Thursday Threads - Arnie's Place Edition

Your humble blogger is back in Utah, where it is snowing.....  Quite a bit expected, although it will be more of that wet, heavy stuff....

There isn't much of anything to discuss, so we'll just throw a few things up and see when we want to hit the mountain.

LIV Musings - Their mouths are moving, but not only don't I know what they're saying, but I've no clue as to what they're trying to say....

I'll just lede with a minor sideshow, amusing because it features two guys that no one has wanted to hear from since the Carter administration.  For our benefit, they lede with a little history:

Fred Couples has pulled no punches when it comes to LIV Golf, and more, specifically, his former teammate and fellow Ryder Cup vice captain Phil Mickelson. In the summer that Mickelson defected to LIV Golf in 2022, Couples opined,

  “These guys—you’ve seen their interviews, right? Have you ever seen Phil look so stupid in his life? They know it’s a joke." Then in March 2023, Couples again took shots at Lefty, calling him a “nutbag” and offering, “If you’re willing to give Phil Mickelson $200 million at age 53 to shoot 74 and 75, God bless you.”

The barbs from a mostly beloved character like Couples had to sting Mickelson, especially with Couples nailing it on Mickelson’s play, which has been wholly mediocre in his time on the Saudi Arabia-backed circuit.

That's when he's taken time out of his core obligations of measuring Cam Young for Ryder Cup kits.... Musta dug deep for that pic.

But Fred didn't leave it there, of course:

The skirmish started when Couples did an interview with Sports Radio 93.3 KJR in his hometown of Seattle last week and suggested that his friend and five-time major winner Brooks Koepka wants to return to the PGA Tour.

“He wants to come back. I will say that, believe me, he really wants to come back and play the PGA Tour,” Couples said.

But were you thinking that any of these guys exhibited impulse control?

The feud had seemingly quieted of late, but that changed on Tuesday when Mickelson responded to a Golf Digest social media post by calling an opinion Couples had expressed as a “low class jerk move.” Mickelson later deleted the comment.

Hmmmm, couldn't he have worked in a jerk store reference?  Devastating repartee from the Master, no?  And nothing quite says low-class, jerk move like deleting your low-class, jerk move tweet....

Now we're apparently supposed to sense the auras and penumbras:

Jay Monahan’s latest update on PGA Tour-LIV deal strikes different tone

So we're going for nuance?

Rumors have been swirling that the meeting at the White House between Monahan, PIF governor

Yasir Al-Rumayyan and President Donald Trump didn’t go as well as both sides have claimed. Monahan pushed back on that narrative Tuesday but also made sure to temper expectations on a timeline for the deal.

“I think anything that I’ve said or we said, the three of us said, is consistent with what should be said when you’re in the middle of a complex discussion to try and reunify the game of golf,” Monahan said via Golf Channel. “It doesn’t speak to my confidence level. It speaks to the moment. I view that meeting as a huge step and so I look at that very positively.

“We had a recent meeting with the President, the Public Investment Fund, thought it was a constructive meeting,” Monahan said. “And we’re thankful for the President for his leadership, extremely thankful for him, for his willingness to host us in the Oval Office, and to help us continue those conversations. I feel like if you look at his commentary last week as ultimately seeing a deal happening and Yasir Al-Rumayyan’s comments at the FII about the good meeting that we had, I think we’ll just continue to move forward on those conversations.”

As long as any agreement bans the single-tone green outfit....  Do they know how bored we are by it all?  And, most importantly, we don't care about those guys.

But are they even at the same meetings? 

Following the PGA Tour’s first meeting with Trump, Monahan spoke with reporters at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and made it sound like he expected something to get done on the PGA Tour-LIV front soonish. Monahan spoke of a desire to have all the best players in the world play under the umbrella of one tour. This is antithetical to the rhetoric coming out of LIV Golf, which has been adamant that it plans to stick around and grow even when the merger is complete.

Hey, I'm old enough to remember when we wouldn't even acknowledge the bone-cutters.... 

If there's a competitor to Jay for eating prior statements, this guy is back with a familiar refrain:

Does the PGA Tour still need a deal with PIF? Rory McIlroy answers

As long as Webb Simpson keeps getting his sponsors' exemptions, everyone is happy....  OK, let me rephrase, the eight guys Tiger and Rory worry about are fat, dumb and happy.

“I think the narrative around golf, I wouldn’t say needs a deal, I think the narrative around golf would welcome a deal in terms of just having all the best players together again,” he said. “But I don’t think the PGA Tour needs a deal. I think the momentum is pretty strong. TV’s been good, TGL’s been hopefully pretty additive to the overall situation. I answered this question at Torrey Pines two weeks ago, before, you know, the landscape might have looked a little different than it does now over these past couple of weeks, and I think a deal would still be the ideal scenario for golf as a whole. But from a pure PGA Tour perspective, I don’t think it necessarily needs it.”

It’s important to note his reference to a similar question at the Genesis Invitational last month. There he made it clear the game’s better with the two sides joining together.

“Whatever’s happened has happened and it’s been unfortunate, but reunification, how we all come back together and move forward, that’s the best thing for everyone,” he said. “If people are butt hurt or have their feelings hurt because guys went [to LIV] or whatever, like who cares? Let’s move forward together and let’s just try to get this thing going again and do what’s best for the game.”

Asked on Wednesday what has changed in those couple of weeks since those comments, McIlroy said, “Look, I think it takes two to tango. So if one party is willing and ready and the other isn’t, it sort of makes it tough.”

It's angels on the head of a pin type nonsense, but from a guy that got pretty much everything wrong.   But here's his coda:

To put a bow on things, after the recent optimism with White Hose meetings, does a deal feel closer?

“I don’t think it’s ever felt that close,” McIlroy said. “It doesn’t feel like it’s any closer.”

Well, then, the thing to consider would be to stop pimping it.....

Dare we look at ratings?  There is good news, though that's mostly how bad last year was:

The 30-year-old’s outstanding performance in the first round helped him secure a 12-under par 59 in the 18 holes. That was not enough for him to go all the way through the tournament. But he did draw in a lot of golf fans to watch the action live. Knapp’s efforts, Jordan Spieth’s mishaps, and Rickie Fowler’s near miss to get a ticket to the 2025 Arnold Palmer Invitational helped the event gain an average of 2.15 million viewers on Sunday.

Unfortunately, none of the names above won the tournament. The 2025 Cognizant Classic Championship went to first-time winner, Joe Highsmith. Yet, Jay Monahan & Co. had a lot to celebrate. They have now had 5 consecutive events with high TV ratings. Things have seemingly gotten better after the horrid numbers they received in 2024. Missed it? The PGA Tour struggled with viewership last year, and early 2025 wasn’t much better with big names absent. But with Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler back, the season’s heating up. Still, Jay Monahan & Co. shouldn’t celebrate too soon—ratings are up from 2024 but still lag behind 2022-23. An analyst just dropped that insight minutes ago.

Trusted golf reporter, Josh Carpenter tweeted, “NBC drew 2.15M viewers for Joe Highsmith’s win in the Cognizant Classic on Sunday. Last year’s finish was pushed to Monday due to rain, but taped coverage drew 1.45M viewers. Better comp is the prior two years: 2.38M (Chris Kirk) and 2.57M (Sepp Straka)”. The numbers reveal that the PGA Tour is still lagging behind what it was achieving a couple of years ago. Hence, a jump up from 1.45 million to 2.15 million shouldn’t be considered a win for them.

Carpenter himself also had the same opinion when someone asked him “Ratings up 5 weeks in a row!?”. He responded a few minutes later with “Technically, yes. But I don’t know that I’d really go down that road considering last year was washed out. Better comps are 2023 and 2022, which they’re down from”. This will be a big reality check for Jay Monahan & Co. as they were hoping for a big win soon.

But Rory tells us that TGL is additive, right?  He wouldn't lie to us, would he?

An unfavorable Monday afternoon window on ESPN2 resulted in TGL’s worst viewership number yet.

Monday’s match between Los Angeles Golf Club and The Bay Golf Club, which aired at 3 p.m. ET on ESPN2, averaged just 160,000 viewers, by far the least-watched TGL match so far this season. The simulator golf league’s 7 p.m. ET window on the deuce fared a bit better, averaging 291,000 viewers for a match between Boston Common Golf and New York Golf Club.

 But denial ain't just a river in Egypt:

While those numbers don’t necessarily look pretty for the nascent golf league, it’s all part of a larger plan. Per a TGL spokesperson, the league intentionally scheduled some mid-afternoon windows to better serve their European broadcast partners.

Oh yeah, that's the ticket.  I don't know how much weight to give to that trend line, but they seem to still be shedding viewers, so declarations of success seem speculative.

Counter Musings - Were I a cynic, I might not that the PGA Tour's efforts to place all elite professional golf under their control should await proof that they can fix one of their marquee events:

What needs to happen with the PGA Tour's season-ending Tour Championship? 'It has to be simple'

The Tour Championship was a hot topic of conversation at the Player Advisory Council meeting on Tuesday evening at Bay Hill Lodge & Club. How can the Tour design an end to its season that matches the excitement and fan interest of the majors? Is that even possible? Former Major League Baseball executive Theo Epstein and a senior adviser at Fenway Sports Group, who has advised the Tour on improving the fan experience, and World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, a member of the PAC, were participants involved in the discussion.

“There's a few different formats that I think we're looking at right now. Some of 'em good, some of 'em were bad. I'm not really going to go into details of those formats because we're still ironing them out,” Scheffler said.

Well, there's certainly no urgency.  You're only 25% of the way into the season involved, so totally legit to completely rewrite the rules.  Has Patrick given you his decision yet?

I've been on this since 2007, but the problem is that Tour can't make a simple decision:

Mackenzie Hughes, who served on the PAC the previous two years but not this season, said the FedEx Cup Playoffs need more volatility. “If we’re going to make our playoffs truly the playoffs, it has to be more do or die,” he said. “Every round there needs to be a chance to be eliminated.”

Not to worry, Mackenzie, you can be eliminated at any time.  They just won't allow you to eliminate Cantlay, so good luck with that "playoff" thing....But you can see them defaulting to their core capabilities, talking.   

API Musings - This sounds far better in the header than in the deets:

The cool reason there will be fewer commercials at the Arnold Palmer Invitational this week

 But....

If there’s one thing golf fans hate, it’s commercials. And if there’s one thing golf fans love, it’s player-caddie conversations. For regular PGA Tour viewers, it often feels like the time spent watching car insurance commercials comes at the expense of deeper immersion into the sport and its colorful cast of world-class athletes.

This weekend at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the PGA Tour will attempt to ease those concerns with its latest Fan Forward Initiative, which replace several commercial blocks at Bay Hill with live golf segments focusing on player-caddie interactions. The segments will be presented by Mastercard, the title sponsor of the 2025 Arnold Palmer Invitational, with the support of the API’s broadcast partners, NBC and Golf Channel.

“In addition to wanting more live golf action, fans are telling us they are more entertained when they can see and hear a player’s pre-shot process in the heat of the competition,” said PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan of the new approach. “We are excited to work with Mastercard and NBC/Golf Channel to step back and allow fans to experience those intimate, real-time interactions during the telecast this week.”

Sounds like another "Playing Through" experience, which are remarkable facsimiles of...wait for it, commercials... 

The only other bit from Orlando is this:

On Thursday afternoon at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Joe LaCava will step to the first tee box with a bag slung around his shoulder, and for the first time, a second question will follow that simple act.

Which Joe LaCava?

Yes, on Thursday and Friday at the API, the group of the day — at least for one New York metro area community — will belong to Patrick Cantlay and Joe Highsmith. More specifically, though, the group of the day will belong to the players’ caddies, Joe LaCava III and his son, Joe IV, who will be sharing an afternoon walk for the first time in their PGA Tour careers.

As long as they both keep their caps on.....   A nice moment for Dad, one we usually only see at the PNC.  But Joe IV might have found himself a bag that will make bank for him.

I told you it would be a light day of blogging, and I'm a man of my word.  Have a great weekend and we'll check in to wrap the weekend on Monday.