Weekend Wrap - LXXII Golf™ Edition

Tough time of year for many things, including a certain blogger's motivation.  Our greens were punched last week and, while I greatly enjoyed Saturday's round in shorts, a cursory look at the long-term weather forecast provides no cause for optimism....

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch- Changes - Have you stopped laughing yet at this news?

With LIV changing formats, what does ‘LIV’ actually stand for?

It seems like that's really two separate questions.  What did it stand for versus what they'll now tell us it stands for....

Who says LIV hasn't united the golf world?  After all, it has each and everyone of us making the same joke:

LIV Golf’s announcement that it’s switching its tournaments from 54 to 72 holes was greeted with mixed reactions — and an easy joke.

“So it’s LXXII Golf now?”

They are for sure laughable....

You get the idea. Since its inception, LIV’s name had worked as a Roman-numeral reference to its number of holes — 54, three rounds of 18 — which was a key piece of its disruptive identity in a

world of 72-hole stroke-play tournaments. But LIV has also always had a second meaning, too; the chairman of its board and of the Saudi Public Investment Fund, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, has referenced 54 as a “perfect score” in golf, the score a player would shoot if they made 18 birdies on a par-72 course. (This ignores eagles and par-71s, among other things, but we get the idea.) There’s also a $54 million prize awaiting any LIV golfer to shoot that number. Bryson DeChambeau has gotten the closest with 58. So there’s a part of “54” that will continue.

The Tour Confidential panel went deep here, so shall we allow them to do the heavy lifting?  Yeah, rhetorical, but I appreciate your thoughts all the same:

LIV Golf announced its 2026 tournaments will be played as 72-hole competitions, a major

change for a league that not only had previously been 54 holes but used that unique trait as a pivotal part of its identity. While the press release didn’t mention this move as a way to improve LIV’s chances of receiving World Ranking points… we know better. Are you surprised by the sudden shift? And more importantly, will it ultimately work?

Sean Zak: Definitely a little surprised! Only because of all the ’54’ branding. LIV was quietly launched by an agency originally called Performance 54! But for new management, who didn’t create these structures, it probably felt fruitless to continue banging the OWGR drum without trying to make as many changes as possible to actually be granted those points. Will it ultimately work? What does “work” even mean? Garner more audience on FS1 in early June? No. The amount of holes wasn’t keeping golf fans from watching.

Nick Piastowski: Yes, the announcement was surprising, though, as Sean noted above, the surprise really was just for LIV’s previous promotion of the number 54 — which led to folks scrambling to figure out what 72 was in Roman numerals. But I think the move works, as long as world ranking points come LIV’s way. I’ll be also curious as to what an extra day of play looks like for LIV in terms of potential revenue (or loss of it) — and what an extra day of play looks like for LIV in terms of player satisfaction.

Dylan Dethier: I’ll point out that 54 also has been cited by LIV as the “perfect score” in golf — birdieing every hole on a par-72 course. (Ignoring eagles, par-71s, etc., but whatever.) I think 72 is a nice number of holes for stroke-play tournament golf. But 54 holes was also a big part of what made LIV a “disruptor.” Now that it’s just another league staging 72-hole stroke-play golf tournaments, it just feels in direct competition with the DP World Tour. Maybe that’s the point.

That bit in the question about the golfing press is quite the tell, no?  It's the golfing press confirming for us the value of that same golfing press....  Good to know how seriously we should take you guys.

It's all laugh-out-loud hysterical, as Norman's strategy to take his ball and go home to pout doesn't seem to have panned out.  Yeah, I know, who coulda seen that coming?

Of course LIV's lameness is far larger than Roman numerals can convey, as they have field sizes so small as to induce envy in Patrick Cantlay, and those small fields are dominated by stiffs.

Rory McIlroy was asked about the news while playing in this week’s tournament in Abu Dhabi, although he said he didn’t think playing 54 holes versus 72 was holding LIV back from receiving World Ranking points. What say you? Does LIV still have larger hurdles to leap or was this the main one?

Zak: I think if there are three or four criteria for LIV earning points, the 54 vs. 72 element was one of them. I think the concurrent team competition is an odd sticking point, when the OWGR is all about individual’s performance. But the biggest thing is just the mostly closed-circuit nature of the tour. I know inside LIV HQ they’re expecting to be granted acceptance by the OWGR by the end of 2025, but they’ve also been saying that for a long time.

Piastowski: I think two other moves LIV made this week should also be noted here. LIV’s Q-school will now award two spots into LIV play for 2026, and the top two finishers in the International Series will also now receive playing privileges for next year. Both had previously handed out one spot, so this presumably helps with the ‘closed-shop’ thought that has held LIV back in the world rankings fight.

Dethier: Yep — I think Nick P’s cited moves were the bigger ones here from an OWGR perspective than the 54-hole thing. LIV’s closed shop is cracking open its doors. I’d expect them to get OWGR points relatively soon. I don’t quite understand the timeline. But I do think it was a massive miss for LIV to withdraw its application originally; if it wants to play in the same sandbox as the other tours it could have cooperated earlier.

I don't want to go all technical on you, but the fundamental problem with LIV is that it's..... well, it's a clown show.  The only thing serious is the number of zeros on the check.

Interestingly, Nick focuses on Q-School, to wit, how new guys can qualify onto their Tour.  To me, the bigger issue as always been that they're locked into their dead wood, they signed a bunch of guys who were no longer competitively relevant (Phil, Westwood, Stenson, McDowell, Poulter, et. al.), and are stuck with them clogging up their tiny fields.  

And their biggest recent signing, Anthony Kim, shockingly didn't seem to work out.

But get a lad of this question:

LIV’s Tyrrell Hatton said only a few players were in favor of the change when it was put in a questionnaire a year ago. If you’re a LIV member, are you annoyed or excited about the tweak?

Zak: If I’m a LIV golfer and I now have an extra work day each tournament, I’m annoyed! If I’m a really good LIV golfer, 31 years old and have dominated the circuit since I arrived — (cough, cough Jon Rahm) — I would be excited about getting an extra 18 holes to remind the average players around me who is boss.

Piastowski: I’ll add this. You’d think that 72 holes should get LIV players in a better mindset for major championships. So whether you’re annoyed that you’re working an extra day or not, the thought that you could be better prepared for the biggest events of the year should soothe any sore muscles.

Dethier: This really feels like a big win for Rahm, who shredded the 54-hole format before he ultimately signed up for LIV. Because he finished inside the top 11 every tournament this year but didn’t win any of ‘em, with a fourth round he definitely would have picked up a couple. Anyway, I think it’s nice for major prep and it’s nice for LIV golfers who are sick of hearing 54-hole jokes. But it’s a bummer for guys who were enjoying the shorter tournament weeks — especially given their international travel schedule.

Gee, they went to LIV to avoid the competitive rigor of the legitimate tours, so why exactly would we care what they think?  I'll bet they're also in favor of being paid more....  again, who coulda seen that one coming.

Geoff took some time earlier in the week to throw some shade at everyone:

Wet blanket alert: this week’s News & Notes features more talk of ranking points and LIV’s neverending quest for legitimacy. Apologies. Especially after a sensational 2025 season of pro and amateur golf at incredible venues with impressive winners. But The Quad’s editorial team agreed that it’s vital to acknowledge LIV’s move to 72-holes if, for no other reason, the chance to celebrate another of Greg Norman’s brainless post-playing career decisions. Might even be his single worst moment of hubris-driven stupidity! And this is a man who said he was going to revolutionize the game via…a golf cart that played music.

Working back then as LIV Commissioner before deciding to spend more time with what’s left of his once-vast portfolio of overcompensatory purchases, Norman’s leadership decided to withdraw LIV’s application for Official World Golf Ranking points recognition of its “Golf, But Louder” 54-hole get-rich gatherings. The apparent protest move likely cost the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia’s sportwashing enterprise at least two years of tournaments without the legitimacy of ranking points. Norman and friends—most of who have since been replaced—took a foot off the peddle and eliminated any pressure on the five family-run OWGR to find a solution for LIV’s absence from a ranking that acknowledges an astonishing number of tours no one’s heard of.

My only issue with the above is that the degree of difficulty is so low that it's hard to post a good score.

More incredibly, the OWGR has become hard to respect given its inflation of the PGA Tour after years of kvetching from the Global Home. Which meant LIV’s application withdrawal led to a collective, “hey, they pulled out of the process, so the ranking is doing its best at identifying good play.”

LIV’s newly announced plan to play 72-hole events in 2026 means the enterprise can fine-tune its format and then pray for points to deliver desperately-needed legitimacy for the enterprise with cartoonish franchise names and schlocky tournament presentations. But never forget: this is a grievance-based operation that appeals to the aggrieved. The move to 72-holes with ranking points won’t satisfy LIV and His Excellency’s desire for respect.

(Also never forget that the tour’s prime benefactor prefers to be called His Excellency.)

Gee, Geoff, I was hoping for a status update on His Excellency's Augusta National application.  That seems to be about the only objective of LIV.

But, Yasir, what's the plan?  There is no obvious plan to make this work, yet the Saudi's have basically walked away from negotiations with the PGA Tour.  So, sign a bunch of big-ticket name players?  Maybe, but this guy seems uninterested:

Last year young phenom Tom Mckibbin turned down a PGA Tour card to join LIV. The year before, it was Jon Rahm who shocked the world by moving to LIV.

This year is no different. And one player in particular has been the focus of many rumors: Australian pro and recent PGA Tour winner Min Woo Lee.

But in recent comments to the Australian Associated Press, Lee put to rest any rumors that he was leaving the PGA Tour.

But now we see them doing that which would have been a far better strategy"

LPGA commissioner Craig Kessler wasted no time delivering something his predecessor wouldn’t — a deal with Golf Saudi.

The LPGA has announced that the tour will return to Shadow Creek in Las Vegas in 2026 for the new Aramco Championship, a co-sanctioned event with the Ladies European Tour that features a $4 million purse and a 120-player field. The event will be part of the PIF Global Series, which also includes stops in Saudi Arabia, London, Seoul and China. Purses for the five events total $15 million.

“The Aramco Championship, part of the PIF Global Series, at Shadow Creek reflects exactly where we’re headed in building the global schedule for our tour,” Kessler said in a press release. “We often talk about routing, courses and purses — and this event checks every box: a spectacular West Coast setting, an iconic course and a purse that continues our momentum in raising the bar for our athletes. We also recognize that partnerships like this — built on the LET’s longstanding collaboration with Golf Saudi and PIF — can help strengthen the women’s game on a global scale and elevate opportunities for our athletes.”

Helping the ladies would actually have substantively helped their image, but that would have been far too clever for those who think money gets access to anything.

But I can barely contain my excitement, as we now have four rounds at each LIV event to ignore.  Win-win, baby!

Color Me Surprised -  I was very skeptical here.  Not only do I not see the upside for him, individually, but I also fail to see how this helps them groom future captains:

Luke Donald is still enjoying the afterglow of becoming a two-time victorious Ryder Cup captain after Team Europe did just enough in Sunday singles at Bethpage Black to secure a 15-13 victory at the biennial competition.

Donald, who turns 48 next month, became the first captain since Tony Jacklin, who served as European Ryder Cup captain from 1983-1989, to win back-to-back. It didn’t take long for the question to be asked if he’d be willing to do a third tour of duty, and so far Donald has been very close to the vest with his responses.

“I feel like I have climbed the mountain so to speak and I certainly have nothing left to prove. I love what it represents and am thankful for the opportunity to do it,” he said. “If I do it again I will probably put a hard cut that I won’t do it a fourth time. I do want to play Champions Tour in two years. Timing-wise, it does work. I have to talk to my family and whether it takes too much time away from them. That’s a possible reason [to turn down the captaincy], and whether someone else is better suited for the job. It wouldn’t be from a fear of losing. If you approach anything in golf like that you’re never going to get too far ahead. I’m a big believer in taking opportunities when they come your way and I’ve taken these last two by the scruff of its neck and done very well. I have to think things through a little more. That’s kind of my personality.”

Perhaps the more interesting take is to wonder whether this affects the U.S. decision process.  Obviously, that process will be driven by the one guy, who will decide based upon his own individual needs.

Obviously my sub rosa speculation is that Tiger refused the Bethpage gig out of deference to his buddy JP McManus, the implication being that Tiger would somehow be compensated to add his buzz to his buddy's 2027 event.   I couldn't understand why Tiger would prefer a road game, but it now sets up for Tiger to play the hero, assuming he'll give up a week of Call of Duty.

Included in that post, Geoff had these stylish photos of the Euro Ryder Cup team on their great New York adventure:

They're just far more playful than our bores.

Greatest Bunker in Golf? - I dragged Employee No. 2 here on our way to Wales a decade or so ago, and it is truly an epic bunker:

Clyde Johnson restores legendary St Enodoc bunker

The Himalayas bunker complex on the sixth hole at St Enodoc in Cornwall is one of golf’s most fearsome hazards. Now, it is even more fearsome, after being restored to a single bunker and its 1930s shape by architect Clyde Johnson of Cunnin’ Golf Design, who was supported on the project by agronomist Chris Haspell.

Johnson first went to St Enodoc in 2016 with his mentor Tom Doak; Doak had been hired by the club, of which he has long been an outspoken fan, to report on its design and offer suggestions for improvement. “The idea was that Tom would come up with ideas, and I would help with implementing them,” says Johnson.

The Himalayas bunker has gone through many different iterations since the club was founded in 1890. “At the start of the twentieth century, it was really open and sandy,” says Johnson. “By the mid-1930s, it was fairly formalised as a single bunker with a long tail – that was the inspiration for what we have put back. It shrank over the years, and when we visited in 2016, the lower tail had been split up and turned into a pot bunker. It was very difficult for a lot of golfers – especially ladies – to get out of it, and foot traffic going past the complex on the left caused all sorts of problems with the turf.”

Here's what it looks like today:

And this dramatic version from 1938:

Did I drag my wife halfway out the Cornwall Peninsula just to see one bunker?  Well, you'd have to agree that it's quite the bunker, no?

Today in Edifice Complexes - We took a spin up there ion our 2024 trip, just to see what they had in mind:

Was tearing down the clubhouse at this Scottish masterpiece a huge mistake? Or progress?

Now, though, the old clubhouse with its 116 years of golfing heritage and distinctive clock tower is weeks away from being demolished, with a towering new sandstone clubhouse set to take its place.

Soon locals will venture inside for the last time to salvage what souvenirs they can before the building – a feature in countless golfers’ photographs down the years - is lost forever.

But if the demise of the distinctive old Royal Dornoch clubhouse is tinged with a little sadness, its gleaming $18.5 million modern replacement has ignited some very different emotions.

With its construction scaffolding now gone to reveal its three stories of pale sandstone blockwork and tall chimney stack with retro-style square clock, lively debate has ensued over whether it’s a bold step into the future or a brutal mistake.

 Brutal, you say?  he reader can make his or her own call:

The old clubhouse didn't have much to recommend it beyond that clock tower, and there's little doubt that the club had outgrown it.  The club's recently released plans are quite ambitious, including a substantial upgrade to the Struie and a third course.  But the architecture strikes one as unnecessarily, well, brutal is a good word for it, isn't it?  Staliniesque also come to mind....

That said, there's far worse pieces of brutalist architecture being unveiled, and this one also has a golf connection:

I'm guessing that the Obama library is on the right, but I could be convinced that the two photos are of the same structure.

That's it for today, kids.  Have a great week and I'll blog should anything of interest arise.  

Weekend Wrap - Lazy Blogger Edition

Sorry, kids, just having an awfully tough time working up enthusiasm for this blogging thing....Low motivation combined with a moribund new cycle leaves the Reader craved for content.

Hard to imagine it'll get much better any time soon.

Old Dog, New Tricks - Remember that old Paul Azinger quote?

“The Old Course at St Andrews, the home of golf, is different, because the course isn’t as long and the greens are pretty easy to putt and don’t have nearly as much slope,” Azinger said. “Augusta’s greens are frightfully fast, and they can stick the pins two paces from the edge.

“Augusta can always be defended. St Andrews is in trouble.”

And by "Old" I mean from way back in 2018.

So, how will the Old Girl be defended in 2027?

The R&A and Links Trust of St Andrews revealed the most significant wave of Old Course modifications in almost two decades.

As a previously announced irrigation system upgrade gets underway this week, the announced architectural work commences next week with the timing of various changes to depend on which holes are closed to play.

The mix of additions, restoration work, and subtle tweaks came about after the R&A and Links Trust commissioned Mackenzie & Ebert to analyze the Old Course in advance of the 2027 Open Championship.

“We believe this work is important in ensuring the Old Course continues to evolve and challenge the world’s best golfers in the years to come while enhancing the experience of local and visiting golfers,” said Mark Darbon, Chief Executive of The R&A. “Working with St Andrews Links Trust we have commissioned Mackenzie & Ebert to carry out a carefully planned programme of work to enhance and restore the challenge of the Old Course in a few key areas.”

Darbon said the “approach is grounded in deep respect for the course’s unparalleled history.” While some of the refinements are correcting the effects of wear, tear, and maintenance, key elements of the work are obviously inspired by how the course plays for Open contestants in the juiced equipment era. We’ll never know if these alterations would have happened had the original plans for a 2026 start to new golf ball regulations had been in place.

A total of 132 yards will be added on six holes, bringing the maximum yardage to 7,445 yards from 7,313.

That's the reimagined 16th fairway above, with the Old Course Hotel providing the background.

It's hard to get worked up over 132 yards, though we've already seen them grab portions of the adjoining golf courses for added yardage.  The 17th tee for Opens just happens to be OB, or is that splitting hairs?

Before ducking behind his paywall, Geoff helpfully provides a summary of the substantive changes:

• The 16th hole will see a “historic playing route” restored to the left of the Principal’s Nose and Deacon Sime bunkers, along with the addition of two bunkers to add risk on the left-hand side of the extended fairway. 

• Added length on six holes: the 5th, 6th, 7th, 10th, 11th, and 16th. 

• Two right-side drive length bunkers will be relocated farther down the second hole “to make them more relevant to the line of play.” 

• New bunkers at 6th and the 10th. 

• The right side approach bunkers at the 9th will be extended slightly toward the line of play, including Boase’s Bunker, which will be restored to its previous size. 

• The championship tee on the 12th will be realigned and improved. 

• The daily play tees at the 14th will be realigned and repositioned. 

• The Road bunker will see some restoration efforts to reduce the surrounding build-up.

I am personally most interested in that first bullet, No. 16 being an underappreciated hole in my humble estimation.  In fact, I still laugh when I think of the starting line my caddie suggested last time we hit the daily ballot, it being most notably....err, how do they put it?  Oh yeah, out of bounds.

Unfortunately, Geoff's dissertation on the 16th is deep behind his paywall, so let's ignore fair use and I'll excerpt his full examination of the changes to the second hole (the only one before that paywall):

Second Hole - Dyke

Two bunkers down the right side will be shifted closer to the play and the existing location filled

in. The Open’s second hole yardage of 452 yards remains thanks to a temporary tee placed out-of-bounds on the Himalayas putting green.

In an ideal world: The fairway down the right would be expanded, and the bunkers would not have to be shifted. But the new positioning will surely bring the deadly Cheapes into play (even more) because of the difficulty lining up from the Open tee. With the New Course first tee down the right, safety concerns appear to have made fairway expansion down the right a no-go.

Takeaway: If 300-yard drives were on the high side for average Open tee shots, the relocated bunkers would be putting a huge premium on starting a tee shot at Cheapes. But with the relocated bunkers a carry of 265 yards or so from the Open tee, they are likely to only become a nuisance into a stiff wind. It would be nice to expand down the right to show off ground features and reward taking on a right side that’s hard to see or hit to from the back tee. It would also get rid of a hideous straight line running down the right.

But this hole more often plays downwind.... Geoff provides these before-and-after visualizations from Makenzie & Ebert:

Hard to discern that difference for sure.  Not sure how far along they'll be by August, but hopefully we'll have better luck with the ballot next year and I can report back.

Before moving on, I'll add this graphic from a Golf.com article on the changes, one showing the effect of the solid core ball and providing context for that Azinger comment:

Nothing to see here.....

This week's Tour Confidential panel was asked about these changes:

The most revered links golf course in the world, St. Andrews’ Old Course, will add bunkers and be lengthened by 132 yards ahead of the 2027 Open Championship, a move R&A chief governance officer Grant Moir said is “appropriate” to “properly” adapt to the way the modern game is played.” Does adding length to a historic course like this worry you?

Berhow: I think there is something jarring about the Old Course making announcements like this. If a 60-something-year-old country club has to lengthen its course due to modern equipment, so be it, but when you hear of some of golf’s greatest cathedrals essentially saying “what we currently have ain’t it,” it gives you pause. We don’t like changing classic things — golf courses, cars, recipes, you get the picture. I’m interested to see how this looks on the property, where there isn’t a ton of room to work with. Makes you wonder if these tees will stay for future post-rollback Opens in St. Andrews.

Zak: It’s just not easy to see where the new tee boxes will be placed on certain holes. The lengthened Old Course starts to eat up space within itself. But ultimately, it’s mostly just for Open Championship week, so we won’t talk about it more than one month every five years.

Schrock: I don’t know if it worries me, but it speaks to the broader issue professional golf is facing with distance and equipment. We want to see the world’s best play meaningful tournaments on historic courses. And we want to see them play the course the way it was meant to be played. When I was at the Truist Championship at Philly Cricket Club this year, the difference in how the course was played on the first day in no conditions compared to the second round when it was raining and windy showed how these golden age courses can still present a challenge when the ball doesn’t fly for miles. We won’t talk about the Old Course changes except for one week every five years, but it speaks to the bigger problem.

First, quite the framing in that question, no?  I would call the Old the most revered golf course in the world, though the Golf.com limit said reverence to only the subset of links courses..... methinks these kids need to get out more.

I don't think the three guys added much to our understanding, especially given that to add prior yardage required them to grab real estate from adjoining links.  but to me the easiest way of understanding the issue is to think through what scoring could look like if they get soft, windless conditions.  When we see a 59 or 58 in an Open, will that get folks' attention?

While we're in the Auld Grey Toon, shall we deal with a tab that's been open for some time, one that may well explain our lack of recent Daily Ballot success:

St Andrews Links Trust lands huge revenue figure as investment plans set out

Golfers playing at St Andrews in 2024 generated £48.5 million in revenue for the Links Trust, resulting in a surplus of £10.8 million.

The surplus has been reported on the back of a total of 281,554 rounds - similar to a post-pandemic high of 2023 - being played on the seven courses that come under the Links Trust umbrella.

The total revenue generated in 2023 was £43.85 million while the surplus for that year was just under £11.5 million.

Too many damn people, for damn sure.

Phil Being Phil - The key bit today is to close browser tabs.  We have a new bit about our old friend Phil. and, since there was unfinished business elsewhere, shall we?

Report alleges Phil Mickelson received inside information on offshore company

Hmmm, Phil and insider information?  It's deja vu all over again.....

A report from the financial publication Hunterbrook alleges Phil Mickelson received inside information on an offshore oil company and distributed that information to a private group of

company shareholders. Mickelson responded on X Friday afternoon, calling the report “slanderous.”

On Friday, Hunterbrook published a story that included a series of private messages allegedly shared by Mickelson with a group of investors for the Houston-based oil startup Sable Offshore. In the messages, Mickelson, according to the report, shared material non-public information gleaned from interactions with Sable Offshore CEO Jim Flores — a decision that could have legal ramifications for Mickelson, the company’s chief executive, or both.

The article centers on the latest actions of the embattled oil company Sable Offshore, which reportedly paid $988 million to assume control of a troubled oil field from Exxon off the coast of Santa Barbara, Calif., and quickly attracted investors seeking a potential moonshot.

The article does remind us of this from Phil's CV:

Mickelson’s own past with insider trading is well-documented. In 2016, he paid more than $1 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle allegations that he had traded on inside information gleaned from the legendary gambler Billy Walters.

That's a wee bit cryptic for my taste.  To me, there are two aspects worth noting, including that the only reason Phil wasn't prosecuted was that his illegal trades were at a time when legislation made the burden of proof higher than prosecutors could likely meet.  Had he made those trades a year later, we might have had the pleasure of seeing Phil in an orange jumpsuit.

To me the bigger issue is that Billy Walters obviously felt that he needed to share this inside information with Phil to get him to pay his gambling debt.  There are at least three such instances of Phil stiffing his bookies, one in which Callaway paid it off and the third involving the Detroit mob.  Nice guy, eh?

Read the full article for the detailed nature of the allegations, it certainly sounds as if, best case, Phil is flirting with the rules, even if you take him at his word.  And, why would anyone take Phil at his word?

So, those two open tabs...  This we don't need to spend much time on:

Will Phil Mickelson ever be Ryder Cup captain? Analyst says it’s hard to envision

Look, Phil is a jerk, so easy enough to acknowledge that he's persona non grata in such matters.  But my wish would be that his actions in 2014 and thereafter would be reexamined, because his model for the Ryder Cup was always complete BS.  Pods, right, that's the ticket.  In light of U.S. results since 2014, how lame was that Task Force?

This was the more interesting open tab:

Phil Mickelson could have been modern-day Arnold Palmer. He chose another route

It's a Michael Bamberger piece, and I've in the past called Bams the conscience of our game, but not sure this is his best stuff:

When Phil Mickelson won the PGA Championship at age 50 at Kiawah Island in 2021, it was all teed up for him, to be Arnold II. Do you remember the crowds that engulfed him? He had, by dint of his golf, declared an end to the pandemic. You could breathe again. You could take your mask and trash it.

Golf was never going to have a second Arnold. But at 50, Phil Mickelson, with his raised thumbs and marathon autograph sessions and enduring game, was the closest thing the game had to the man.

It didn’t happen. Phil went LIV and that changed everything. He took the PIF money and thereby helped open a door to LIV Golf for Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, Cam Smith and others. Phil helped make LIV legit. Along the way, he got himself exiled from the tour he came up on, the tour Arnold did so much to make. The PGA Tour has been weaker for it.

I think where Mike misfires is that, in his core, Phil simply isn't Arnold Palmer.  I used to divide the world into Good Phil and Bad Phil, and the former was the bit that has Mike saying that Phil could have been a elder statesman such as Palmer.

But Mike only notes that left for LIV, eliding the HOW of his leaving He burned with a white hot anger that demanded retribution, somehow discerning disrespect from being the 11th highest compensated athlete in history (notwithstanding that he's not even the eleventh best golfer in that period).

To repeated, he didn't merely take the money, he attempted to damage the tour on which he made tens of millions of dollars.  And he expects the guys that attempted to hurt to still respect him.

No, Mike, he was never going to be Arnie, because he's only about himself.  

Udder Stuff - This week's TC panel isn't much, but it does have the benefit of being easy blogging.  Not that I'm all that interested in their primary focus:

It was recently reported that Dustin Johnson re-signed with LIV Golf, and Bryson

DeChambeau has also been transparent about his contract. While some of the exact contract details of other LIV stars aren’t public, what’s more important for LIV this offseason: keeping current stars, or does it need to make another Jon Rahm-like splash and sign a big name like it last did a couple of years ago?

Josh Berhow: You could argue LIV is due for a big addition. Anthony Kim joined in 2024, and although he hasn’t performed well, it was a surprising and splashy name. I wonder, though, if there are any current, established PGA Tour pros who would leave at this point, like another Rahm-level guy. Part of me thinks allegiances have already been cemented, and luring a big-name guy away would be much more difficult than it sounds. Bringing back some of those key guys should probably be the priority.

Sean Zak: LIV doesn’t need another star. It needs seven more stars. The league simply does not have enough elite player firepower to gain a substantial audience. Joaquin Niemann has been great; Cam Smith has not. Bryson DeChambeau has been great; Brooks Koepka has been up and down. Sergio Garcia has been quite good; Phil Mickelson has not. As I have said for three years now, all the money in the world can buy you big names, but it cannot guarantee they play great, compelling golf.

Josh Schrock: Everyone feels pretty entrenched in their respective sides now. As Zak noted, LIV needs several more stars to move the needle. I’m doubtful that those moves are out there. Their best move is to re-sign their big-name guys. If they lose one of their top guys or two, the air will really start to leave the balloon.

LIV has exactly nothing that works, so adding big names seems futile.  More to the point, given how unhappy Jon Rahm has seemed with his move, who do we think would follow him?

I agree that this guy was an interesting case:

One player who declined a PGA Tour invite and instead joined LIV Golf, Tom McKibbin, earned 2026 Masters and Open Championship invites when he won the Hong Kong Open on Sunday. This comes a couple of months after Augusta National and the R&A announced the winners of six national opens (Scottish, Spanish, Japan, Hong Kong, Australian and South African) would earn spots in those two majors. Still without World Ranking points, are these new exemptions good recruiting bullet points for LIV?

Berhow: They aren’t bad for recruiting, because it does offer additional chances for majors, but it’s directed at the wrong type of players. Yes, LIV can benefit from bringing in young talent, but a bunch of up-and-coming Tom McKibbins isn’t going to be what draws eyeballs. They need established stars; and those guys aren’t probably worried about these extra invites, because ideally they wouldn’t need them.

Zak: Not really. In order to gain major access through those events, you almost always have to win. As in be so good you beat everyone else in a big field. It’s definitely not much of a carrot.

Schrock: It’s better than not having any access, but it’s still so minuscule that it won’t lure the type of players they need to move the needle.

Yeah, if he doesn't win the event, he has no way to get into those majors.  To me, it's just a horrible choice for a young player....

When those exemptions were announced, it came with the caveat that the winners of PGA Tour Fall Series events will no longer receive Masters exemptions. Do you like the change? Or do you prefer fall-event winners earning them?

Berhow: I like this better. Have the fall focus on earning PGA Tour status. Plus, the Masters is more global than ever. This makes sense.

Zak: Doesn’t bother me that Fall Series events don’t get auto berths. I wouldn’t mind Augusta extending more invites via the year-end OWGR ranking, which is a greater representation of skill than a one-week heater in a weaker field.

Schrock: I prefer the invites go to winners of national opens instead of weaker PGA Tour fields. Golf is a global game, and the Masters has prioritized the global nature of the sport in recent years. Keep the FedEx Cup Fall about earning a card, and ask guys who want to earn a trip to Augusta National to play in the national opens.

Those Fall events are so lame now that major invites can't be justified, although the real takeaway ought to be that the Masters needs a substantially enlarged field.

Just one more that will have you laughing:

‘We’re ready’: Senior tour head says they’re prepared for Tiger Woods’ debut

Sure, he'll be out there for the good of the game.  Take as long as you need to stop laughing....

I don't know what he'll do, but I know it will reflect only his own sense of best interests... So, the round belly tour shouldn't get their hopes up.

That will have to keep you satisfied for now.  I'll be back....well, let's just say that I'll be back when I'm back. 

Weekend Wrap - Dog Days of October Edition

Real life intruded yesterday, not that many would have noticed.  After all, the next important event to wrap is....checking notes, the second week in April.

Utah On My Mind - I is, but still a wee bit early and not that part of the State.  I did watch brief moments of the event, and the visuals were pretty stunning.

As we've ranted about for years, the Tour has effectively required all but the bluest-chip prospects to serve a year of indentured servitude on the Korn Ferry Tour, though this guy came up with a workaround:

After a dominant campaign on PGA Tour Americas, Michael Brennan earned a promotion to the PGA Tour’s top developmental circuit. But he can skip the Korn Ferry Tour and head straight to the

PGA Tour, just as his caddie predicted he would, after winning the Bank of Utah Championship on Sunday by four strokes over Rico Hoey.

"He told me ever since we played a great year, we’re not going to the Korn Ferry Tour," Brennan said of his caddie, Jeff Kirkpatrick. "I can’t believe he’s right."

Brennan, 23, shot a final-round 5-under 66 at Black Desert Resort Golf Course in Ivins, Utah, in his third PGA Tour start and first as a professional. In doing so, he became the seventh player since 1970 to win his first Tour title within his first three starts. Brennan won three times on PGA Tour Americas this season and finished No. 1 in the Fortinet Cup standings, the PGA Tour Americas season-long race, which is similar to the FedEx Cup. That earned him full- exempt status on the Korn Ferry Tour next season. In his six previous starts on the PGA Tour Americas, Brennan had won three times, registered five top-5 finishes and a score to par of 105 under.

Are you finished laughing yet?   Sure, the Fortinet Cup is just like the FedEx Cup, except, yanno, for the money.... 

A couple of bits worth covering.  Brennan comes from Leesburg, VA, a tiny hole-in-the wall where everyone wanted to share in the hometown boy's success:

This is the winning moment at River Creek Club in Leesburg, VA. It’s where Michael Brennan grew up playing golf and today the club is celebrating being the home of the latest winner on the @PGATOUR @BOUChampionship. pic.twitter.com/eMzUKIAIYF

— Todd Lewis (@ToddLewisGC) October 26, 2025

So, not a country club kid.... Golf could use more scenes like this.

The other aspect worth highlighting is that this kids bombs is:

Michael Brennan made one of the fastest moves ever into the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking with his win at the Bank of Utah Championship on Sunday. And it was in large part to him swinging fast with one club in particular.

Those watching saw Brennan bombing his way all around Black Desert Resort, averaging a stunning 351 yards per poke. But his accuracy was just as impressive.

At one point, Brennan hit 34 of 35 fairways during his four-shot victory in his first PGA Tour start as a pro. Granted, they were some wide fairways, but still, he had the Big Dog working as well as anyone on tour this year. In fact, it was actually the best driving performance of 2025.

The PGA Tour's Sean Martin noted that Brennan's 7.6 strokes gained off the tee was the highest on tour this season. And it wasn't particularly close.

Utah winner Michael Brennan tops the list of best single-week Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee performances in 2025:

1. Michael Brennan (Utah), +7.6
2. Thorbjornsen (ISCO), +7.2
3. Woodland (Valero), +6.9
4. DeChambeau (PGA), +6.7
5. Rico Hoey (PLAYERS), +6.6
pic.twitter.com/T2ga3CJtnK

— Sean Martin (@PGATOURSMartin) October 27, 2025

Maybe the craziest entry there is Rico Hoey, only because Sawgrass would seem to be an odd place to rack up big SG Off-the-Tee numbers.... I mean, where can they even hit driver there?  In some cases, not even on the Par-5's.

Great call by Brennan's caddie.  I do hope he stays on the bag for a while and enjoys the ride.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes -  I had noted the revival of Big Break in my most recent post but, as per this week's Tour Confidential panel, Good Good is apparently good for more than just that:

YouTube stars Good Good Golf made two splashy announcements last week: it will serve as the title sponsor for a new PGA Tour event in Texas, and the group will also team with Golf Channel to produce a new edition of the longtime reality TV show, “The Big Break.” What bit of news piques your interest more?

Sens: Tough for me to get too excited over who is or isn’t sponsoring a tournament, though this news definitely underscores the broader ongoing cultural shift in golf. I’m more interested in checking out the reboot of “The Big Break.” Faster paced, I would think, given that attention spans haven’t gotten any longer. And probably crasser, given the drift of everything these days.

Colgan: The first. It costs a LOT of money to be the title-sponsor of a PGA Tour event (like $12-15 million, according to the latest reporting). The Fall series nature of the Good Good Championship might make that cost a little bit cheaper, but it’s still an outrageous amount of capital for a company of their size. I’m sure there’s a compelling business case, but I’m still fascinated.

Dethier: I’m mostly just fascinated by the identity shift that’s gone on here. We usually think of Good Good and its smaller-scale YouTube Golf peers as some sort of future of golf — an alternative to the PGA Tour and Golf Channel. Now they’re leaning into the PGA Tour AND Golf Channel, tapping into the past as they do. There’s power in being part of the establishment…

Melton: I’m fascinated by the entire spectacle. I knew Good Good was big, but I didn’t think they were sponsor-a-Tour-event big. If nothing else, I’m glad to see Big Break making a comeback. Was always one of my go-to watches as a kid and I’m pumped to see how the reboot turns out.

If they're paying $12-15 million large to sponsor a Silly Season event, then you deserve what you get.  Actually, anyone signing a sponsorship deal with the PGA Tour should know what to expect.

My guess is that Texas is a really good call, featuring a critical mass of Tour players that might just want a home game in September.  Depending on the schedule, every two years there could be a need for a place to have the Ryder Cup team stay sharp, although they'll fight with the folks in Napa for that privilege.

The aforementioned tournament (the Good Good Championship) will be played as a fall event beginning next year and take place in Austin, which not long ago hosted a regular PGA Tour stop. What does this move tell you about the future of the PGA Tour and how it plans to serve its audiences?

Sens: It’s no secret that the Tour, like golf itself, is bending over backwards to bring in a younger audience. This move is clearly in keeping with that effort. The September timing seems like a good (good) fit as well — during what used to be called the silly season, as opposed to the traditional heart of the season. It’s a smart, relatively low-risk way to try something new.

Colgan: It’s hard to make sense of the Maui event disappearance on the same week Austin returns to the schedule, but I’m glad to see one of the coolest towns in pro golf is back.

Dethier: The Tour has been telegraphing its plans for a smaller, more meaningful main schedule. But it’s also been extending some fall events and now incorporating another. Something has to give for these visions to mesh together — and soon.

Melton: Bringing on Good Good as a title sponsor certainly signals that the Tour is looking to cater to a younger audience, but does the sponsor of an event really matter all that much? I’m not sure that the name of the event will do much to drum up interest among the younger demographic.

I assume this will be huge, as long as they've arranged for the NFL to take the week off....

Joking aside, it seems to me that the big winner here is Golf Channel, which gets a reboot of one of its low-cost properties.  The Tour gets to hang with popular YouTube influencers, but not at a favorable moment on the calendar.   Net, net, it feels like a yawn.

As You Sow... - The only explanation for the TC panel burning a question here is the complete absence of anything else of import.  If only they had something to add:

Keegan Bradley, in his first comments since the U.S. team’s Ryder Cup loss, opened up

about the “brutal” experience at Bethpage and said he “really would enjoy playing in one more” before admitting: “I don’t know if I’ll get the chance.” Do you think Bradley has a better chance of being in Ireland in 2027 as a player or as a second stint as captain?

Sens: Neither. Maybe as an assistant captain to Tiger Woods? Bradley poured his heart into his captaincy, and I’m sure he’d do the same again, but passion for the event isn’t a qualification enough. He did a middling job. Why rehire him? Whatever happens, the fact that we are discussing this two years out is yet another example of the American gift for overthinking the Ryder Cup.

Colgan: I think he has a better chance of arriving as a player, but I don’t think his chances of either are very good. A vice captainship feels much more in line.

Dethier: Oh ye of little faith! In Keegan We Trust. One of the most passionate people in golf can channel another heaping dose of Ryder Cup frustration into a two-year triple-down and make this team. He’s never been much of a links golfer — but Adare Manor isn’t links. All good.

Melton: He can try to qualify for the team, but I think (hope) his days as a captain are behind him. Turns out that being obsessed with the Ryder Cup doesn’t automatically make someone a good captain.

I'm just grateful that we have that prestigious Ryder Cup Task Force™ to provide for a seamless transition from captain to captain.  How's that all going for us?

They have, to say the least, painted themselves into a corner.  Oh, that Tiger guy could take them off the hook and allow them all to pretend that this was always the plan, but that implies that losing the home game was part of the plan as well.  But if Tiger continues to channel his inner Garbo?  They might have to revert to Keegs because no one else wants to be the sacrificial lamb.

Udder Stuff - The TC gang had thoughts on Kapalua:

The PGA Tour canceled its season-opening Sentry at Kapalua in Hawaii, citing course conditions due to the water restrictions on Maui and infrastructure complications that come with hosting a tournament on a remote island. Our Dylan Dethier laid out why this might not be good news for pro golf’s future prospects in Hawaii. Do you agree? Should the Tour continue its two-week January run in the future?

Josh Sens: Humpbacks breaching in the backdrop have been a January golf signature for so long that it’s hard to imagine the Tour without them. I hope Kapalua remains in the rota. But I thought Dylan made a compelling case for concern. As difficult as it may be to bring tournament infrastructure to Maui, it has been even more difficult to bring Rory McIlroy there, which is just another permutation of the same old challenge: how to get all the best players competing against each other in an era of fragmentation and outsized individual player power? The fact that the event has such a dedicated sponsor in Sentry and such deep roots at a distinctive venue in Maui makes me think it will stick around. But a shakeup wouldn’t come as a total shock. How’s that for a hedge?

James Colgan: They should! If only because the PGA Tour’s ability to show great events at good golf courses in unique and beautiful places is a good pathway to its continued relevance. And right now, there aren’t that many places other than Hawaii that fit that bill.

Dylan Dethier: For the record, my understanding is that this is all very much up in the air — I don’t think it’s been decided for sure one way or the other. I personally find Kapalua such an epic locale and Hawaii such a special place that the idea of the Tour leaving bums me out. But if you were looking for [winces at word I’m about to type] efficiencies, or if you were chasing profit maximization, a relatively small local market with limited financial upside and countless logistical challenges would come under pretty intense scrutiny. But if the Tour leaves, they’ll lose some character in the process.

Zephyr Melton: I can’t claim to be an expert on the ins and outs of PGA Tour scheduling, but I would venture to guess that the Sentry taking a hiatus won’t be great long-term for the event. If the tourney dates come and go in January and the event isn’t really missed, who’s to say the change won’t become permanent? The future could be grim for the historic tourney.

Yanno, I was OK with the Tour's prior system where the guys simply pegged it when they wanted to....

But then a Tour éminence grise lectured us about the necessity of creating these Signature Events money grabs, because the only way the game can grow is to know when each alpha dog will be playing.  Hey, I totally got it, until that very same asshat decided to skip three of those eight events in 2025.   So, Rory talked the talk but wasn't any better than his friend Tiger in walking the walk.... So, perhaps it was about the money after all, Rors?

Kapalua isn't what it was, the course has been far too soft in recent years.  But opening the season there is a great show for the folks back home with the winter blues.  They tell us that they're all in on growing the game, but we can't help notice that it's all talk.... None more so, I hate to say, than from Rory.

Wither LIV - I know, it's cone of silence stuff, because they simply can't make us care.  But Dylan Dethier put in some effort and copying-and-pasting requires almost none:

LIV Golf faces 5 fascinating offseason questions | Monday Finish

I'll venture a guess that Dylan is more easily fascinated than your humble blogger....

SHORT HITTERS

5 unanswered questions LIV faces this offseason.

If you’re saying to yourself, hey Dylan, isn’t your job to answer these questions? I would say, y’know, that’s fair enough. Consider this an interesting list for you and a to-do list for me. Here are five questions surrounding LIV that affect the rest of the professional golf ecosystem, too:

1. Who will LIV sign?

Since LIV’s inception this has continually been the most intriguing question surrounding the league — who will they recruit from elsewhere in golf’s ecosystem? The first wave-and-a-half in 2022 was eye-popping, everybody from Phil Mickelson to Bryson DeChambeau to Brooks Koepka to Joaquin Niemann to Cam Smith and more. The 2023 signing of Jon Rahm was a shocker, too, particularly when accompanied by Tyrrell Hatton. So who will LIV claim this offseason? Which PGA Tour players will defect? Who will be the biggest name?

Is there any reason to think they'll sign anyone?  The rumor mill is quiet and, more importantly, do Rahm and Hatton seem happy there?  Put another way, haven't all the a******s gone already?

2. Who will LIV re-sign?

News came over the weekend via Flushing It that LIV had re-upped Dustin Johnson’s contract, which had been set to expire after the 2025 season. The 4 Aces captain will be back, which means LIV presumably made it worth his while to do so.

Some of LIV’s big names are now in an interesting position; on the one hand LIV needs them to stay on to keep any momentum going. On the other hand, their leverage in negotiating with LIV is hampered by the fact that they may have nowhere else to go.

The biggest negotiation by far won’t come this offseason and will involve Bryson DeChambeau, whose contract extends through 2026. He’s a full-time content creator and something of a media mogul in his own right, now — it’ll be interesting to see how his relationship with LIV and with his Crushers evolves as he thinks about re-upping while also balancing his side quests.

Heh, DJ?  Good to know he's still in the game....  But Bryson feels like the only one that matters.

3. Will LIV get OWGR points?

Included in a terrific and all-encompassing Global Golf Post profile by John Hopkins (which you should read here) of now-retired OWGR chairman Peter Dawson were two interesting nuggets:

-He’s unclear on why LIV is pressing on.

“I really don’t understand why the PIF [Public Investment Fund] and Saudi Arabia are persisting with it,” Dawson continued. “They are doing wonderful things for the women’s game with the PIF Global Series and they have terrific plans inside Saudi for expanding golf for their own people and for tourism. These initiatives deserve our applause but LIV seems to be the odd man out.”

-and he’s disappointed they didn’t reach an OWGR resolution.

“I was very disappointed that we could not do so with LIV,” he said. “It is self-evident that players on the LIV tour are good enough to be ranked because they were before. But OWGR has a duty to ensure that all of the thousands of players in the system are ranked equitably. Some aspects of the LIV format made that impossible. In my opinion OWGR made the only decision it could at the time.“

That OWGR failure was in part due to LIV taking its toys and going home, withdrawing its application rather than working with the powers-that-be on acceptable standards for points-getting. Now, though, with new leadership in place on each side of the relationship and a new application on the way, it’ll be interesting to see how the OWGR board and LIV find common ground — and potential points.

Yeah, this was bizarre.  And Dawson isn't wrong, at least to the extent that the Saudis can do more for the game and themselves by focusing on the ladies....  But that ignores that Yasir is in this for the Augusta National membership.

4. What will happen to Henrik Stenson?

Henrik Stenson is the most high-profile LIV golfer to finish in its “Drop Zone,” outside the top 48, which per LIV’s regulations meant he is automatically relegated. (This is true with Anthony Kim, too, plus Mito Pereira, among others.) But we haven’t really seen LIV abandon any of its stars to this point, never mind a co-captain of a team (the Majesticks) like Stenson.

The only relevance that Henrik has remaining, is that he put in motion the sequence of events that demonstrates the difference between the U.S. and Europe.   They win because they have a bench full of Luke Donalds.  The U.S. loses because they expect that Tiger will save them....

5. How will promotion and relegation look, exactly?

LIV has staged a Promotions event each of the last two offseasons. They’d be due for another this December, and presumably Stenson, Kim and Pereira could enter — but if it’s happening LIV has made no announcements on the subject as of yet. The answer to this question is intertwined with Nos. 3 and 4 (and, perhaps, 1 and 2, too) because questions of promotion and relegation are crucial to what makes this an open versus closed shop with new players earning their places. Perhaps they’re consulting with the OWGR on this very matter. Perhaps there’s another route they could build through the Asian Tour or its International Series. Again, we have mostly questions.

Time to work on the answers…

I'm for sure going to be up nights until I know what will become of....Mito Pereira.

Peter Dawson has it right.  They have nothing with LIV that's worth salvaging, they're just not used to admitting failure.   When in doubt, revert to the bonecutter....

That's it for today, kids.  And may well be it for the week, unless something of interest drops.  Have a great week.

Thursday Themes - Where Ya Been Edition

Sick, is the simple answer.  Oh, some scheduling bits as well, but got whacked last week with what at first appeared to be merely a nasty head cold, but evolved into something far more impressive....No fun at all.

I did actually play yesterday, and if I'm well enough to play, I should be well enough to blog.  Not that there's much about which to blog.

Tommy Lad In Full - Recency bias, much?  He's a really good player and one of a dwindling few whose reputation has been enhanced recently, but I can't be the only one thinking he's still the same guy that coughed up all those opportunities.

First, with Tiger's next appearance likely to be on a milk carton, the Tour Confidential panel would logically be hardest hit.  And it's not like they have much to mull over either:

Tommy Fleetwood won the DP World India Championship to earn his second victory in his last four starts (not to mention his Ryder Cup dominance). Now no longer worried about securing his first PGA Tour win (and save for the World No. 1), is there a player primed for a more dominant 2026 than Fleetwood?

Ummmm, unless Scottie Scheffler has retired to spend more time with his family, I'm gonna go with a hard "NO". 

Josh Berhow: The stars certainly seem to be aligning for a Fleetwood breakout. He had a few close calls even before he finally won the Tour Championship, so it’s not like the last few months

have been a fluke. The guy can ball-strike with the best of them, which is a good way to always stay in contention. But it’s also important to remember guys have gotten hot and looked ready to tear up the golf world before, only to disappear. (Viktor Hovland won back-to-back playoff events in August 2023 and didn’t win again for 19 months.) I don’t expect a Scottie-like 2026, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Fleetwood picked off two or even three wins next year.

Alan Bastable: Amazing how wins so often beget more wins. Fleetwood is the latest case in point, and not necessarily because his game is any better than it was a year ago — but more so because he’s leading the Tour in SG: Confidence. We’ll see if that magic stays with him through the offseason. As he said himself on Sunday, “I know form doesn’t last forever, but I’m trying to make myself the most consistent player I can be.” But, yes, to answer the question, he’s incredibly well positioned for 2026. Another guy I’m excited to see in action next year: Cameron Young. Curious if his impressive Ryder Cup will give him a shot of sustained confidence.

Jessica Marksbury: It’s always interesting when players get hot in the fall and winter to see if they can sustain the momentum into the next summer major season. Although, as Josh mentioned, it’s not as though Tommy is coming out of nowhere. He’s been a favorite pick at the majors even before his PGA Tour breakthrough. But Tommy does seem to come on especially strong in Ryder Cup years. So let’s revisit this in 2027! As for next year, I’m looking forward to keeping my eye on another solid European: Alex Noren, who won two DP World Tour titles this year and is projected to earn his PGA Tour card for next season.

Hard to see why they would even hold the Masters, eh?  But that Alan Bastable premise is unfortunately completely unsupported.  It's what we think will happen, but where's the evidence that it does.

What drives this observer more than a little crazy is that which we ignore.  I'll get to East Lake below, but this is the week on that third-tier tour that has sober journalists calling it the Tommy Lad Era:

Fleetwood beat out a handful of stars to win on a narrow Delhi Golf Club, where it was reported that 42 percent of the field played without a driver. Should the PGA Tour visit more courses where players are forced to be more strategic off the tee? And how often?

Berhow: Delhi Golf Club is a pretty extreme example — I don’t want Rory hitting zero drivers! — but it should definitely happen more, as playing sound, strategic golf and hitting clubs the course might call for is a skill, just as much as it is to bomb driver all around the property. It gives more players a chance too. Years ago I remember Kevin Kisner rattling off a list of courses he felt he couldn’t win on simply due to the distance required off the tee. How realistic it is though is another question. Lots of logistics go into picking a Tour venue — a sponsor, the TV production, etc. — and sometimes the type of golf course isn’t always the main focus.

Bastable: Power should be a competitive advantage in golf so, yeah, it would be unfair to suddenly inject the Tour schedule with a bunch more tight and tree-choked sites. Still, this week in New Delhi was a fun reminder that there’s more than one way to test elite players who can hit a driver 330 yards, and some of the players seemed to really dig the challenge. “I like courses like this a lot more because you just hit a variety of different clubs more often,” Ben Griffin said early in the week, “whereas in America we’re so used to hitting maybe drivers and wedges a lot more.”

Marksbury: Playing a round of golf without a driver is something I will never be able to relate to! Years ago, a USGA official told me that the objective for the course setup for the U.S. Open was not necessarily to provide the most tortuous test, but for players to utilize every club in the bag over the course of the tournament. I like that idea, and I am definitely in favor of promoting more courses (or setups) where that’s possible. Six or seven times a year would be nice.

I completely agree.  It must be racist or something to expect that the best players in the world will show actual golf skills in their competitions....  And that doesn't even incorporate the most damning bit buried in the lede sentence of the question, the key word being "handful".

So, sure, win in India against nobody on a golf course too fiddly to hit driver... world dominance logically ensues.

Dylan Dethier had some good bits in his Monday Finish column, though I'm not quite buying this premise:

Fleetwood’s latest accomplishment also completes a fascinating third act of this year in men’s professional golf. Rory McIlroy was the clear star of the first act; he won at Pebble Beach, won the Players and won the Masters to complete the career grand slam. Scottie Scheffler was the clear star of Act II, winning two majors and a half-dozen times in all as he put even more space between himself and the rest of the world. I posed this question during the FedEx Cup playoffs — behind McIlroy and Scheffler, who’s the PGA Tour’s third-biggest star? It wasn’t long before we got our answer. Fleetwood has established himself as the champion of Act III. Soon we’ll put the pressure back on him to win a major, but in the meantime he’s the clear winner of this post-majors season.

Really?  Let's see, the first guy completed the career Grand Slam and that second guy ran off two majors, but the third guy beat 29 guys in Atlanta and four guys we've heard of that had to leave driver in the locker.  Yeah, totally the same thing!

Before we leave Tommy, I do want to include this lovely story from Dylan:

When Tommy Fleetwood won the DP World India Championship on Sunday, he made his son Frankie’s dreams come true.

Recently Frankie mentioned he’s never been able to run onto the green to celebrate one of his father’s wins. Tommy literally wrote his son’s quote down — “You have never won and I’ve run onto the green” — and then, within the week, made that happen. Tommy Fleetwood is a terrific golfer. He’s also apparently an even better dad. What did you do for your kid this weekend?

The only thing I don't like about that bit is the underlying premise that the absence of a win might make him a bad father.... It's not an entitlement.

While I feel compelled to make fun of the underlying assumptions, I do hope I don't sound as if I'm down on Fleetwood.  We're at a juncture where he's one of the few guys left (along with Scottie) to root for, and let me work in this from Dylan:

Along the way he (and his family!) have completed impressive side quests. Frankie delivered the quote of the year at the Masters (his declaration that he was “trying my hardest” was inspiration for everyone, everywhere). Tommy has delivered enough philosophical gems of his own that he could start a cult, or at least a self-help podcast (he described this Sunday as “another opportunity to show a good attitude”). He even stunned in traditional Indian attire at a tournament party this weekend, where he looked like royalty (and further reinforced the idea that Tommy Fleetwood would do well wherever you put him).

My bolding will show which bit got my attention.

I think Tommy had a great summer and he was never better than in the aftermath of Hartford and the other disappointments.  I consider those press comments a Master Class in professionalism, and someone should compare and contrast that to Rory's behavior during the summer.  Tommy has called speaking to the press after coughing up a lead "Part of the job", an attitude that his peer group would do well to internalize.  Rory, are you taking notes?

Tour Faceplants - We're supposed to care about this nonsense?  First they tell us that eight tourneys are so important that we can't have them sullied by actual Tour players (you know, the riffraff that might get in the way of those they think we need to see).  Then come this:

The PGA Tour just canceled its opener. Is there more to the story?

The PGA Tour announced on Wednesday that its 2026 season opener, the Sentry, is canceled.

Curiously, it wasn’t the only Kapalua-related announcement on Wednesday. The Plantation Course — the pride of Maui and longtime host to the first event of the Tour’s calendar season — added a banner to its website trumpeting the fact that it’s now booking tee times after closing the course for two months.

So what on earth is going on?

This is a story of drought, of course conditions and of Hawaiian politics. But it has also become a story about the PGA Tour’s future, about its vision and its strategy and its relationships with markets and sponsors. Let’s talk through a few of the complicating factors together, Q&A-style.

The problem is that we've already spent more in it than out interest in the event justifies....

Wait — why aren’t they having the Sentry at Kapalua like they normally do?

The simplest answer is that water restrictions on Maui (resulting from a combination of drought, infrastructure, streams, ditches, lawsuits, finger-pointing and more) called into question the course’s readiness to host a premier field in January. Tournament officials and PGA Tour representatives deliberated and ultimately decided last month that the Sentry wouldn’t happen as scheduled.

But..... while the Sentry folks seem to be taking the high road, this is something I've been on for quite a while:

Are there other complicating factors?

There are! One is the fact that the Sentry is no longer the only early-January competition on the golf calendar. The DP World Tour’s 2026 Dubai Invitational is scheduled for the week after the Sentry (Jan. 15-18) and has already gotten commitments from Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood; they’re also among the top Europeans expected at the following week’s Hero Dubai Desert Classic (Jan. 22-25).

There’s also TGL, which kicks off in Florida on Sunday, Dec. 28, and then features matches on Monday or Tuesday every week of January — which raised eyebrows when the schedule was released, given it’s tough to combine a Tuesday TGL match with a Thursday tournament tee time in Hawaii.

Once again, the PGA Tour has stuck a shiv in a sponsor's back....why do they take it?

Many of you will understand that, given the unique geography here, it's not just the one sponsor that took it up the back channel:

So … where does the PGA Tour season start?

Technically the first PGA Tour event of the season will be the Sony Open in Hawaii, with balls in the air for the first round on Jan. 15. But it may not feel quite like the full-on PGA Tour will be underway; top pros who typically island-hop from the Sentry to the Sony may not make the trip at all.

It’ll be interesting to see if we get a beefed-up field when the Tour returns to the mainland with the American Express in Palm Springs Jan. 22-25. That’s followed by the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines (Jan. 29-Feb. 1) and the WM Phoenix Open (Feb. 5-8) before, at last, the first Signature Event, the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (Feb. 12-15). From there, things will hit warp speed (eight Signature Events plus the Players and all four majors in the next 23 weeks). But it’s an admittedly slower start with the Sentry off the schedule.

 I wonder if they'll even be able to fill out the field.  Sony might have to pay to get guys to Oahu....

Beloved? - Your mileage may vary:

Golf Channel is bringing back a beloved show … with a YouTube twist

I'm sure you'll have guessed....

There is a certain irony in the news that Golf Channel is bringing back The Big Break with help from the YouTube content kings at Good Good.

The irony in question? Primarily that at the time The Big Break was in its Golf Channel heyday, most of the Good Good gang wasn’t old enough to watch it.

Still, the news is good for lifelong fans of the show (or more recent fans of one of YouTube golf’s most prominent brands): The Big Break has been greenlit by Golf Channel executives to return to audiences in late 2026, and Good Good is at the center of the operation.

According to a press release announcing the return, Golf Channel and Good Good will combine to produce a new edition of the longtime reality TV show, with a sponsor’s exemption into next November’s newly announced Good Good Championship (a PGA Tour fall series event) on the line for the winner.

To date, The Big Break remains Golf Channel’s most notable success in the world of original programming — a reality TV series that ran for a record 23 seasons from 2003 to 2015 and helped birth the careers of several notable golf figures, including Tony Finau. The new edition of the reality show will feature a heavy dose of Golf Channel’s content partners at Good Good golf, the 2-million-subscriber YouTube channel and merchandise monolith. Good Good and Golf Channel signed a content partnership in 2024 that has seen a host of new programming come to the network via the YouTube channel, though to date the partnership has focused more on one-off events than recurring series’ like Big Break.

I've got a bit of a personal connection to this show, because during my Willow Ridge days one of the aspiring pros there got a gig on Big Break ate The Greenbrier.  In fact, I was with him when he received the call telling him he was in,.

But I always thought that watching aspiring professional golfers choke up a storm should have been much better television than they made it out to be.  Hopefully the YouTubers can help them make it more appealing.  Honestly, to me this should be of greater interest than the TGL, just because those guys just don't hit enough bad shots.  Well, except for Kevin Kisner.

That will have to do for today, boys and girls.  Still not planning too much blogging, but I will try not to ghost you again as I've done for the last 10-12 days.  No hard feelings?