Midweek Musings - Sun Valley Hangover Edition

Many thanks to my dear readers for tolerating my short hiatus.  I had a delightful time in Idaho with family, and got a bit of skiing in.  I'm now back in Park City, where the temperatures are in the mid 50's on the mountain.  Record low snowfall combined with unseasonably warm weather assures that my ski season, which never really got started, will come to an early conclusion.

As a mitigating factor, however, this is the morning sky as I begin blogging:

So, while I regret having not properly covered the Honda, my only defense is, well, Sepp Straka.  More importantly, I'll not be blogging the first major of the season.... Yanno, this one:

'Seminole had a better field than the Honda': PGA Tour rookie dishes on exclusive event

Their famous Member-Pro deserves TV coverage, no?  The field was loaded.

I see no option but to start with that topic that has had an exclusive on our attention.  And while I'm committed to the return to other golf news, I'm not at all convinced that that will be today.

The news has remained unrelentingly negative for our hero Phil, as I'm sure you've heard.  Continued sponsor flight with the only silver lining being that Callaway opted for a time out in lieu of cancellation.  He's also been stripped on his hosting duties at the event formerly known as the Hope, so we can at least enjoy that little bit of irony.

Let's start with Sunday night's Tour Confidential musings on all things Saudi:

Phil Mickelson dominated headlines for the second straight week despite not hitting a golf ball. One week after Mickelson’s Saudi league and PGA Tour comments were published by

The Fire Pit Collective, and after Mickelson was heavily criticized by many of his peers, the 51-year-old pro on Tuesday released a public apology on his social media accounts. In a lengthy six-paragraph message, Mickelson called his comments reckless, apologized for anything he said that was taken out of context, granted his sponsors an opportunity to pause or end a relationship with him and said he plans to take some time away from the Tour. What was your takeaway from Mickelson’s mea culpa?

Sean Zak: That he picked and chose his apology subjects carefully. “PGA Tour” was not mentioned once. Phil isn’t sorry for what he’s done/is doing. He’s sorry for how the news broke.

Michael Bamberger: Exactly.

That and the fact that he likely won't bank an eight-figure check...

Josh Berhow: There was a lot there, although what caught my eye was that his second sentence was about off-the-record comments. The author, Alan Shipnuck, who was writing a book about Mickelson, says they were not off the record. Who do you believe? That’s up to you, but I know who I’m going with. My point is this: regardless of how these comments got out, the second sentence of a lengthy apology was an excuse. That rubbed me the wrong way.

Bamberger: Exactly.

 We actually have something from Alan on this subject:

This is part of what’s so infuriating about Phil’s off the record accusation: I am now the keeper of so many secrets. *Everyone* wanted to tell me *everything* but there were ornate agreements about on-background and OTR and I have honored every single one of them. https://t.co/a6VTTREyCo

— Alan Shipnuck (@AlanShipnuck) February 25, 2022

Yanno, I hadn't really thought that through, but of course those that don't buy Phil's act would be running their mouths on background.  Question is, how do we compel Alan to do a notebook dump?

Josh Sens: Mickleson also said his comments were taken “out of context.” That seems disingenuous. I’d like to know what other context there is in which his comments would mean something different. He said what he meant.

Bamberger: Exactly.

That Phil couldn't get two sentences into an apology without blaming someone else is certainly on-brand.

Alan Bastable: In politics, they talk about October surprises — events no one saw coming that influence elections in the eleventh hour. For the Saudi league, this whole Phil episode has that feel to it. One phone conversation may have deflated the whole thing. As for the apology, yeah, it felt much less like an “I’m truly sorry,” and much more like an “I’m truly sorry I got caught.” He did nothing more with Shipnuck than verbalize the plan he was executing, i.e., using the Saudis for leverage against the PGA Tour, just as many of his fellow pros were. If he was legitimately contrite, he wouldn’t have engaged with Norman and Co. to begin with.

Bamberger: Exactly. It was not a cogent statement, in my opinion.

What would we do without Mike Bamberger?

Certainly there were other players willing to watch this play out, but none so foolish as to burn the bridges behind them.  The numbers being thrown out would be hard for any of us to ignore, but there's obvious reasons that those most interested were at the very end of their careers (yeah, maybe Bryson and DJ are exceptions, but they mostly kept quiet).

Golf analyst Brandel Chamblee called Mickelson’s statement “one of the worst apologies I’ve ever seen written.” What about it left a sour taste in some fans’ mouths?

Everything.  Next question.

Bamberger: The writing? The lack of candor? That a guy who can convince you that a blue sky is pink did nothing to turn you around on these various issues? I’m surprised he didn’t go in front of a live audience. He plays best that way.

Zak: Part of it is that his apologies in the statement were aimed solely at the people who give him (or would presumably give him) the most money. He apologized to LIV Golf, the company that is set to essentially broker millions of dollars from the Saudi government. He apologized to the sponsors who pay big money to be embroidered on his hat. Did he owe anyone else a grand statement? He could have eloquently included other people who have been let down by his recent approach, that’s for sure.

Berhow: I guess I already answered that a little bit in my previous answer, but Mickelson, as Brandel said, tried to play the victim card here and I’m not sure it worked for him. A lot of it made it sound like Phil was on some righteous path to make golf better, and we just have to trust him. It seemed preachy. But I think Phil can and will rebound from all of this. People are quick to forgive those who ask for it.

Sens: What bugged a lot of people about his original comments was the greed and hypocrisy that people read in them. Mickelson didn’t really apologize for those things. 

Bastable: Oh, they’ll forgive. Tiger survived an international sex scandal, ARod and so many others survived juicing scandals. Phil, too, shall endure. Knowing him, he’ll probably win another Masters and be carried off the green by a mob of delirious patrons. The apology was too long and meandering. A good apology should be like a resume: direct and no more than one page.

We will continue to sort through the wither Phil bit below, but most folks like their apologies to actually include, yanno, an apology.

I do think, as Josh Berhow notes above, one of the bits that continue to course through my head is that bit about fixing golf, which Norman echoed in his letter to Jay Monahan.  Again they have this tendency to equate their own first-world problems with the game itself, which just reeks of entitlement.

Here they take a shot at the Phil's phuture subject:

In the past week, Mickelson has lost some of his sponsors and, reportedly, is no longer the tournament host of The American Express. Are you surprised some of these brands have started distancing themselves from the five-time major champ?

Zak: Not at all. This is one of the things that has been most up for debate in the last few days. These sponsors pay good money to be associated with Phil. But the last month of being associated with Phil has not been a great vibe! Those sponsors have separate partnerships with the PGA Tour, at large, and he’s been acting in opposition to the Tour in a very public way. The onslaught of headlines with lead photos that show their company being associated with those comments and the various implications … once he gave them an out, they jumped at it. Can’t blame them at all.

I think Sean hits on something important there, that Phil put everyone aligned with him in a very awkward position.  Shockingly, he put his need to get paid above the  

Berhow: Slightly surprised, mainly because some of them have been tied to Mickelson for so long. Some might have been leaving before Mickelson granted them the opportunity anyway, but Sean’s right, it gave them an out and they took it.

Sens: Not surprised. Mickelson’s own apology made it seem like he saw it coming, too.

Bastable: Clearly Callaway was the most torn, with its “pause” treatment that leaves the door open for Phil to return. These episodes are delicate: when one sponsor goes, it puts immense pressure on others to follow suit. The domino thing happens way more often than not. Tiger eventually got sponsors back; Phil will, too.

Bamberger: He couldn’t possibly continue to be the host of the American Express, proud PGA Tour stop, when he was aligning himself with the PGA Tour. That had to happen. As for the others, as they said in The Godfather, it’s just business. For now, Mickelson is bad for business. That will change. Alex Rodriguez can provide Mickelson with his own playbook.

Hold that thought while we finish with the TC boys:

The Saudi golf league seemed to take a hit after many players pledged their allegiance to

the PGA Tour following Mickelson’s comments, but Greg Norman, the CEO of LIV Golf Investments, the financial arm of the proposed league, isn’t backing down. He sent a memo to players and agents saying the PGA Tour could not ban them for joining and also sent a note to commissioner Jay Monahan, saying, in short, “This is just the beginning.” If you’re Norman and LIV brass, what’s your next move?

Zak: I’d release details every week. As the golf-headline-reading-populace, we need something. The PGA Tour is going to be trumpeting itself and all its cash reserves two weeks from now at the Players. LIV should start sharing some of the mostly concrete details they’ve locked in. A name or two from the list of players who have signed up. A couple courses that will be involved. Whet the appetite for more.

Berhow: There’s too much money behind all of this for it to go away and I don’t think they have the liberty to retreat and rethink their plan. For better or for worse, it’s fresh on golf fans’ minds and needs to stay that way. But some sort of commitment — any time of commitment! — like from a player, a venue or some sort of schedule needs to come to light to get players and fans interested.

Sens: Get something on the schedule. Make it as compelling an event as you can. A legal battle might come later, and — at least according to antitrust attorneys I’ve spoken with — Norman and Co. might have a legitimate case. But launching a formal fight against a ban seems like putting the cart before the horse if you don’t have enough big-name players to come over in the first place.

Bastable: Focus on growing the Asian Tour. The proposed super league is so charged right now that no players of note will go anywhere near it. At least not now. Check back in a year or two. You can be sure the Saudis and LIV aren’t folding up the tent, and, as Berhow says, there’s too much money on the table for every player to look the other way.

Bamberger: Completely agree with that, Alan. Professional golfers will go where the money is, where the glamor is, where the good courses are. If this is all rooted in sportswashing for the Saudis, time is on your side. Check this space in 2072.

Not sure that will help the Shark and his paymasters very much.  But before circling back to Phil, Eamon Lynch has another of his typically acerbic columns on this very subject.  Shall we sample a few choice bits?

It’s unlikely that PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan will ever respond to the letter he received this week from Greg Norman, for much the same reason that he probably wouldn’t

engage someone wearing a tinfoil hat and shrieking in the street. But if he did reply, Monahan could do worse than to heed the example of James Bailey, a former general counsel for the Cleveland Browns.

In 1974, an Akron, Ohio, lawyer named Dale Cox angrily threatened to sue the Browns over the dangers posed by fans launching paper airplanes around him in the stadium. Bailey returned the complainant’s letter with a famously terse response that has been widely circulated over the years.

“Dear Mr. Cox,” he wrote, “I feel that you should be aware that some asshole is signing your name to stupid letters.”

I didn't actually know we were allowed to use "asshole" at a major golf publication....

After congratulating himself on spending decades fighting for the rights of players to be adequately paid—as distinct from the less important rights of the less important people under the boot of his employer—Norman addressed Monahan with a debating dexterity (and command of capitalization) that would be the envy of an eighth-grader.

“The Tour is the Players Tour not your administration’s Tour,” he wrote. “Why do you call the crown jewel in all tournaments outside the Majors “The Players Championship” and not “The Administration’s Championship?”

“You are guilty of going too far, being unfair, and you are likely in violation of the law.”

If a man isn’t embarrassed to peck out those words on behalf of the Saudi Arabian government, one supposes we shouldn’t be embarrassed for him.

I think we've known for some time that the Shark is immune to embarrassment..  which makes him the perfect soul mate for our Phil.  But Eamon seems ready to move on from that nickname:

The great white pilot fish insisted that Monahan can’t ban golfers from playing golf. Monahan hasn’t actually done that, though his comments suggest he believes he can decide whether they play on the tour he runs, much as McDonald’s might think it has a say in whether independent franchisees can simultaneously sell Burger King over the same counter. Norman went on to claim that top players are still interested in joining the League and demanded they be allowed to make a choice, perhaps forgetting that they have already publicly exercised that choice.

If only Eamon would tell us what he really thinks.

Here's Eamon's coda:

So what do Norman and his puppeteers do next?

For all the bleating in the letter to Monahan, the Saudis’ grounds for a lawsuit are not clear-cut. It’s difficult to establish actionable injury in claiming the PGA Tour is preventing you from establishing a rival endeavor if you have never actually stated your intent to launch such a business. That changes if players sign up and are then banned by Monahan, but as of now, the Saudis have no declared players and no declared intent to launch.

That leaves potential tactics more suited to irritants than competitors. The Saudis could use economic influence to undermine the DP World Tour’s Middle East schedule. There is precedent. Last year’s announcement of DP World as the old European Tour’s new title sponsor was delayed several months by a Saudi intervention. They could also stage an event in the U.S. and offer enormous appearance fees to players. The PGA Tour has never granted waivers for members to play events held in America opposite its own schedule. A refusal to permit members to play a Saudi event in the U.S. could be used as a Trojan horse to litigate the PGA Tour’s influence over its members and test the limits of the independent contractor status.

None of those options represent a pathway to near-term success for the Saudis.

Until both product and players are unveiled, the Super Golf League exists only on paper, much like the war Norman imagines himself to be waging. What we can deduce from the sophomoric tone of his letter to Monahan is that the Crown Prince’s paper tiger is realizing that his dream of launching a viable rival to the PGA Tour is no closer than it was when last he tried three decades ago.

I can't find the relevant pieces right now, but there have been a series of opinions that the Saudis should refocus on the women's game, which is as sensible as it is laughable.  Remember that $135 million offer to Bryson?  I'll bet Nelly Korda could be had for that amount....  Of course, the Saudis have likely seen the LPGA TV ratings, and what's the value on Sportswashing is no one is watching?

So, back to the question of the day, whither Phil?

Here's a dissenting opinion for you:

Tony Jacklin, who has previously written that players would be “mad” for not taking Saudi

Arabian millions, has come to the defense of Phil Mickelson.

In an interview this week with Golf Monthly, the two-time major champion and World Golf Hall of Famer said he didn’t see “a hell of a lot wrong with” Mickelson’s negotiations with a proposed breakaway golf league funded by Saudi Arabian money. Details of the talks came to light last week in a story written by Alan Shipnuck on the Fire Pit Collective golf website, where Mickelson described himself as a key architect in the Saudi league — and added that he hoped the plan would generate leverage in future negotiations with the PGA Tour.

“If he was genuinely trying to get the PGA Tour off its backside to do more for the players than they have been doing and found a way to do it, leverage as he calls it, then if that’s what it was, I don’t see a hell of a lot wrong with it,” Jacklin told Golf Monthly this week.

Well, he was trying to get the Tour to do more for a sub-set of the players, though that sub-set was awfully small.

Geoff has a Quadrilateral post on a similar tangent:

Why Did Mickelson Get Cancelled?

He may have lost the plot, but last week's wave of corporate defections seems excessive compared to other athlete controversies.

This struck a chord with your humble blogger:

So back to my radio interview. I was north of two minutes into explaining the forces at play—PGL, Saudis, etc.—and not even to the Alan Shipnuck book excerpt when it became clear the saga was tough, if not impossible, to explain. There is no elevator pitch to capture Mickelson’s situation and his shocking downfall, other than to say it’s a bunch of First World money issues sprinkled with neuroses, greed, stupidity and bad advice.

He’s definitely made a mess of things, cost people millions, killed future captaincy chances and possibly other endorsement gigs. A broadcasting role also seems unlikely at the amounts he’d expect. Worse, he sullied what should be a joyous time as the oldest-ever defending major champion.

Mickelson reaffirmed his Hall of Fame point-misser status with his tone and strange apology. As a result he’s disappearing for a while and must be wondering what happened to have such public divorces in a world where Tiger Woods never lost Nike. Or in a year Aaron Rodgers kept all but one of his lucrative deals while doing public harm during a pandemic. (And with his general unpredictability and desperate need to shampoo.)

So why is Phil Mickelson getting cancelled? Let’s try to figure out the most plausible scenario.

I was on a chairlift with one of my ski buddies that's a casual golf fan on Friday, when he asked me to explain what Phil did that was so bad.  Like Geoff, as the words came out I could tell that I wasn't making a compelling case.  Quite frankly, it sounded a lot like Tony Jacklin's reaction above.... 

So, let's see what Geoff has:

“They are scary mother&^%$#@’s” and…? The controlling figure behind the Public Investment Fund is indeed a scary mother&^%$#@. The headline-making quote from Shipnuck’s book excerpt is accurate. The Crown Prince is dangerous. The language might be edgy, but none of the companies in business with Mickelson can justify fleeing over crude phrasing about crude people.

Saudi ties? It’s been well known for a while that Mickelson and others might take advances from to join a breakaway “league”. To date, no one has lost an endorsement for flirting with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Americans keep taking Ubers backed by the Saudi’s PIF. So while it’s always possible there was a Crown Prince component to this, no company would dare take that stance when all eyes are on the situation.

I think Geoff is underselling this aspect of it.  He doesn't even mention that the Euro Tour was in bed with the Saudis, but there's a world of difference between cashing an appearance fee check and playing in a Saudi event versus using the Saudis to hurt or destroy the PGA Tour.  

Here's Pat Perez on that aspect:

“He could have done this in such a different way,” Perez said. “He could have gone, ‘You know what, I made a fortune on the PGA Tour, God bless the PGA Tour for taking care of me and

giving me a place and this and that, but I feel like I want to go down this other route to kind of close out my career. Thank you everybody, it’s been phenomenal. But you know what, thank you Jay [Monahan] and everybody else and Tim Finchem and all these other guys from the PGA Tour, but I think I’m going to go down this route. Goodbye.’ That would have been very easy.”

And this:

Mickelson said the Saudi league provided leverage to reshape the Tour, but Perez said Mickelson’s motivation was his own financial gain, not for the good of his fellow players.

“If he was actually trying to help the players and this and that, he did it completely wrong,” Perez said. “I don’t know how he could have done it more wrong. You are not leveraging to use the Saudi group to get us more money. You are trying to fill your pockets; you were trying behind everyone’s back to get players to sign so you could get your big golden paycheck in the end and then take off.”

That to me is one of the more interesting aspects of this all.  While Phil clearly needed several other alpha dog players to jump with him, he doesn't seem to have expended much effort in the recruitment process.  I think the most interesting thing here is the adjectives used by his peers, which included "naive, selfish, egotistical and ignorant,” and that's just a partial list.

Back to Geoff:

The PGA Tour must have suspended him so…? There is no sign Mickelson was suspended by the Tour. But we’ll never know unless he says something. Even if they did suspend Mickelson for “conduct unbecoming” in revealing the PIP results or equating Commissioner Jay Monahan to the second coming of Genghis Khan, is that enough for Mickelson to lose become an outcast? His controversial interviews torpedoed the Saudi Golf League and saved the PGA Tour, so Phil deserves a thank you check, not a suspension.

This highlights one of the more disturbing aspects of the Tour, that they don't release disciplinary actions.  

“Biting the hand” discomfort? Plenty of golf fans voiced their displeasure with Mickelson for complaining about the same tour that allowed his talent to shine, his bank account to swell, and an amazing pension to accrue. Many of those fans got blocked on Twitter by Mickelson for criticizing his toxic tone. But even the comments and blocking binge feel like small matters. Besides, if greed and ignorance proved fatal to his corporate partners, then they wouldn’t be so regularly overpaying influencers or expecting a normal partnership with Phil Mickelson.

I think the Pat Perez comments apply here.  Phil seemed eager to destroy the PGA Tour, regardless of the desires of his peers, so it felt pretty ugly.  And it's Phil, so his arguments included his signature mix of outright fabrications and made up numbers, which to me mitigated several legitimate criticisms of the Tour.

Sheer, unadulterated stupidity? Who tells a reporter about using a murderous regime as a leveraging tool? Who thinks golf pros raking in more money is vital to the game’s future? Perhaps for a company in the business of accounting, financial management software, selling beer or moving golf clubs, stupidity is dangerous to “the brand”. But fatal? Unlikely.

I think Geoff misses an important component to this mess, though there's a glimmer of it contained in his final 'graph:

Or maybe Phil was just on Double Secret Probation? It’s the least sexy but most plausible reason Mickelson’s partnerships unraveled so dramatically. Early week rumblings at Riviera suggested Mickelson’s comments to GolfDigest.com were already proving disastrous and expediting the process of ending certain lucrative partnerships. Is it possible that after years of controversies, legal scares, rumors, and more potential Billy Walters drama, some form of Double Secret Probation with his sponsors did him in? It’s not a leap to think he’d been warned of deal terminations the next time he stepped in it. While that may sound petty compared to other athlete controversies and is unlikely to be confirmed, there is plenty of reason to believe any public embarrassment was going to be the final straw.

When they give out medals for assholery (glad to know we're allowed to use that word), Phil is due a lifetime achievement award.

I think what Geoff ignores is that each and every one of these sponsors has seen Phil act in reckless and self-absorbed ways, from his gambling and involvement with the Detroit mob, the insider trading scandal referenced above, the long-term jihads against the USGA and others and, last but not least, his treatment of two Ryder Cup captains.  One writer called this latest bit an aborted coup, which I think is a reasonable take, whereas I've frequently called that 2014 hissy fit a hostile takeover of the U.S. Ryder Cup effort.

Gonne wind down with just a couple of further thoughts.  First, there have been many comparing this to Tiger's sex scandal, including at least one reference in the TC panel above.  Obviously any such comparisons are only superficial, but to me there's an important distinction.  Tiger's scandal was entirely of a personal nature, obviously changing folks' perceptions of the man, but entirely unrelated to the game and/or Tour.

Phil, in contrast, was trying to conform the professional game to his own vision, and that's a substantively different and more serious matter.  I think an underappreciated aspect to this is how God-awful that vision of the game is, but I'm sure we'll revisit that often in the future.

But if Geoff is puzzled by the sponsor's reactions, perhaps he should reread the comments of Phil's peers.  If the guys he plays against consider him a pariah, why would sponsors want to be tarnished by such an association.  

We'll have more on Phil's path back to redemption I'm sure, but how does he mend fences with Rory, Patrick and, most importantly, Tiger?  

That's it for today, but we'll get to other golf news in future posts.  At least I think we will....