Friday, February 18, 2022

Late Week Lamentations

So, anything going on in the golf world?  We've got that one guy trying to burn down the house and, alas, we've got a house burned to ruins.  Coincidence?  We don't believe in those...

But, bear with me as I lede with more pleasant bits...  even some actual golf, perhaps.

Dispatches From Unplayable Lies World Headquarters - As I found my way to the keyboard this morning, I found my intern already at work:

That's First Consul Napoleon, although around the house we just refer to him as the Emperor....  But if the insights seem especially trenchant this morning, again there's that coincidence thing.

Scenes From The Riv - I don't actually love that nickname for the joint, but it is as historic a venue as the guys play regularly, and it seems to be especially fast this week, notwithstanding some bizarre early week weather as detailed by Geoff:

Greetings from hail-pummeled Riviera!

This is the first time I remember cumulonimbus clouds dropping pellets of frozen rain and daring to drop them on George Thomas's masterwork. I’ve been coming here for just over three decades and thought I’d seen it all here weather-wise.

The Quadrilateral editorial team had planed to send a heavy-on-photos-newsletter about the 10th hole to whet your appetite for this major-ish field and vibe.

Including this photo of the iconic 10th hole:


Joaquin Niemann shot an unreal 63 and leads an appealing chase pack, none of which we need to linger over.  It promises to be a great weekend of golf, before we head East for the architectural splendor of the Bear Trap and Bay Hill.  But there are two points I want to make sure to cover.  First, with one obvious but not lamented exception, everyone is here:

Days removed from hosting a thrilling Super Bowl, Los Angeles is the site of another star-studded competition this week at The Riviera Country Club. For the first time in the history of The Genesis Invitational, the top 10 players in the Official World Golf Ranking will tee it up. It’s the first time since last year’s TOUR Championship that all 10 in the OWGR will compete in the same PGA TOUR event.

With Ian Faith in mind, they actually have the top eleven.  Which is, as we all know, one higher than ten....If you don't get that reference, it's your loss.

The other item I want to cover here might more logically belong below, but there it would be buried within a laundry list of personal invective.  As you all know, Max Homa is the defender this week, having won his hometown event last year in an extremely popular win.  Homa is, of course, about as popular and anyone out there, those Netflix cameras are following him for a good reason.

In his presser he was asked about the Saudi league and, shockingly, he seems to be the only professional golfer not party to an NDA.  But he made some comments in answer that everyone should read:

That’s not to say Homa doesn’t consider this sort of thing; he thinks about it constantly. No Tour pro can ignore it. But his counterargument was the best defense of the PGA Tour I’ve heard.
There’s value in familiar courses and familiar events and familiar prizes. There’s significance to Riviera the way there’s significance to Wrigley Field. Now that Homa owns a familiar title at a familiar course, the status quo seems even more appealing.

“We think about it a lot, talk about it a lot,” he said. “It’s an interesting dynamic we’ve got going. I love the PGA Tour. Driving up to this golf course with memories of winning a golf tournament that Tiger Woods handed me a trophy? They don’t have that in a breakaway league.

“That’s not the part that I remember. That’s my take on it. I’m not saying that these leagues couldn’t be great, and things may change. My point is everything from this golf tournament that has made me get the chills as I talk about it and get the chills as I drive up [to Riviera] and think, “What the hell?” when I see my picture on things out on the golf course that I grew up to love, I would not be getting that anywhere else. That’s my allegiance, I guess.”

If you've been reading my rants, you know that the PGA Tour has been pretty damn spendthrift with their own history, so I have a nomination for a successor to Jay.   It should be a fun week, so do watch it and root for Max.

Shall we get to the incendiary stuff?

Burn Down the House, Figurative Edition - The man of the hour is Alan Shipnuck, late of Golf Magazine and now reading his mail for The Firepit Collective.  As you may or may not be aware, this is about to drop:


Scheduled to be released May 17th, you'd think they'd be accelerating the release date to the extent possible.

Alan has now dropped this item, recounting a November conversation he had with the man, and by the second 'graph it has me muttering, WTF:

Mickelson told me he had enlisted three other “top players” he declined to name and that they
paid for attorneys to write the SGL’s operating agreement, codifying that the players would have control of all the details. He didn’t pretend to be excited about hitching his fortunes to Saudi Arabia, admitting the SGL was nothing more than what he called “sportswashing” by a brutally repressive regime. “They’re scary motherfuckers to get involved with,” he said. “We know they killed [Washington Post reporter and U.S. resident Jamal] Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates. They’ve been able to get by with manipulative, coercive, strong-arm tactics because we, the players, had no recourse. As nice a guy as [PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan] comes across as, unless you have leverage, he won’t do what’s right. And the Saudi money has finally given us that leverage. I’m not sure I even want [the SGL] to succeed, but just the idea of it is allowing us to get things done with the [PGA] Tour.”

Phil likes to live life on the edge, but using the bonecutters to , err, cut a better deal with the PGA Tour seems, well, unwise?  Phil, just a pro tip, if they invite you to the Istanbul embassy for a meeting, consider taking a pass.  

But there's a lot to parse, starting with the identity of those three other players, though of course Bryson springs immediately to mind.  To the extent that there are two other guys, my guess is we're looking among the has-beens and only Phil would call Westy or Poults a top player.  But do we believe that they wrote the operating agreement?  That sounds like typical Phil bluster, but how profoundly silly to think an "operating agreement" matters with guys that outfit their embassies with bonecutters....

Of course it's Phil, which means that the usual "How much money is enough?" rules don't quite apply:

But are his grievances fueled by money or principle? With Mickelson, you can never be sure. Given the massive scale of his gambling losses—detailed elsewhere in the book, which, as it happens, can be preordered here—the Saudi seduction might be born of necessity. Mickelson, whose $94 million in career PGA Tour earnings is second only to that of Tiger Woods, raised eyebrows when he sold his Gulfstream in 2019. “He loved that plane so much it was like his fourth child,” says someone very close to Mickelson. “I was absolutely shocked that he sold it. The only reason I could possibly imagine him doing that was him feeling serious financial pressure.” Phil and his wife, Amy, have purchased land on Jupiter Island, in Florida, and have been interviewing architects; Phil may yet get the haven from state income tax he has long lusted after. “I was interviewing him one time,” says writer John Feinstein, “and he said, apropos of nothing, ‘You always think of me as a right-winger, but I’m actually pretty liberal on social issues like abortion.’ I said, ‘But your number one issue is taxes.’ He said, ‘No, no, no, my number one, two, three, four, and five issues are taxes.’”

Shame on you, Alan, for trying to tax-shame him.  Perhaps, instead, you could ask him why he doesn't pay his gambling losses?

 And because manipulative, coercive and strong-armed aren't sufficient to feed the pyre, Phil has more:

But Mickelson’s second outstanding issue with the Tour has nothing to do with money. It’s about control. “The Tour likes to pretend it’s a democracy, but it’s really a dictatorship,” he told me. “They divide and conquer. The concerns of the top players are very different from the guys who are lower down on the money list, but there’s a lot more of them. They use the top guys to make their own situation better, but the top guys don’t have a say.” Players are a minority on the all-powerful PGA Tour Policy Board, holding only four of the nine seats, with the other five being filled by luminaries of the business world who, by age and experience, have more in common with the commissioner than the jocks. Mickelson’s idea for governance is, he says, based on the U.S. Congress: The Tour’s vast middle class would be like the House, voting on ideas that would then be rejected or tweaked and ultimately ratified by a much smaller Senate-like body composed of the game’s biggest stars. “That way nothing will get done without the approval of both sides,” Mickelson says. It is an idealistic vision.

Because the U.S. Congress has been humming along like a finely-tuned Swiss watch?  

But, as I read those comments, it seems like Phil is really picking a fight with the Tour rabbits, so he's punching down.   Gonna be a little frosty in the locker room, no?

Shippy has one more contribution to make to the circus:

So that prediction of mine that the week of the Saudi event would be lit wasn't so much wrong as early.

But, who could those twenty be?  Because the reaction to those comments of Phil was universally harsh.  Let's see, there's Rory:

“Not so Super League,” McIlroy said when a question about the league was being asked during his news conference ahead of the 2022 Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club north of Los Angeles.

“Oh, I’m so sick of it.”

“I guess I’m intrigued who would (join). Certainly for the younger guys, like it just seems a massive risk,” McIlroy said. “I can maybe make sense of it for the guys that are getting to the latter stages of their career, for sure. I don’t think that’s what a rival golf league is really; that’s not what they’re going to want, is it?

And Collin with two "l's":

“I’m all for the PGA Tour,” he said. “Has it opened up things for us as professional golfers to open up things for the PGA Tour to look at what to do better? Absolutely. We’ve seen a lot of
changes, some good, some bad, some that are still going to be amended I’m sure as time goes on.

“Right now you look at the best players that I see and they’re all sticking with the PGA Tour and that’s where I kind of stay and that’s where I belong.”


That Tiger guy:

“I’ve decided for myself that I’m supporting the PGA Tour. That’s where my legacy is,” Woods said. “I’ve been fortunate enough to have won 82 events on this tour and 15 major championships, and been a part of the World Golf Championships, the start of them and the end of them.”

Rahmbo as well, though he used a curious word

“I wanted to take this time to say that this is my official, my one and only time to talk about this, where I am officially declaring my fealty to the PGA Tour,” he said. “I’m a PAC [Player Advisory
Council] member and I have a lot of belief in Jay Monahan and the product.

“There’s been a lot of talk and speculation on the Saudi league and it’s just not something that I believe is best for me and my future in golf and I think the best legacy I can accomplish is on the PGA Tour.”

“Everybody’s free to make their own choice, it’s as simple as that. All I can say is from somebody young like myself who has his entire future ahead of him, it doesn’t seem like a smart thing. Again, the only appeal I see is monetary, right?

 I'm not alone in reacting to a single word:

Ya think?


Of course it's the wrong concept entirely, as these guys should be questioning the Tour and their bloated organization that's made quite the hash of things.  But we'll give Jon a pass because, as you have heard, English wasn't  his first language.

Now Phil was a little personal in his criticisms of the Tour and Jay, specifically, so goose, gander:

“Shocking, never would have guessed,” he said, a verbal eye-roll. When a reporter explained the
gist of the article, Thomas let it fly.

“Seems like a bit of a pretty, you know, egotistical statement,” he added. “I don’t know, it’s like, he’s done a lot of great things for the PGA Tour, he’s a big reason it is where it is, but him and others that are very adamant about that [league], if they’re that passionate, go ahead. I don’t think anybody’s stopping them.”

Asked if it was time for players to pick a side and move on, Thomas said he was well past that point.

“I’ve heard way too much talk about a lot of players that are ‘so done with everything,’ but they keep hanging around, so clearly they’re not too done.”

Phil egotistical?  Boy, I never saw that one coming....  Just a reminder, I've been trashing Mickelson regularly since, oh, September 2014.  But does JT's looper have anything he'd like to add?

Lastly, Pat Perez, who isn't a wilting flower:

Let’s begin. Question one: Was Perez comfortable with Mickelson “speaking out?” “And it seems like he’s speaking for a lot of players,” the reporter added.

Buckle up.

“I asked the question this morning to another player — why didn’t he play Phoenix [last week’s event], and why is he not playing here,” Perez began. “He’s never missed these. I’m surprised he didn’t play.

“I don’t know, I don’t know what Phil’s doing. I know Phil’s got a lot of stress in life right now, and I don’t know what he’s doing. I know he’s not speaking for me, and, you know, I actually really don’t care what he has to say about anything because I just don’t. He doesn’t speak for me. He’s had an amazing career. He obviously thinks there’s something else on the other side for him going down the line. If he gets it, great. He’s made $800 million on the Tour, I don’t know what could be so bad about the Tour. So I don’t know, I don’t know.

C'mon, Pat, tell us what you really think.

“I think the way Tiger’s approaching it is phenomenal. [Woods has said he’s sticking with the Tour.] I think he understands where he made all his money. I think these young kids, I think that’s great that they’re backing Tiger. But Tiger, Tiger’s our guy. Tiger and I are three months apart. I idolized him my whole life even though we’re the same age. What he says is pretty much gold. You know, I would follow his lead more than anything. If he doesn’t want to do it, Rory [McIlroy] doesn’t want to do it, and if you don’t have the top kids doing it, I just don’t know how much water it’s going to hold anyway. I don’t know how long it’s going to take.

“They’re not going to follow Phil; they’re not going to follow [Bryson] DeChambeau unfortunately. You need the young crew right now to go do this thing. I don’t know exactly what Phil, why he’s got so much hate towards the Tour. I mean, he’s damn near 52 now. I know he won a major last year. It’s incredible what he did, it really is, but I don’t know, you know.

Shack has a Phil-centric Quad post up, which finishes thusly:

The short term brinkmanship may deliver a few royalties from that 21st Century equivalent of a Franklin Mint doll. Heck, those NFT royalties might even help pay for the house in Jupiter he’ll someday be building to dodge taxes he loathes paying.

As for every other house Mickelson’s built? Burning like, gulp, too soon, too soon.

How can Mickelson ever turn up at a PGA Tour event without it evolving into an uncomfortable circus?

Does the PGA of America even want to have a media day for their defending champion?

And what blue chip brands will want to be seen on his hat and shirt sleeves? (Callaway gave him a lifetime contract and may be stuck with him.) Other entities hoping to be associated with various “brand values” have too many other stress-free options.

There is also zero chance any respectable network will pay him the Romo money he believes he deserves. Mickelson might have to pay them to get on the air.

And finally, what about that long expected Ryder Cup captaincy in 2025 where the Bethpage crazies will scream and yell in support of their favorite golfer?

One prominent Ryder Cupper on the way to Riviera’s locker room was asked if he’d heard about Mickelson’s latest comments. Without even asking what was said, he mumbled in disgust, “What a &^%$&@ clown.”

Shipnuck, along with Geoff above, credits Phil with some positive results from his use of the Saudi leverage, which seems both inevitable but also speculative.  This is a subject we will likely revisit often, but I see two immediate issues.  First, the existential threat hit just as the new media rights contracts were starting, so purses were already set to increase, and it's arguable whether the Saudi threat has pushed Jay to move those numbers higher than they would have in isolation.

Second, and I think more important, it's resulted in the Tour changing how it delivers the cash to its members, most notably in the PIP program.  If you were, say, concerned that the tour was dictatorial or obnoxiously greedy, shouldn't you worry about Jay having a $50 million slush fund with which to but the loyalty of his faves?  

So, Alan tells us that the bonecutters will release a list of twenty signed contracts the week of March 7th, so what might that list look like?  There's guys whose thoughts haven't been shared, names like Hovland Scheffler and Matsuyama.  DJ has gone to pains to keep his options open, but I see a very real possibility that they're twenty wouldn't include a single top ten player (for those keeping a scorecard at home, Bryson is currently No. 12).  But why would you release such a list?  

I'd like to focus more on substance in future posts, because I do think Alister Tait is onto something here:

Now, Mr. Tait doesn't get it all right:

For years the PGA Tour and European Tour, now the DP World Tour, have measured success in dollars and cents. FedEx Cup money, Race to Dubai money, the Player Impact Program, bonus pools, Rolex Series events, World Golf Championships, where the main hype has been how much money each new “initiative” is throwing at players, how there are more tournaments with bigger prize funds – “north of $200 million" European Tour Chief Executive Keith Pelley proudly said when he announced the 2022 DP World Tour schedule – then can they really complain when others come along and offer to trump them with even more money? Even if it comes from a country with scant regard for human rights like Saudi Arabia?

Weird, given that the PGA Tour has done little but try to measure success in FedEx Cup points, which has hardly been an improvement.  So, it might be the money, but there's no other metric that actually makes any sense...

Tait excerpts these Lee Westwood comments that are indeed thought-provoking:

“The other tours see the Asian Tour as a threat now, don't they, because of the huge investment? It's kind of like a game of poker really where the European Tour and the PGA Tour have had the biggest hand, and now there's somebody else come to the table with more chips, so everybody is on their guard and very defensive and are clearly seeing the Asian Tour as a threat. Nobody can deny that. There wouldn't have been all this trouble with releases and things like that if that wasn't the case.

“Yeah, I can see why they feel threatened, but at the same time, the PGA Tour and the European Tour have gone into areas I suppose in the Asian Tour's path over the years and never had any problem playing tournaments all over Asia and the Middle East, which I think has probably cost Asia, as well. Now that the Asian Tour has this backing, it appears to me like they're just doing what the PGA Tour and the European Tour have been doing the last 25 years.”

Obviously the Asian Tour is just the Saudi's beard, but the irony, she burns.

But here I think he gest it completely wrong:

There’s the rub: the European Tour hasn’t given a minute’s thought to staging events in Asia over the years. Yet is unhappy when the Asian Tour announces a tournament in England, as I reported on here. The PGA Tour hasn’t stopped to ponder that it has lured all the world’s top stars to its circuit and enfeebled the Asian, Sunshine, Australasian and European Tours as a result. To be fair, the PGA Tour didn’t set out to weaken other tours. It’s just been a by product of success. For years the American circuit has lived by the golden rule: we have all the gold, we make the rules.

Oh, I do think the Tour wanted to weaken those other tours, there's no other explanation for 52 weeks of mind-numbing events than the desire to leave no oxygen available for anyone else in the golf ecosystem.   They've substantially diminished the Australian season in December, and otherwise monopolized the calendar to the exclusion of any other entity.  

There's a lot more out there that we'll get to in the coming days.  There were some trial balloons floated on what to do with the Fall schedule, and this whole issue of digital rights deserves much more attention.

For now I'll head for the exit but post a couple of interesting tweets:

The King might have been the indispensable one in ushering golf into the modern media world, but he got a few things wrong for sure.  But other than the revolution, I don't see a lot of lessons to be learned.  The touring pros were governed by an organization allegedly devoted to teaching professionals, so the logic of a separate organization made sense (though the irony is the horrible deal they struck, leaving the PGA and Ryder Cup with the sweater folders.  

But this one points out a disconnect that I haven't exactly sorted through to my satisfaction:

As I listen to Tiger and other players swearing fealty to the PGA Tour, I get the sense that were eliding an important distinction, one that's not helpful to the folks in Ponte Vedra Beach.  I think what those guys are supporting is the current golf ecosystem, one that's made them famous and wealthy beyond their dreams.  But is that ecosystem were a deck of playing cards, then we have to acknowledge that Jay Monahan's hand includes few face cards, maybe a lone jack (which would be The Players Championship).

Everything Jay does is from a position of weakness, a point I've made since starting this blog.  The whole FedEx Cup hot mess is best understood as a cry for relevance.  We think of the PGA Tour as the premiere tour in golf, which it is, but Jay and the Saudis are actually fighting over the last seat at the adults' table.  The aces and kings are all held by Augusta National, the R&A and the USGA.  But, as Alan notes, the Saudis seem have seized on a clever opportunity to guarantee access to those events that matter, at least as things currently stand.  We'll watch this space, but Geoff and others are correct to note that the Ryder Cup is an interesting flash point in this mess.

I'm done, but have one last, completely unrelated tweet that made me laugh:

In a world where our political and sports leadership are working overtime to drive us apart, it's comforting that we can all come together in our contempt for Ress Jones architecture.  See, Rees is a uniter...

Have a great weekend.

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