t see how you alter the essential character of the tournament with these tweaks. The wildness is a feature, not a bug.

Berhow: This might improve some of the logistics but I have a hard time thinking it’s going to change much more than that. The tournament’s biggest issue is its perception, and that’s more difficult to change. You’re still going to get that same throng of fans who attend simply because they think it’s a free pass to act like idiots.

We all know how to stop it, you just cut off alcohol sales.  Wake me when they do that, but there's an irony in the mention of the Ryder Cup above.  That event may outdo the Wasted.

That's it for today, kids.  I'll resurface later in the week, assuming there's something worth blogging.  Have a great week.