Friday, April 29, 2022

Late-Week Lamentations

I'm of a mind to try something radical this morning, leading with some non-Saudi items... I know, an idea so crazy it just might work.  But not to worry, we've got some juicy stuff as well.

This Week In Planespotting - Looks like this is going to happen:

I don't know about it being "official", but if the ultimate goal is nineteen, it makes snes ethat he'd be there.

Here's as much as has been released from the notoriously tight Tiger camp:

Tiger Woods’ private jet was spotted at an airport in Tulsa, Okla., on Thursday, ahead of a practice round at Southern Hills Country Club as he decides whether to play in the PGA Championship in three weeks. Woods plans to play in the year’s second major (May 19-22) barring a setback, according to a source in his camp, but is waiting to see how his body responds to an increased workload in the coming weeks before making any final decisions.

I guess the other point worth noting is that, while Tiger has won at Southern Hills, it's not the same place:

Woods, 46, won the 2007 PGA Championship at Southern Hills by two shots, but course architect Gil Hanse oversaw an extensive restoration of the Perry Maxwell-designed layout that wrapped up in 2019. Hanse removed dozens of trees and reshaped the bunkers, ensuring the course will offer a vastly different test than when Woods won 15 years ago on a steamy week in August.

Not sure whether this was on the PGA of America's radar before they suddenly needed a venue for this year, but May in Tulsa is far preferable to August.  Alas, the opposite may well be the case next year in Rochester.

Centennial  Misses - Geoff breaks some venue news in his appropriately-titled newslestter:

Merion will host the 2030 U.S. Open on the 100th anniversary of Bobby Jones’s Grand Slam win in the U.S. Amateur there. (Almost as prestigious as hosting the USGA’s ESports Grand Slam, three lacerating hours of pandering to the coveted demo).

Anyhow, the 2030 U.S. Amateur has been awarded to Bobby Jones’ home club, Atlanta Athletic Club. The USGA also awarded AAC the 2025 U.S. Girls’ Junior and 2035 U.S. Women’s Amateur championships. Atlanta Athletic Club has hosted three PGA Championships (1981, 2001 and 2011), the 2021 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship won by Nelly Korda and the 1963 Ryder Cup.

So 1930 will shape up as a celebration of Bobby Jones, and I hear you asking why it should be otherwise?  One reason is that the current AAC course is especially dreadful, but I seem a lone voice on that subject.  As you can tell from Geoff's cryptic account, AAC was originally at East Lake, but left when things got dicey in that 'hood as detailed here.

My own cryptic reference's background is that Geoff subscription newsletter is named The Quadrilateral, an homage to the felicitous term that I had always attributed to O.B. Keeler, though Wikipedia begs to differ:

The Atlanta Journal's O. B. Keeler dubbed it the "Grand Slam," borrowing a bridge term. George Trevor of the New York Sun wrote that Jones had "stormed the impregnable quadrilateral of golf." Keeler would later write the words that would forever be linked to one of the greatest individual accomplishments in the history of sports:

This victory, the fourth major title in the same season and in the space of four months, had now and for all time entrenched Bobby Jones safely within the 'Impregnable Quadrilateral of Golf,' that granite fortress that he alone could take by escalade, and that others may attack in vain, forever.

The other bit that continues to mystify is the USGA failing to do the same for Frances Ouimet in 2013....  Why take the U.S. Open to Merion in 2013 and to Brookline in 2022?  Really guys, do you not get this centennial thing?  

Golfers Behaving Badly - The random musing thing seemed a good call initially, but as my blogging has evolved, this really should have been the blog's tag line.  It explains my fascination with the Saudi story and its principals, and who doesn't love watching these pampered elites act out.

Grayson Murray has had his moment in our spotlight, limited only by the fact that he's not all that good at the golf thing.  But he's back, along with a Tour mainstay:

Grayson Murray says Kevin Na shouted obscenities at him before Murray confronted Na and
threatened to “drop his a**.” Na, meanwhile, says “that’s not exactly how it went down.” And Ricky Barnes says it all reminded him of “the normal NBA fight, where they act like they’re going to hit someone and no one’s going to hit someone.”

Because of a Twitter exchange in January, Murray and Na confronted each other Wednesday on the range at the Mexico Open. That much has been confirmed by all involved. But just how heated things got depends on whom you ask.

Murray himself, on an appearance on The Stripe Show podcast, revealed the encounter. The Mexico Open is the first event he and Na have played together this year, and Murray said that while he was walking to the chipping green at Vidanta Vallarta Golf Course, he heard Na “yelling and cussing at me.”

The bad blood dates back to January:

To which Na had this brilliant riposte:

to which Na replied: “U missing the cut is getting old!

Which I totally don't get, because to me Murray missing cuts never gets old... But that's why there's horse racing.

Murray is one of those guys that has created conflict at every step of his career, this being a perfect example of his M.O.  Murray is at best a Tour rabbit, and the swipe at Na seems an odd career move, regardless of the truth of his point.

I have no idea whether this solved his behavioral problems:

Murray, who revealed he was in treatment for alcohol abuse last summer, said the old him might have gone ahead and actually punched Na. Fortunately for all parties involved, it did not come to that.

In response to an earlier Murray provoked confrontation, I speculated that he just might not be sufficiently stable for the cutthroat, lonely existence of a professional golfer.  Not everyone is, though in the present instance Murray's version of events is that Na started it:

But my present query is about Kevin Na, from whom I've recently seen a bit of chipiness and an apparent thin skin.  That Januray Twitter-spat was pretty minor and it's not anything Na hasn't heard before, so watch this space.

Finally, The Juicy Stuff - Just a couple of bits, I think, unless I really get up a head of steam.... First and of greatest import, in that Quad post linked above Geoff posts on the Phil reentry plan, which isn't exactly getting rave reviews.  But he adds a detail that kinda changes everything, or at least it might:

Phil Can’t Quit The Saudis And Everyone Noticed

As I noted in Tuesday’s Quadrilateral on the preliminary PGA Championship field including Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, it was the first peep in months from Camp Mickelson tipped off his interest in a PGA Tour waiver to tee up at June’s LIV Golf Invitational outside London. News of his possible PGA Championship defense should have been the headline. But as more had a chance to digest agent Steve Loy’s statement, the headlines leaned heavily on Mickelson’s renewed desire to grab some scary m*&^$%@$%&er money. This one was a tad dramatic:

 


That headline came after the Telegraph’s James Corrigan reported Mickelson has signed an eight-event deal to play 2022’s LIV events. But even before that story, a couple of tough columns suggested Mickelson’s in for more heat than praise wherever he resurfaces.

 That Telegraph item is behind a paywall, but let's go the videotape.

As of my Wednesday post, the status quo ante was that LIV had for now abandoned their original model of having players sign with their new Tour, including a commitment to play in all events.  rather, their eight-tourney slate was an a la carte menu, allowing players to pick and choose events at their discretion.

Based on that, we had further reports that fifteen of the top one hundred players in the world wanted to play in London, which seemed a clever strategy to force Jay Monahan's hand.  As we've noted, the Tour has typically granted waivers for play overseas quite liberally, though I'm too lazy to worry about whether that's a legal right of the players or has just been the Tour's practice.

Obviously LIV created a nice little short squeeze for Jay in this conundrum.  For instance, King Louis, the fifteenth ranked player in the world, has reportedly request such a waiver.  On the one hand, it's

something that has always been approved.  the flip side, though is equally obvious, this waiver request is in support of an entity that has announced plans to hold events in the U.S, later in the year, in competition with PGA Tour events, and their publicly announced intentions to, checking notes, eat Jay's lunch.

Corrigan's reporting, though, is that Phil has committed to playing all eight of LIV's events, including those for which the Tour has never and simply cannot issue waivers.  Egads, an important lesson, kids, in going prematurely apocalyptic in blog posts.  I've been characterizing Phil's request for a waiver for the London event as a declaration of war, which I now deeply regret.  Because if applying for the first event is war mongering, then committing to all eight events is a Putinesque threat to go nuclear.

If true, how does this not go immediately thermonuclear?  Jay cannot ignore this with the red line he's drawn, though there are multiple level to the onion.  First, there's the obvious issue of verifying Corrigan's reporting.  the second obvious question is whether anyone else has so committed, and how exactly does one determine that?  the first two guys I'd want to get in an interrogation room would be Jon Rahm, given his ties to Phil's agent and recent public support of Phil, and King Louis, just because he's the most prominent player we have confirmed is involved.

But the other point I'd like to make, is what a lying piece of s**t Phil can be.  Again assuming the accuracy of Corrigan's reporting, remember Steve Loy's statement on behalf of his client:

“We have also filed a request on his behalf for a release to play in the first LIV Golf Invitational in London, June 9-11.”

Really?  That's all?  Are you sure there's nothing more that you might want to share with us?

I'll also share this item from Peter FitzSimons that Geoff linked to, not that's there anything new, it's just got Eamon Lynch-worthy metaphors:

What is the opposite of rats deserting a stinking ship?

The right metaphor escapes me but, whatever it is, I think you’ll find the golfer Phil Mickelson and his scurvy cohort now scrambling towards the stinking carcass of Greg Norman’s Saudi Arabian-backed golf tournament right in the middle of it. Come on you rats! Ignore the stench! Forget the torture chambers in the background, the public executions, the state-sponsored murders. Get into the rich offal!

Pretty sure that's the first offal reference in these pages, obviously an oversight on my part.

I don't know FitzSimons, but he has a pretty good call-and-response bit going, using Phil's own words:

“Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.”

Of course! Nothing to do with the millions of dollars on offer to sell out. It’s you and Greg, isn’t it, Phil? In there, fighting the good fight, to “help the game of golf”. And who can argue that it will help your remarkably genteel sport – which so values integrity that players still report their own misdemeanours and withdraw from lucrative tournaments even when they make inadvertent errors – to associate it with a murderous regime?

Readers have heard a long litany of criticisms of the PGA Tours operations, and I fear that Jay's reactions to this threat will only make matters worse.  But it needs to reinforced that while Phil might have some good arguments about Tour governance, he doesn't seem to have many allies among his fellow players.  You and I know that there were some leaners that Jay bought off, but Phil is out there alone right now.

The last question this new revelation poses relates to the PGA of America and the USGA.  I've read commentary that assumes that those organization will fall in line behind the Tour but, especially with Fred Ridley's comments denying that they asked Phil not to come, I don't the basis for that assumption.  

In that parsing of Phil's fauxpology, this closing sentence is not included, and I would have thought would be catnip to FitzSimons:

I know I have not been my best and desperately need some time away to prioritize the ones I love most and work on being the man I want to be.”

So, Phil, what kind of man do you want to be:

Changing gears,  at his blog Geoff has two amusing/interesting notes on LIV.  The first is catnip to both of us, another God-awful slogan in our game, one Geoff thinks makes Live Under Par more palatable:

Seriously?  You're going scatalogical?  

Let me quickly add that I can't find another reference to this anywhere else, but it's not April 1st to the best of my knowledge.

Geoff also has details on spectator options for those LIV events

But more importantly, you can now reserve Grounds passes in the $70-85 range for all but the LIV Golf series tournaments except the finale at Trump Doral. And I know, this sounds pricey for one day of golf where it’s a 4-hour shotgun start. But it’s a small price to pay when you get to see the likes of Garrigus!

Besides the general admission, there are some all-you-can-eat packages and Club 54 options for each event including a premium option that what looks like it goes for $13,000. Lee Westwood’s going to love when there are fans inside the ropes! And the post round Q&A…

Not especially interesting, except for one insight that is admittedly slow in coming to this observer.  Their planned shotgun format is especially dreadful for the on-sight fans, no?  Everyone will finish on different holes, so the 18th hole is somewhat irrelevant.  Obviously the leaders, what would be be the final group in a normal event, would logically start the final round o the first hole, and I think you'd logically start the next group on No.18, then 17 (as opposed to nos. 2 and 3), but good luck seeing the climactic shots that just got real.

There's still no real word on TV rights, although I have this browser tab open since God knows when:

Now there’s word that the rival start-up is talking with media companies about locking in
television and streaming rights. In a report by Front Office Sports, the circuit, headed up by Greg Norman, is hoping to land $500 million for its global media rights.

“Streaming platforms, particularly the Netflixes, the Amazons, the Apples, are truly global. That’s one path we could pursue,” said Sean Bratches, a former ESPN executive and LIV Golf’s chief commercial officer.

Seems to this observer about the only path they can pursue, but not an easy one at that.  The streaming is the easy part, it's the production that's difficult and extremely expensive, and here again their shotgun magnifies the issues because it logically requires coverage of all 18 holes.  That's a lot of cameras and, more importantly, camera operators, and the guys that know how to do this are previously committed.  

But, and here's what's important right now, your humble blogger can close a browser tab.

Have a great weekend and I'll catch you on Monday.

 

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