Just Another Manic Monday

Perhaps the first Bangle shout-out in the blog's history for those keeping a scorecard of pop culture references.  I really hadn't planned on blogging this morning, but then, "I read the news today, Oh boy."

The USGA in Winter - Today's news triggers an existential question for your humble blogger.  As you no doubt know, politicians are famous for their Friday afternoon news dumps, releasing anything unfavorable at the time of week guaranteed to minimize its exposure.  But if golf is your business, when is the optimal time of week for a bad news dump?  Gotta be a Monday, no?  Maybe Sunday night to bury it among tournament results, but that's gotta be your news cycle of choice (although we have two items, in one the USGA is a passive player, which might be the more damning of the two items).

As you're no doubt aware, Fox punted the USGA TV rights back to NBC in 2020.  Covid no doubt played a role, but the reality is that Fox dramatically overpaid for those rights and was well rid of them.  This was its own cock-up, given that we went through the learning curve with Fox and they were at that point arguably the best golf production to be found.  Of course, we'll now look back at Chambers Bay through rose-tinted glasses, wistfully nostalgic for the one instance in which Greg Norman had nothing to say....

So, no doubt you're thinking that, at the very least, those rights didn't go to CBS.  Yeah, we dodged that bullet, and with NBC and Golf Channel under common ownership, we can anticipate a normalized TV schedule for future USGA events.... It's like the old joke in which a Marine Corp. drill master instructs all troops whose mothers are still alive to take one step forward, then says, "Not so fast, Roberts."

SBJ’s John Ourand wisely stuck with the headline news—NBC’s Premier League coverage is moving to the home of Law and Order reruns—but golf fans will be in for a shock: Golf Channel is losing early round coverage of the U.S. Open, U.S. Women’s Open, The Open and AIG Women’s Open to USA Network.

(Pausing here to let stateside Quad readers find USA on your cable menu. Unless you’re a big rerun or wresting viewer, or sentimental for the network that gave Peter Kostis his golf broadcasting start over thirty years ago, then finding USA may take a while.)

The Premier League shift Ourand led with is in response to the shuttering of NBC Sports Network, but the inclusion of USGA and R&A coverage opens up a number of questions about Comcast and NBC Universal’s commitment to Golf Channel and other non-PGA Tour golf coverage.

I can answer that question: the commitment is winding down.

I'm wondering is the use of the present tense is appropriate...

Maddeningly, Geoff appears to be making the case that this portends the demise of Golf Channel, though he does so behind The Quadrilateral's pay wall.  I'd very much like to hear his thoughts, though obviously not sufficiently to pay him for that.  But I agree that this is quite the shock, though there's not a sniff of this news on any of the major golf sites (most especially not at GolfChannel.com).

But let's try to follow their thought process.  You've just repurchased the rights to the U.S. Open, and of course need a home for the Thursday-Friday action, as well as some early weekend action.  Let's see, where shall we place it?... Ummmm, we have this marginal property that's called Golf Channel, we could give it a try there.... Nah, no one watches that.

What they seem to be saying is that whatever value this has to us on USA exceeds the value of broadcasting it on our own, golf-centric channel.  So, the first question we should logically ask is, what will Golf Channel broadcast instead?  It has to be an off-field PGA Tour event, a Euro Tour event, an LPGA event or, most likely a rerun of Bagger Vance right?  Whatever value that might drive in ad sales will obviously be substantially diminished by the fact that it will compete against the live U.S. Open broadcast.  It's basically a capitulation, Golf Channel forfeiting their place in the golf eco-system and begging the question of their survival.  

There's a couple of follow up bits where I try too hard to show you how clever I am.  The first concerns Mike Whan, now the USGAs majordomo.  For years I've been critical of Mike's fetish of pushing small network broadcast windows for the LPGA, arguing that the cost of confusing the audience as to the location of the coverage wasn't worth whatever aura being on the big networks conveyed.

Mike, alas, has jumped out of that frying pan into...well, you know.  Because he's now gone from fighting to get the ladies on network TV to watching impotently as the world's most important men's golf tournament is banished from Golf Channel...  The irony, she really burns this time.

The second bit isn't especially golf-centric, but who among us isn't a fan of B-school gibberish?  This is from that John Ourand SBJ item breaking the news:

Later this week, NBC Sports Group formally will announce the specific sports properties that will migrate from NBCSN to USA Network, including many NASCAR and IndyCar races, USGA and R&A golf championships and Olympic sports. “The strategic and intentional move of sports content to USA was a long and collaborative process with our corporate cousins at USA,” said NBC Sports Programming Exec VP Tom Knapp. “It has created the cable version of a broadcast network, with the exception of news.”

NBC Sports execs believe the move will lead to USA becoming the top-rated sports and entertainment channel on cable. Knapp cited this summer’s Tokyo Games, which positioned USA at the top of the cable ratings list throughout the Games. USA, of course, will keep a big schedule of entertainment programming, too. “The entertainment viewer will be exposed to these sports properties in ways that they haven’t been before,” Knapp said. “And the sports fan will be exposed to entertainment properties in ways that they haven’t before. We believe that cross-pollination will be good for everybody.”

Yanno, I'm just a struggling blogger, and have trouble understanding sophisticated concepts like synergy.   But, as I understand the complexity of their worldview (bonus points for any reader that can identify that pop culture reference), that 86-year old woman that tunes to USA for a rebroadcast of Murder, She Wrote will stay and be entranced by early round coverage of the U.S. Women's Junior Amateur....  Yeah, that's the ticket, let's use golf, which has no discernable audience where folks expect to find it, to drive new viewers to our tired reruns.

Our second news item of import comes from Brian Wacker:

— Brian Wacker (@brianwacker1) November 1, 2021

Yowzer!  Don't get me wrong, you can't read that without realizing that enforcement could be one hot mess, but actual Tour players acting independently of the USGA to maintain the integrity of golf skills... Hmm, maybe there's hope for humanity after all.

I do agree with Geoff here, though somewhat guardedly:

This one is a little embarrassing for the USGA and R&A, who tried to limit green reading books by reducing their size and only prompted players to the silly cheat sheets closer to their face. But in a rare and welcomed moment of product introspection, the PGA Tour Advisory Council took bold action to all but limit their use in PGA Tour events.

The untold story in this is how badly the USGA and R&A botched those 2019 rules revisions, many of which have subsequently walked back.  But their failure here is truly troubling because this one should have been such a lay-up, with no entrenched and powerful equipment manufacturers to object.  Obviously reading greens is a golf skill, and they simply couldn't see their way to protecting the game.

Geoff doesn't go too deep into the compliance issues, offering only this obvious bit:

Enforcement of this should be interesting as players tuck books into leather covers and spotting “Committee Approved Book” may be tricky. But otherwise, it’s a welcome change and one that should have happened sooner in the name of protecting skill as well as pace of play.

Daniel Rappaport dives deeper, and the book inside the leather cover seems like the least of it:

The most interesting, and perhaps complicating, part of the memo reads as follows: "Handwritten

notes that could assist with reading the line of play on the putting green will continue to be allowed in the approved book. However, such notes will be restricted to only those made by the player or caddie and must be derived from the experiences or any observations of a ball rolling on a green. This includes observations from a TV broadcast. Transferring prevoius handwritten notes that also meet the new restrictions into the approved book is allowed. No devices, levels or other technology may be used to gather information to be kept as notes, and no information may be copied from another source into the approved book."

There is simply no way to audit the source of a scribble in the yardage book, so we may well have to wait for each and every touring professional with an illegal green-reading book to die off.   How's that for my typically optimistic take on things?  

But I'm actually quite pleased with the PGA Tour's Advisory Board stepping up, notwithstanding that the solution is imperfect.  They see the governing bodies abdicating their responsibilities and step in to maintain the integrity of the game, which should (but apparently isn't) sending shock waves through Far Hills and St. Andrews.  Because if you're unable to see that detailed green-reading books are an issue, remind me of what exactly you're doing that actually helps the game?

Before we leave, that photo above accompanies the Rappaport item.  Do we think they chose it at random?  Would any photo of a recognizable Tour player reading his book have done just as well?  I'm not sure, but I am certainly reminded of Geoff's speculation when the Tour immediately supported the ban on clubs longer than 46 inches.  If the man is in search of a causus belli against the Tour (we take it for granted that he already has many against the USGA), we now would seem to have at least two... Over to you Phil, as the Saudi's have a rather large check made out in your name.

Let's Call the Whole Thing Off - Did someone mention the Saudis?  Lots to talk about here, but I'd like to ask for special dispensation to address the funniest bit before that which might have significance.  You'll be shocked... shocked, I tell you, to discern that the funniest bit involves a certain Aussie further beclowning himself, though this time presumably with his shirt on.

Yesterday we closed with a Tour Confidential Q&A about the significance of the Super League being funded with Saudi money.  The whole thing is a bit complicated and the PGL is actually back in the mix, but should the players be revolted by the source of the money?  I've always preferred a world where we didn't rely on athletes to be role models and make our ethical judgements for us, but that world ceased to exist in early November 2016, if not previously.

The CEO of Liv Golf Investments has graciously submitted to an interview, and can you say passive aggressive?

The initial announcement was for 10 events on the Asian Tour, but it seems the vision is for a more robust offering that is a tour of its own. Is the goal here eventually to compete with the PGA Tour for top-level talent?

I just wanted to create a bed where more great players [can develop] … In the ’80s, I went to play the Swedish Open. There was a gentleman, Sven Tumba, an ice hockey player. His dream was to create a platform that goes down to the grassroots to develop a generation of players to get on the PGA and European Tour. He did a phenomenal job of transforming golf from non-existent in the country to something where you had Swedish players coming through winning majors. It’s no different on the Asian Tour. My dream is to do the same with Asia … if we have an opportunity to invest and grow the game of golf through our investment dollars in Asia, God bless us. There’s nothing wrong with that, and no one should decry us for doing that. I just get a little bit miffed as to why people feel so against me wanting to do that through LIV Golf Investments.

Gee, what a riddle!   So, the issue isn't what the Saudi's, a country with no historic ties to golf, might be attempting to accomplish, but rather the issue is the haters criticizing Norman... Got it.

But do get yourself a fresh cup of coffee for this bit of delusional rationalizing:

Regarding the source of the money here, obviously, you considered this before making an extremely important decision for you. Do you have any concerns as to where the money is coming from, and specifically the Saudi Arabian connection?

The PIF (Public Investment Fund), which is our majority investor, they’re obviously a commercial operation. They’re very autonomous. They make investment decisions all around the world. They’ve invested in major U.S. corporations because of commercial reasons. They invested in LIV Golf Investments for a commercial opportunity. They’re passionate about the game of golf.

OK, we can't actually get more than a few words in without shouting, WTF!  Just to be clear, Mr. Norman is asserting that the Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is autonomous.  Just let that rattle around in your brain for a while, because the Kingdom, we can all agree, has historically tolerated a wide range of belief systems and independent thought.

But perhaps the more outrageous assertion is that this is a commercial investment.  I have all sorts of follow up questions about the nature of these commercial returns, though the CEO quite clearly won't be sitting for those kinds of interviews.

I’ve been going to Saudi Arabia now for three years. I was invited to do a golf course design project there. Unless you actually go there and see and understand exactly what’s happening there, you [can’t] sit back and make judgmental calls. I made the journey there to look at what was happening in Saudi Arabia before I made any decision on anything because I’m not a person who makes judgement calls. I make sound decisions on sound facts and information that is presented to you. So when the PIF wanted to become a majority investor, I knew what was happening in the country.

Wow, the man clearly takes his due diligence obligations seriously.  I mean he's been going there for three whole years, so he obviously has absorbed the rhythm of the streets.   Did he do the same level of due diligence on his pimped out golf cart?  By the way, did he run the golf cart by the Saudis?  Because they might have a problem with the speakers, their musical taste being limited to the muezzin's call to prayers five times a day.  

But please put down your cup of coffee for this, as no one wants to start their day with a spit-take:

Women’s right issues—the women there now, I’ve been so impressed. You walk into a restaurant and there are women. They’re not wearing burkas. They’re out playing golf.

Do we think Greg Norman knows who Walter Duranty was?   Because, despite how compromised the sporting press is, even Golf Digest couldn't let that whopper pass without this rebuttal:

Editor’s note: Saudi Arabia ranked 147th out of 153 nations in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index for 2021. And according to Human Rights watch, despite women’s rights reforms in recent years, “Saudi women still must obtain a male guardian’s approval to get married, leave prison, or obtain certain healthcare. Women also continue to face discrimination in relation to marriage, family, divorce, and decisions relating to children, including child custody.”

The man is so in thrall to his own ego and so desperate for relevance, that he can't even see how he's being played.   He's been a laughingstock of our game for years now, and I find amusement in the arranged marriage with the noxious Saudis.  The man is actually sacrificing what little remains of his reputation for the Saudis and their thirty pieces of silver, as pitiful an act as I've seen in some time.

Thanks you for allowing me that dispensation, but shall we now get to the actual news?  Just when we had finished reading their obituary, back from the dead comes...wait for it, the Premiere Golf League.  Shack has a non-paywalled item up that quite amusingly reads like a legal document, first defining the parties:

The PGA Tour Inc. (PGA Tour) - A 501(c)(6) tax exempt “non-profit” whose primary mission is to promote the sport of professional golf through the sanctioning and administering of tournaments for its members, while also taking most of the credit for charitable dollars raised by participating events. In recent years, the PGA Tour has placed an excessive emphasis on schedule-building around two moribund products: Olympic golf and the FedExCup. The Commissioner, Jay Monahan, is lavishly incentivized to raises purses and create playing opportunities and has vowed to retaliate against any defections to other enterprises by suspending or ending a player’s PGA Tour membership.

That one is quite obviously there for the amusement value and, perhaps, for those cheap shots at Jay and the FedEx Cup, not that there's anything wrong with that.

But the next one actually helps explain how we got to the complicated state of affairs:

The Premier Golf League (PGL) - Founded at least seven years ago under the World Golf Group name, this mostly-British contingent has been quietly attempting to alter the professional golf model. Previous PGL names have included Tour de Force and World Golf Series. The vision: a league-driven global elite tour with franchises, shorter tournament weeks, a Ryder Cup-style season conclusion and an overall fan-friendly reformation while working around golf’s major championships. For a brief time in 2020 the PGL was fronted by “global merchant bank” the Raine Group, which reportedly still holds a small stake. And at one time the PGL received funding commitments from the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia until receiving criticism for ties to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s wretched Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Speaking of…

Wretched?  Geoff, haven't you heard the good news, there's now women in restaurants and playing golf without burkas?   Yanno, you really oughta get out more...

But there is actual news, a different business model, as Geoff explains:

The PGL is taking a different approach. They would like to present the PGA Tour with a revamped model that maintains the Tour “umbrella” and the various positives going with such continuity.

According to two sources, the PGA Tour has not acknowledged receipt of a PGL memo and deck sent in early September, 2021. Nor has the PGA Tour sought to have any discussions with the Premier Golf League at any point.

An outline of the latest proposal has been obtained by The Quadrilateral and reasserts the PGL’s stance of wanting to work with the PGA Tour while offering a merging of the current structure with most of the original PGL concepts. The PGL squashes any hint of a “breakaway” sensibility—“no member would suffer any loss of earning opportunity” according to the memo—with an end goal of presenting a more tangible product that should, theoretically, appeal to the PGA Tour’s disparate interests.

This seems a stretch, unless they're planning to hold their events on Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks, the only open weeks on the PGA Tour schedule.

Geoff has more details that you might want to scan, though I'll just leave you with this bit of happy talk:

With the heading, “Reformation Not Revolution,” the briefing note says: “The proposals follow the precedent created by the founders of the PGA Tour, and the PGL would reinforce and remain faithful to their founding principles.”

At various times throughout this saga and as recently as May, Monahan has reportedly said any player joining a start-up circuit will face suspension or possible expulsion from the PGA Tour.

Yet the PGL believes it has found a way around the ugliness of reinventing professional golf, as we could see any day now with player defections to the Saudi-back proposal. The briefing suggests “there would be no cliff edge, no bans and no threat to players’ pensions or OWGR points.”

And this silly little bit of editorializing:

Still, one element in this confusing maze of competing interests should now be clear: which of these disruptors is attempting a hostile takeover with backing by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and which is seeking to discuss a reformative approach minus the baggage of a totalitarian, Shari’a law-abiding regime.

The only question now? Why won’t Jay Monahan take the Premier Golf League’s call?

I can help you there, Geoff.  Why does the wraparound schedule exist?  It's purpose is to clog the schedule to preclude any other party or tour from creating a base from which to challenge Ponte Vedra  Beach hegemony.  I would think the PGL guys are especially threatening to Kubla Jay, because they're focused on actually making the golf interesting, mostly through introducing a team format.  Therefore, the must and will be crushed, while Jay focuses on important stuff like gambling odds and millennials letting their freak flags fly.

Just to make matters even more grim, the one party that consistently tried to innovate and improve the fan experience, the Euro Tour, has simultaneously hit the wall and been forced to capitulate.  And you wonder why I'm so depressed?

The Legend of The Pendrith - Dylan Dethier's Monday Finish column ledes with an ode to the big bopper:

When Taylor Pendrith‘s name appeared atop the Butterfield Bermuda Championship leaderboard this weekend, I texted a few buddies from my mini-tour days. This happens from time to time — a name will pop up in the U.S. Open or someone who has gone through Q-school and we’ll marvel at the fact that that was the guy who ended up making it.

With Pendrith it was the exact opposite. Rather than “I can’t believe that guy made it” it was “I can’t believe he wasn’t out there yet.”

I played most of the 2015 PGA Tour Canada season alongside Pendrith. When I say “alongside” I mean that we were technically in the same field each week — he was contending for victories while I was missing cuts. But he quickly became an icon on the tour because of his ridiculous length. He would hit his 2-iron past other guys’ driver. He’d fly his driver 40 yards past the average pro. He led the tour in driving distance by a preposterous 13 yards.

“I remember him having a replacement driver delivered to him mid-round after twisting the head from the hosel after a nice send,” texted Brian Hughes, a former roommate who plays on PGA Tour Latinoamerica. “Still has gotta be the longest player I’ve seen to this day.”

He's just insanely long, at least according to the buzz.  What we crave, of course, is a pairing with Bryson to judge his length on a relative basis...

Now, I could have done without this paean to PReed:

Captain America had gone 10 starts in a row without a top-five finish. He got double pneumonia.

He missed the Ryder Cup. The faceless social media account connected with his team garnered more attention than his actual play. And then Patrick Reed nearly stormed to victory on the back nine in Bermuda.

“It just allows you to be creative because you might as well just throw the yardage books away today,” Reed said after playing his final six holes in four under, shooting six-under 65 and posting the clubhouse lead (he wound up T2 alongside Lee). It was a reminder that Reed’s style of golf is fascinating to watch. It was also a welcome reminder why this guy has spent several charging inside the top 10 on so many leaderboards. It’s also fun hearing a pro so explicitly embracing the idea of “playing golf” rather than imitating some version of what they did on a launch monitor between starts.

“When it gets tough or when it gets hard, I feel like it allows me to get away from kind of driving range golf swings and stuff like that. It allows me to get really creative, start seeing golf shots and playing golf rather than sit there and try to produce a golf swing.”

Whether you consider Reed a villain, an artist, a national hero, a pest or some combination of the four, professional golf is more fun when he’s involved.

Personally, I consider him a cheating a*****e who is a cancer in our game, where does that fit into your matrix, Dylan?   

I certainly understand the value of villains in an entertainment product, so Dylan has an obvious point, that he can render things more interesting as we root against.  The problem is that it forces the other players to accommodate his behavior, which takes us in the wrong direction.  The best instance of this is what he did to Tiger's Prez Cup team, forcing them to rationalize cheating.

Of course, I now know that that incident was fake news, caused by Golf Channel deliberately using misleading camera angles to besmirch an upstanding member of the golf community, and I look forward to each and every fellow PGA Tour member offering their opinions on those fake camera angles.  Because we can't move on from a slight that two years old.. What Dylan apparently finds interesting, I consider dispiriting and soul crushing. 

So, how did you enjoy the post?  I think it was awfully good for a non-blogging day, no?  Thanks for stopping by and we'll have more as the week progresses.