Late-Week Lamentations

Remember way back to yesterday, when there wasn't much of anything to discuss?  I do what I can, but I'm just the messenger...

The Reviews Are In - I didn't see a minute of it, but others did:

How did Tiger play? 

The Big Cat impressed in his first event of 2020, firing a round of three-under-par 69 that included five birdies and two bogeys. Woods is currently T21, three shots behind the leaders.

Anyone else we care about?

How did the other big names play? 

Rory McIlroy and Bubba Watson are only one shot off the lead after opening rounds of five under par. Jon Rahm is two back after firing a four-under-par 68, and Patrick Reed is tied with Tiger at three under par overall. 

Other players of note include Tony Finau, Collin Morikawa and Jordan Spieth (-2); Cameron Champ (-1); Phil Mickelson (E), Hideki Matsuyama and Jason Day (+1); Justin Rose, Gary Woodland and Rickie Fowler (+3), Matthew Wolff (+4) and Francesco Molinari (+7).

Let's just take a moment to contemplate the rather dramatic fall of Frankie Molinari....  From seeming invincibility as he walked to the 12th tee at Augusta back in April, there seems no bottom to his freefall.  

Of course we're at Torrey, and none of these accounts nor the Golf.com leaderboard advise as to S or N, rendering status unclear until thirty-six holes have been played.  Tiger's 69 was on the North, so is necessarily less than it seems...  

The good news?  I think Molinari's 77 was on the tougher South, so... well, who am I kidding?  There's no course-difficulty adjustment that makes T152 remotely palatable.

Craving more detail?

On Thursday in his latest return after a break of five weeks, Woods needed just two holes to get in tune at Torrey Pines in his 2020 debut. On the sun-splashed, seaside resort where he’s won eight times – including the 2008 U.S. Open on a broken leg – Woods

eased his way into the new year with a satisfying 3-under 69 on the North Course for the first round of the Farmers Insurance Open.

“I definitely was feeling it,” Woods said. “I missed the competition. I was trying to keep everything as calm as I possibly could. I didn’t do a very good job of that starting out, I made a quick bogey there. I felt like I fought back and there’s a lot of positives heading to the South Course.” 

After a pushed approach on the par-5 10th – his first hole of the round – and a chunked flop shot on the 11th from just in front of the green that led to a bogey, Woods didn’t miss too many shots going forward. That is, except for a chip on the 18th that had too much zip and rolled 45 feet from the hole and led to a bogey. 

Other than that, he was calm, cool and collected on a serene day. Looking lean and fit and with nary a hint of rust, the world No. 6 made good use of his new TaylorMade SIM driver – he spent more than 90 minutes on the back of the range Tuesday getting the club dialed in.

Tuesday?  It's just funny, because it was his Wednesday range session that folks were calling golf porn.  No, really.

He looked healthy, which is pretty much all that matters...  Otherwise, we all just need to pace ourselves, because we're still three months out from golf that matters.  Maybe two, if you think that the Players Championship counts.

Fun With Rankings - Shane Ryan will serve as your amusement for the morning, though he doesn't actually deliver on this premise:

The Excitement Scale: Ranking the PGA Tour’s 65 most watchable pros

Really, all he does is group them into amusing categories, but that's not a bad thing::

The “I Want to Care More, But You Have to Make Me” Tier 

Who knows what evil lurks within?

42: Matthew Fitzpatrick

41: Tony Finau

40: Cameron Champ 

The “Seemingly Nondescript/Good, But Might Throw You a Massive Curveball” Tier 

39: Webb Simpson 

The “Staid Gentlemen/Class Act/Pro’s Pro/High Character/Gracious Fellows” Tier 

38: Adam Scott

37: Justin Rose

Wasn't I just reliably informed, by Michael Collins it so happens, that this is the year we hear about Adam Scott's bad behavior?

 I quite agree that this guy deserves a category of his own:

The “I Guarantee You Something Weird Will Happen With This Guy Within, Like, a Month” Tier 

32: Kevin Na

Since we've little else, care for some more?

The “Extreme Talent That Maybe Burns a Little Too Bright” Tier 

15: Jon Rahm 

The “Extreme Talent That Maybe Burns a Little Too Soft” Tier 

14: Jason Day 

The “Please Let This Guy Be Extremely Good Again, I Love Him, Can’t You See I Love Him?” Tier 

13: Henrik Stenson 

The “Dear God Just Win a Major to Stop the Ceaseless Soul-Killing Discourse” Tier 

12: Rickie Fowler

Yeah, Rickie would do us all a favor if he'd just grab a major one of these days.  Or anything, really.

Of course, you're dying to know the medalists:

The “Villain Who Wouldn’t Be Believable in a Work of Fiction” Tier 

2: Patrick Reed 

The "Eternal Golf God Who Will Command Our Attention Until the Universe Implodes" Tier 

1: Tiger Woods

I know, I'm shocked as well....  All good fun.

I Saw It On TV -  Though, apparently I was the only one:

You can understand when LPGA Commissioner Mike Whan pines for network coverage after seeing last weekend’s ratings. That’s when the Diamond Resorts TOC aired on NBC while The American Express (formerly the Bob Hope/Chrysler/Humana/Clinton/Careerbuilder/Desert/) was on Golf Channel. 

According to Showbuzzdaily.com’s wrap-up of weekend sports ratings, the LPGA drew a .40 on NBC each weekend day, averaging 595,000 and 587,000 viewers respectively.

Meanwhile, the final round of the The American Express won by Andrew Landry, went up against the NFL’s Titans-Chiefs AFC Championship game on CBS and averaged 227,000 viewers to draw a .04. The round did, however, edge out a particularly powerful episode of Vet Exotic on National Geographic to be the 137th cable show of the weekend.

Also airing at the same time as the LPGA and the PGA Tour on ESPN2: the tape delayed final round of the Latin America Amateur. That telecast drew a .03 and 121,000 average viewers.

Those numbers are shockingly small, which is why I don't often blog on this subject.  But it's really hard to imagine that AMEX could be happy at those numbers...  

Rumor Central - Shack pulls back the curtain on a potential threat to the Ponte Vedra feedlot:

A multi-year effort to create a star-driven global golf tour has gained momentum again.

Multiple sources have confirmed to GeoffShackelford.com that after years of attempting

to commence the World Golf Group’s vision with a 2020 start date, organizers are making another fervent bid to lure top players away from the PGA and European Tours with plans to start in 2022 or 2023. The concept, first revealed by Reuters in 2018, has been alternatively known as the World Golf Series or “Tour de Force.”

“It seems to resurface at different times,” said Mark Steinberg, the only agent willing to go on the record about the concept. “It’s obviously resurfacing right now. We’ll see if they take it to the next level.”

Two other well-known player representatives confirmed that the concept had serious legitimacy and that players were considering the proposal. Three other agents contacted declined to comment, while four players with knowledge of the proposal would only confirm details, fearful of fines for discussing a potential PGA Tour competitor.

Veddy interesting....  Obviously this is well-orchestrated behind the scenes, our Steiny doesn't just confirm things unless he has a vested interest in doing so.  As noted, this has been floating around for some time, and 30 seconds of Googling returns this 2018 Golfweek item on the subject, which just happens to include this spit-your-drink-out howler:

The PGA Tour would likely oppose the start up, given the obvious conflicts over top talent. Another hurdle would be getting sanctioned by the Official World Golf Ranking organization so that players could earn ranking points. Among the OWGR founding members are the PGA Tour, Augusta National, the USGA and R&A. 

None of those groups have a history or reputation of embracing immediate and radical change.

No they don't, but such an effort is irrelevant to the USGA and R&A...

Back to Shack, who fills in some sketchy details:

So how would this new global tour work? 

The original concept featured 54-hole, no-cut events to would be spread around the world while allowing players to still earn world ranking points needed to qualify for major championships and earn endorsement money. Purses were originally pegged to be in the $10 million range, but those numbers may climb while retaining backdoor appearance fees that would add to player and agent coffers.

Beyond the huge money, the lengthy, well-formulated pro-forma passed around to golf industry figures lobs several jabs at the current state of the professional golf “product.” Financing is believed to come from a combination of sources, including Tokyo-based Softbank, and private equity investment from several regions including the United States and the Middle East.

Perhaps most interesting is that revival of this proposition comes as the Tour is finalizing its rights packages .  Equally curious, is this tease from Geoff:

In the coming days I will detail how the proposed formats will work and why the concept could be of interest to golf viewers.

This should be good fun....  

The Tour's relentless expansion of its schedule is designed to protect against such a threat, so it's hard for me to imagine such an effort getting traction.  On the other hand, they've had it coming for some time.

Popcorn, popped.  Have a great weekend.