A sweet scene at Casa Unplayable Lies this early morn. Tate was in your humble blogger's lap for his post-breaky nap, a habit revived over the weekend. The Emperor, by contrast, was sitting amid a pile of papers next to my computer monitor as if to remind me that readers are waiting....I feel strongly both ways.
The Snake Charmer - That Snake Pit seems to have lost its fangs, as did the entire course, at least until Sunday. Turns out it was quite the SEC reunion:
Matthew NeSmith, 28-year-old South Carolina native who went to South Carolina;Justin Thomas, also 28, a son of Louisville who went to Alabama;Davis Riley, 25, born and raised in Hattiesburg, Miss., and an Alabama golfer a few years after Thomas;Sam Burns, also 25, a Shreveport native who played college golf at LSU.
OK, though you have to ignore hoser Adam Hadwin to make that point.
From a more conventional game story:
Sam Burns is starting to like the 16th hole at Innisbrook Resort.
The 463-yard par-4 at the Copperhead Course is known as the start of the Snake Pit, a lethal three-hole stretch, and it was the site of Burns slithering in a 33-foot birdie putt that caught the left corner and circled the cup on the second playoff to beat rookie Davis Riley and successfully defend his title at the Valspar Championship.
Burns posted a final-round 2-under 69 and matched his winning 72-hole total of a year ago at 17-under 267.
“A lot of times on Sunday if you can plot your way around, make a bunch of pars, throw in a few birdies here and there a lot of times it works well,” said Burns, who is expected to move to a career-best No. 10 in the world.
The parallels to Viktor Hovland are quite apparent, three early victories and a quick ascent up the world rankings, in this case to No. 10. But the wins have been of a second-tier variety, and I say that as very much a fan of this venue. But, of course, I was rooting for Davis Riley because, unless I'm predisposed to one or the other, I invariably pull for the guy that needs it moere.
I wouldn't have been the only one pulling for the youngster:
‘It was just kind of a cluster:’ The triple-bogey 8 that cost Davis Riley his first PGA Tour title
Clearly the kid has a talent for understatement, as there was no "kind of" about it, it was a full-frontal cluster, reminding your humble blogger of one specific incident of his own. But we don't need to go there...
Somehow they always look harsher on ShotLink:
I'll admit, I have no clue as to what to think about this guy as we begin our descent into Augusta:
Now, however, patience has to be the 15th club in his bag.The 14-time PGA Tour winner and 2017 PGA champion fell short once again Sunday, when hefinished one shot shy of a playoff between Sam Burns and Davis Riley, a fellow Alabama golf alum, in the Valspar Championship on the Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Florida.While Burns won on the second hole of the playoff, Thomas left the grounds with his fifth top-10 finish in eight starts this season. But he still hasn’t won since the 2021 Players Championship.“It’s coming,” Thomas said of an expected upcoming victory. “I’ve just got to be patient and be in the right frame of mind because you can’t force anything in this game. As soon as I start doing that you get down some rabbit holes.“I’m doing a lot of really, really good things. I just need to keep putting myself there and it will start happening. I didn’t really do anything at all today and I very easily could have won the tournament. A lot to build on a, lot of positives, and we got a big stretch coming up, so I’m excited for it.”
Yeah, I'd be saying the same thing if I were in his shoes, but I'm unsure whether I'd really believe it. The biggest issue on doubt is the putter, where he seems to be giving the strokes back to the field by the bushelful. But when I see his airmailing greens with wedges I can't help but think there's more going on here than we realize.
Mostly, though, I wonder how Bones sees it.....
The Match-Play - I love me some Match Play, but it's a mature rational love that appreciates it despite it's faults. It's a fun week, but I've long called it the upside-down tournament, because its best days are early in the week, form which it becomes less and less interesting as it segues into the weekend. I much preferred the earlier Darwinian format, with its win-or-go-home primal simplicity.
The round-robin format isn't the worst compromise imaginable, and it's found a reasonably good venue in Austin Country Club (though Dove Mountain certainly deserves to be in the running for worst PGA Tour venue ever). But now the bigger problem is that it's just in an awkward slot on the schedule, two weeks before Augusta, when the lucky players can end up playing very little golf or far too much. Yeah, Goldilocks need not apply...
You might reasonably thank that two weeks is enough to get over whatever happens, but you're not a Tour pro. These guys crave certainty and predictability, and that's a scarce resource this week. So, have you seen the field? There's a couple of curious notes:
Rory McIlroy and new Players Championship winner Cameron Smith have both elected to skip the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, while Bryson DeChambeau has been named in the provisional field.
Let's deal with the last one first. Nursing back and wrist injuries and needing reps before the Masters, what a crazy week for Bryson's return. It would seem to your humble blogger that he couldn't pick a worse week to return, one that could see him playing seven rounds of golf in five days, finishing with back-to-back 36-hole days (actually there's no limiting factor in the weekend matches, so there's no theoretical limit to how much golf he could end up playing). Of course, based on last year's event, we know that if he loses Sunday morning he will default the consolation match, which is its own issue.
My prediction is that he will withdraw before the event begins, though presumably before their bracket show. Because withdrawing after would incur the wrath of Kubla Jay, no?
But what about Rors and Cam?
McIlroy is taking two weeks instead and will play the Valero Texas Open the following week ahead of The Masters, while Smith is taking the week off to spend time with his family after his victory at TPC Sawgrass.
Oh, and this guy as well:
The other notable absentee is Phil Mickelson, who remains on his break from competitive golf after the fall-out around his comments about the PGA Tour and the proposed Saudi-backed golf league.
Why, is anything up with Phil?
Today in Roman Numerals - We've got more news on the Bonesaw Gang, lots more if we include the Tour Confidential gang (who, amusingly didn't have time for a question about the Valspar). I'll start with them because it's easy blogging:
1. The Saudi-funded golf league in-the-making, which will go by the name LIV Golf International Series, revealed more of its plans this week. Kicking off in June, the tour will play eight events, including four in the U.S., and pay out $255 million in purse money. While no players were announced, among other details are the incorporation of team play, a weekly draft, shotgun starts, 54-hole events and no cuts. What, if anything, most surprised you about the announcement?Dylan Dethier: Besides the Pacific Northwest getting involved? I’m not sure there were any wild revelations except that Tour pros are about to have to make some intriguing decisions. It’s about to get real. Finally. I think.James Colgan: It surprised me that I’d thought about this potential league for dozens of hours over the last 12 months without realizing that “LIV” stood for the Roman numeral for “54” — or the number of holes in each event on the schedule.
James, you're not very bright.... I like that in a man. Quick, can anyone identify that reference? But keeps this in mind, as James wrote a very silly column I hope to get to below.
Michael Bamberger: The unabashed confidence of it. The LIV people have been dealt some body blows. They seem unfazed.
People? Who besides the Shark is involves, Mike? And a reminder that we had a Shark item a while back in which he bloviated that he would have beaten Tiger, because he beat everyone else. Which, of course he did, except for Faldo, Tway, Mize, Gamez, Azinger, Nicklaus and, well, shall I go on? So, confidence or delusion, you make the call.
Alan Bastable: I was a bit surprised by how fleshed out the schedule was and quite surprised that half the events are Stateside. (Also Norman claiming that he received a positive response from top-10 ranked players is totally at odds with what we’ve heard — thus far — from said top-10 players.) I’m also keen to learn more about how that site recruitment process worked. Presumably, LIV approached dozens of clubs before landing on the four that committed. Curious how LIV identified their short list. If there’s any detectable trend, they smartly seemed to veer away from towns with established Tour stops.
Greg Norman says there are no requirements to play a set number of the eight events on the “beta” “start-up” tour. The venues announced are all second rate, but the dirty purse money is enormous. Norman said many other lame things in a podcast where the hosts seemed to really like his ideas and not have a single qualm about the money source. It’s linked below in the Listens department. The Fried Egg team analyzed the rollout in a far more rational manner.
And this second bit of shad at his blog:
Unlike the bubbly bro massage he received on Golf.com’s Subpar podcast, LIV Golf Commish Greg Norman faced real questions on Gary Williams’ Five Clubs podcast where he was pressed about that beheading-prone guy controlling the purse strings of Norman’s 8-event schedule.Sitting in front of the Sydney Opera House minus his ears, Norman made one bit of news while producing pathetic answers on funding front.
Now, you might be wondering about that last bit, but you'll quickly see what he means about those missing ears:
Interesting, because those answers above do seem to uncritically accept the blather than emits from the Shark's pie hole, plus here's that James Colgan column that I noted above:
I blew up this nonsense-on-stilts last week, but it's rather alarming to see a major golf publication accept it at face value without pointing out a single damning detail:
So, what is it about the Ryder Cup that Norman is hoping to capture?“They’re looking for that connectivity, that something different, that vibrance, that excitement, that entertainment,” he said. “If I hadn’t seen that and I hadn’t been there, maybe my perception would be a little bit different, because the Presidents Cup, yeah it’s a team event, but it’s nowhere near the magnitude, the energy and the velocity of what the Ryder Cup is.”
This is actually even worse than that which I defenestrated last week, because Norman himself points out the differences between a Ryder Cup and a Prez Cup.
And yet, writing for a major golf magazine, James Colgan plays stenographer and makes no further contribution to the reader's understanding than to uncritically transcribe Norman's delusional word salad.
Back to the steno pool:
2. Greg Norman, the league’s commissioner, said he emailed 250 players on Tuesday, and received this response: “…The amount of response [has been] unbelievably positive. I’m talking about single-digit ranked players in the world, emailing me first thing this morning, just so excited to hear about what we have to say and what we’ve got.” This comes on the heels of multiple star players pledging to the PGA Tour following controversial comments on the tour from Phil Mickelson, and the PGA Tour threatening to ban players who would play in the startup league. Do you believe that active PGA Tour players will come around?Dethier: Yes, I believe some active PGA Tour pros will jump ship. There’s too much money for them not to. I also think we can probably take “unbelievably positive” with a grain of salt, considering the source. There’s nothing simple about this issue nor the murky morality of it all and the only certainty is that this will continue to be a thorny, evolving situation that will force Tour pros to continually take a side. It’s not as simple as choosing the PGA Tour and staying there, because Norman is leaving the door open, and open, and open.Colgan: Do I believe that Tour players will sign up for a league in which the *minimum* tournament payout is $5 million more than the largest purse in PGA Tour history? Yes, yes I do believe that.Bamberger: Absolutely. They’re professional golfers. They’re drawn to money.Bastable: Not just money, life-changing money! If you parse press-conference comments and tweets from the last three months, I think you could safely identify a handful of players who seemed primed to be teeing up in Pumpkin Ridge in June. Also, look for a strong turnout from the Euro contingent. I would guess LIV’s top priority is getting 12 notables who can serve as team captains. The remaining 36 players are less crucial in terms of Q-rating. The Saudis are playing the long game here; they can afford to be patient, in more ways than one.
Is it me or is that just an incomprehensibly lame set of answers?
Let me see if I have this right? Four weeks ago in LA every significant PGA Tour play passed on life-changing money and instead swore fealty to the PGA Tour. Greg Norman suddenly announces eight prospective dates and venues and suddenly they're all going to go? And you don't feel compelled to explain what's changed?
Are they in the bag for the bonecutters? I mean, WTF! This doesn't get much better:
3. What caliber of players need to participate for this to be a viable television or streaming enterprise?Dethier: That depends. In some ways I’d prefer we randomly select 48 golfers from your local muni and have them play for $25 million rather than selecting a group of middling professionals from in-between stages in their careers. But the question of TV rights is among the most fascinating to come out of this. Will a broadcast partner step up?Colgan: I have always believed the ONLY way in which a rival tour could gain a foothold is if it signed a critical mass of young, ascending talent (your Will Zalatorises, Matthew Wolffs and Joaquin Niemanns). Sure, landing half of the World Top 10 would help, too, but it feels more reasonable to believe the youngsters would jump ship than a bunch of dudes who are on-track to be hundred-millionaires through the current PGA Tour system.Bamberger: You need name players, and young talent. I could see elite amateurs from all over the world making the LIV Tour their first stop.
You may see elite amateurs as their ticket, but their traction was with those looking for properties in the Villages, names like Mickelson, Stenson, Poulter and Westwood. A journalist might want to explain that issue, although I'm guessing that it's not just Phil cashing their checks.
Bastable: I’m not convinced Nielsen ratings are a top priority for LIV at this juncture — getting the league up and running is. Sure, Norman and Co. want to get eyeballs on their tournaments as part of the wider effort to rehabilitate Saudi Arabia’s public image, but job 1, I’d guess, is executing a beta season and showing players that this thing can work. Baby steps, building blocks, etc.
Former Golf Channel personality Gary Williams did ask Norman some actual questions, though he didn't receive any actual answers:
Appearing on Gary Williams’ Five Clubs Podcast, Norman, the CEO of LIV Golf Investments, fielded several tough questions about the Saudi-backed golf league, including names of players who had committed or signed contracts, when the first tournament field would be announced, Phil Mickelson’s controversial comments and if Norman was concerned at all about where the investment money was coming from.And Norman didn’t really answer any of them, instead falling back on statements like “I’m not a politician” and “I’m focused on growing the game of golf.” He did add that the league was still “a reality,” despite players such as Rory McIlroy declaring it “dead in the water.”“We are here for the long term,” Norman said. “We aren’t just in and out.”
Yeah, we'll see about that "in" part, as I'm far from convinced that these events will actually take place. Unless, of course, you're expecting the Saudis to pay a first place check of $4 million dollars to a guy currently 22nd on the Asian Tour money list. And there's curious news on that front as well, per Shack:
Asian Tour Loses Its London Stop Before It Was Ever Played
Reader R pointed out that the Asian Tour schedule no longer features the previously June stop near London because that event is now on the LIV Invitational circuit’s 2022 schedule.The Asian Tour announcement for the new “international series” was on February 1 and the London stop was the centerpiece for growing the tour along with an additional $100 million from the Saudi sugar fund.
"We are on the threshold of a new era for Asian golf," said Cho Minn Thant, Asian Tour commissioner and CEO.
"The International Series is a new upper-tier of elite events, the likes of which the region has not seen before, that will mark the start of a phenomenal period of growth for the Asian Tour.
"It also signifies the beginning of our relationship with our new strategic partner LIV Golf Investments and its CEO Greg Norman."
Indeed it did.
OK, this is actual news and quite interesting. The Asian Tour umbrella was designed to ensure that world ranking points are available, yet they seem to be abandoning it. I'm sure the golf.com gang will be all over this development, assuming they can take time away from taking dictation from the Shark.
Geoff has great fun with Norman's repetitive use of the "Grow the game" mantra, and I eagerly await the obvious follow-up questions to Norman of how paying off Phil actually grows the game, but that will await the golf.com writers growing a pair. But Geoff also has one other newsy bit:
“There are contracts, but I’m not going to give out any names on that,” Norman said when pressed on commitments to the league. He later said that invitations would be going out “very shortly.”
That's both inconsistent with his own prior statements that players can pick and choose from their beta schedule, but it's also something that Jay and Keith Pelley might be interested to sort through.
Things get curiouser and curiouser, though I am unfortunately flat out of time. To be continued....
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