Tuesday Trifles

A bit of a late arrival at the keyboard, though for all the best reasons.  Specifically, two guys that parked themselves in my lap.  Normally I'd stiff you, but some interesting things to cover, including a Tiger sighting.

Those Motorcycles Don't Sell Themselves - A full ten months after the car accident and suddenly Tiger is in our face.  First the time suck of that 3-second swing video, and now this:

Exclusive: Tiger Woods discusses golf future in first in-depth interview since car accident

In depth, you say?  Well, one mans Mariana Trench is another's...

In a 30-minute interview with Golf Digest, Tiger Woods opens up about a painful year, a possible return to golf, and son Charlie's progress as a player

Thirty minutes, eh?  Didn't know one could pause Call of Duty for that long...

 This seems a strange place to begin:

“I think something that is realistic is playing the tour one day—never full time, ever again—but pick and choose, just like Mr. [Ben] Hogan did. Pick and choose a few events a year and you play around that,” Woods said during a Zoom interview with Golf Digest’s Henni Koyack from his South Florida home. “You practice around that, and you gear yourself up for that. I think that’s how I’m going to have to play it from now on. It’s an unfortunate reality, but it’s my reality. And I understand it, and I accept it.”

Henni Kovack?  The man's been out of sight for ten months and his first interview is with someone neither you nor I have ever heard of.  Obviously she's been vetted and deemed safe, but she'll know what subjects to avoid.  For those thinking he might talk about what actually happened, you've not been paying attention the last twenty-five years:

Woods suffered comminuted open fractures to both the tibia and the fibula in his right leg after losing control of his vehicle outside of Los Angeles on Feb. 23. He was rushed to Harbor-UCLA

Medical Center and subsequently transferred to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he spent three weeks and faced the possibility of amputation.

“There was a point in time when, I wouldn’t say it was 50/50, but it was damn near there if I was going to walk out of that hospital with one leg. Once I [kept it], I wanted to test and see if I still had my hands. So even in the hospital, I would have [girlfriend] Erica [Herman] and [friend] Rob [McNamara] throw me something. Throw me anything.”

One of the first memories Woods has after the accident is asking for a golf club to toy around with while in his hospital bed. Such began a rehabilitation process that included three months in a hospital-type bed in his home. Next, a wheelchair. He then progressed to crutches, which allowed him to regain independence and move around at his own will.

Now our Tiger has never shown any great appreciation for the unwashed masses, and doesn't seem to realize that this ode to the outdoors sounds like Joe Six Pack during the pandemic lockdown:

“Adding that part into my day-to-day life was so rewarding because I’d been stuck in a house. Granted, it’s a pretty nice house I’ve built for myself, but I hadn’t been able to do the one thing I love to do: I love to go outside and just be outside. Sometimes I just crutch and lay on the grass for an hour because I want to be outside. Missing the contact of a golf ball hit properly is one of the better feelings.”

He does know about Covid, no?

But compare and contrast this to that lede bit above.  I'm not clear on exactly what game he's playing, but clearly we're being played:

“I have so far to go … I’m not even at the halfway point,” he said. “I have so much more muscle development and nerve development that I have to do in my leg. At the same time, as you know, I’ve had five back operations. So I'm having to deal with that. So as the leg gets stronger, sometimes the back may act up. … It’s a tough road. But I’m just happy to be able to go out there and watch Charlie play, or go in the backyard and have an hour or two by myself with no one talking, no music, no nothing. I just hear the birds chirping. That part I’ve sorely missed.”

This is why that happy talk above annoyed me so.  He's logically so far away from knowing whether he can ever regain enough strength and speed to be competitive out there, and it would have been interesting to hear some candor about his progression.  But Tiger doesn't do candor, so he's here for his own reasons, and those reasons don't impact my life.

I'm often unable to pass up the cheap shot, and this Golf.com header is a perfect example.  Quite obviously written before confirmation that His Highness would show in Albany, it's an easy lay-up:

Tiger Woods’ tournament is this week. Here are 5 reasons why we might see Tiger.

I kind of nailed it in that header, there are motorcycles to sell....

Lee Elder, RIP -  How about we segue to a black golfer about whom your humble blogger actually cares?

Lee Elder, who broke the color barrier at the Masters, died on Sunday. He was 87.

Elder made 448 starts on the PGA Tour, winning four times. His victory at the 1974 Monsanto

Open earned an invite to the 1975 Masters, where he became the first Black golfer to play in the tournament. It was an achievement that brought out the worst of humanity, as Elder received death threats leading up to his appearance at Augusta National. The danger forced Elder to rent two houses during Masters week so that his would-be antagonizers would not know where he was. In the face of this cruelty, Elder shot 74 and 78, missing the cut. He would play at the Masters five more times, his best finish a T-17 in 1979.

In the fall of 2020, Augusta National announced it would celebrate Elder’s legacy by naming him an Honorary Starter along with Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player for the annual ceremony at the 2021 Masters. Though Elder was not able to hit an opening tee shot this April he was able to join Nicklaus and Player at the first tee and received the loudest ovation of the three.

"For me and my family, I think it was one of the most emotional experiences that I have ever witnessed or been involved in," Elder said following the ceremony. "It is certainly something that I will cherish for the rest of my life."

A class act, and an instance in which the powers that be actually paid tribute while Lee was still with us.   

Of course, the honor was marred by the selfishness of the noxious Player clan, who should rightfully be banned from Augusta in perpetuity.

Obviously many will rightfully point to Augusta's delay in allowing a black man to compete, and there's plenty to support that position.  But there's a secondary aspect of Augusta's actions that bear scrutiny as well, and for which they received much criticism. For when the Augusta Grand Poobahs decided that it would be great to have a black player in the Masters, they didn't jury-rig their qualification process, they waited for a black golfer to earn his way into the Masters, a decision with which I agreed.  

To me that was good for golf, good for the Masters and, most importantly, good for Lee Elder.  Because as we look back at the life of this worthy man, we can say with certainty that he earned his way in, and isn't that far better than if he had been an affirmative action entrant?  

R.I.P.

The Plot Thickens Sickens - We are headed for some kind of conflagration it seems.  Yesterday we pointed towards that Saudi event in February, now an Asian Tour event opposite the Crosby Clambake on the calendar.

Maintaining their ho-hum approach, the Saudi event has released its field, which is shockingly strong:

The question of who will blink first regarding a looming standoff between players wishing to compete in next February’s Saudi International and officials with the PGA Tour and DP World Tour trying to keep them from playing grew more interesting—and intense—on Monday. That’s when Golf Saudi officials sent out a press release trumpeting a list of 25 top American and European players—including 11 major champions—who they say have committed to playing at Royal Greens Golf Club near Jeddah.

The list includes several players who had previously competed or won the event (Dustin Johnson was the champ in 2019 and 2021, Graeme McDowell in 2020), which was on the DP World Tour (formerly European Tour) schedule from its inception in 2019 until 2021. But when Golf Saudi began making overtures toward starting its own golf series and trying to recruit high-profile players to be the main attractions, tour officials in Europe and the United States distanced themselves from the event. Reportedly, they told players that they would no longer be given releases to compete in the Saudi Invitational and would be disciplined if they were to play in the event anyway.

Here is that field in its entirety:

Abraham Ancer

Adri Arnaus

Rafael Cabrera Bello

Paul Casey

Bryson DeChambeau

Jason Dufner

Tommy Fleetwood

Sergio Garcia

Tyrrell Hatton

Dustin Johnson

Jason Kokrak

Shane Lowry

Graeme McDowell

Phil Mickelson

Kevin Na

Joaquin Niemann

Louis Oosthuizen

Ian Poulter

Xander Schauffele

Adam Scott

Henrik Stenson

Harold Varner III

Jhonattan Vegas

Bubba Watson

Lee Westwood

Is this the hill on which Jay wants to die?  Yeah, Bryson DJ and the X-man might be worrisome, but it's otherwise the B-list (though it might look very different to Keith Pelley).

The PGA Tour has not granted releases for members to play the Saudi International. The Tour has until 30 days before the first round to decide on waivers. Per previous reporting, players who compete without a waiver would likely only face a fine.

— Eamon Lynch (@eamonlynch) November 29, 2021

I'm sure that'll have DJ quaking... So, when will this come to a head?

It does not appear that any of the players listed as committed to the Saudi event have been given releases from their respective tours to play in the competition. A spokesperson for the DP World Tour, when reached by Golf Digest, had no comment about the status of the waivers. A spokesperson from the PGA Tour noted: "We have not granted any conflicting event releases for the Saudi International tournament. Per PGA Tour regulations, a decision on conflicting event releases can be made up until 30 days before the event's first round."

There hasn't been much to back the strong words from the two Commissioners, so we'll see the value they place on their own credibility.  But this does seem to be spinning beyond their control so, if I were laying a small bet, I'd expect that they'll be allowed to play in it this next installment but receive a strongly worded admonishment against any future commitments.  However, that would tell the world that Jay can be rolled, not that we haven't figured this out already. 

I'm going to use the next item as my exit vehicle, an amusingly scholarly take on Jay's existential angst:

Active inertia” is not a new concept, but it’s definitely newer than the concept of raising purses on the PGA Tour.

In 1999, MIT professor Donald Sull introduced the idea in the Harvard Business Review. As Sull put it, “Active inertia is an organization’s tendency to follow established patterns of behavior — even in response to dramatic environmental shifts. Stuck in the modes of thinking and working that brought success in the past, market leaders simply accelerate all their tried-and-true activities. In trying to dig themselves out of a hole, they just deepen it.”

What is the “hole” in the Tour’s case? It’s the amalgam of issues that potential “new” professional golf concepts powered by Premier Golf League and LIV Golf Investments think they can handle better than the folks in Ponte Vedra. What are the “tried-and-true activities” to keep the current stakeholders happy? Raising purse sizes is certainly one of them. But, “active inertia is insidious by nature,” the HBR included as a sidebar to the article. “Because it grows out of success, it often spreads unnoticed in corporations.” Could that be happening to the PGA Tour?

I don't actually think this fits, but I'm amused by the concept:

Taken together, the PGL and LIV Golf are a resistance of sorts that embody the “dramatic environmental shifts” as outlined in Sull’s definition of active inertia. Some of the best players in the world (or at least their agents) reportedly believe a different format of play might work better, as would guaranteed money — and a lot of it. That’s a shift. But in response, the Tour is following established patterns of behavior. Last week, Commissioner Jay Monahan alerted players to a new wave of purse money the Tour will dish out to in 2022. The Players Championship purse is rising to $20 million, the playoff event purses are up to $15 million, the entire FedEx Cup is rising to $75 million with the invitationals offering $12 million apiece. It’s a significant increase, for sure, but more money will not fundamentally change the Tour’s product.

I think it's actually a grimmer reality than this portrays, because apparently Jay feels there's little wrong with the Tour's product, at least nothing that legalized gambling and increasingly inebriated spectators can't cure.

Though I think it's pretty clear that, while Jay has this coming due to the deterioration of the product, it is much more about the money than Sean Zak seems able to acknowledge.  This is about certain egos feeling insufficiently respected, and that respect is apparently only conveyed via large checks.  But, perhaps of greater interest, is trying to understand what problems down the road Jay will create in warding off this threat.  Most obvious to me is the PIP program, little more than a slush fund fund for Jay to use to keep the children at home.  Which might be great in the short term, but for every recipient there figures to be a disgruntled player who wasn't on Jay's list and will seek his respect elsewhere.

Stay tuned, it should be good fun.