Late-Week Lamentations

We've got way too much to cover, from Greg Norman saying the darndest things to an antitrust litigation primer... Really, it's kind of embarrassing how much I love this story.

The Loyalists - This is news in the sense that Friday following Thursday is, even your mother needs to occasionally be fact-checked.  But so far the guys bribed by Jay have stayed bribed:

“I thought it was the perfect response from the Tour,” said Zalatoris, a current member of the Tour’s Player Advisory Council. “The Tour is in the best spot it’s ever been, it’s only going to get better,

and why would we encourage our players to get releases for those events when essentially we have all these sponsors that are involved with the Tour and are only making it better and better?

“So we’re trying to promote our best product possible, and if you want to be a part of this where it’s getting better and better, then you shouldn’t have it both ways. You have a choice. You really do. You can go if you’d like, but it is what it is.”

The talking pints seem to have been disseminated, as most are following this template:

“It’s like, if you want to go, go,” Thomas said Wednesday at the AT&T Byron Nelson. “There’s been plenty of guys that have been advocates of it and have talked about it all the time, and there’s been guys behind the scenes that are saying, I’m going, I’m doing this. And my whole thing is: Just go then. Stop being back and forth. Everybody’s entitled to do what they want.”

To be fair, with the exception of that event in Saudi last winter, there hasn't been anything yet to which they can go...

 And this from the site of the Byron Nelson

“I would say I’m not surprised by it,” Jordan Spieth said ahead of this week’s Byron Nelson. “I

don’t think anybody’s really surprised by the Tour’s stance on it. And I believe that they’re likely getting the best legal advice possible to know what the steps are going forward.”

“If you’re playing here on the PGA Tour … it’s definitely not something where we want our membership to do because it’s going to harm the tournament that we have opposite that. I’m sure that’s why they didn’t release the players,” added World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler. “Because if we have 15 guys go over there and play, that hurts the RBC Canadian Open.

We're going to get to that legal advice, but protecting sponsors appears to be a new instinct for the Tour, so some good has come of this.

But this is the first speculation I've seen on one of the existential questions:

Estimates vary, so I chatted with Joel Dahmen, a Tour vet with a solid sense of where players stand. He said he thought most pros’ minds were already made up before the waiver decision came down.

“I don’t think it will change players going,” he said. Asked to put a number on it, Dahmen’s estimate was fairly high. “I think 20ish are probably going.”

If he’s right, that number will almost certainly guarantee collective legal action (more on that here) from those players or from LIV if, as Monahan has promised, they’re suspended or banned from PGA Tour play.

Certainly high if the reports of fifteen waiver requests were accurate, unless there are players going that didn't make a waiver request.  Of course, one assumes he's counting Garrigus, so the number quite clearly misses the core point, which is who.  

The Great White Pilot Fish Explains Life - I had a brief conversation with a buddy on the golf course about Greg Norman's intellectual gifts, shockingly disparaged by your humble blogger.  I got a rebuttal, to wit, that he's a great businessman that's made himself a bundle and, well, it's I guess possible in theory... Interestingly, Shack has comment that bears on this disparity:

The New York Times’ Bill Pennington sums it all up and to the surprise of no one who has followed Norman’s late life buffoonery, he’s dragging the LIV effort down.

He's onto something there, as part of it is certainly a need for relevance.  

The bonecutters keep sending out Sharkie to argue for their interests and, perhaps something gets lost in the Arabic translation, but he's not helping their cause.  His answers are cringeworthy, but I actually think they make matters worse.  First, you don't need to be a 3-D chess grandmaster to see where this could go:

“Just take ownership of what it is,” Norman said of Khashoggi’s slaying. “Take ownership no matter what it is. Look, we’ve all made mistakes, and you just want to learn from those mistakes and how you can correct them going forward.”

He added: “I’m not going to get into the quagmire of whatever happens in someone else’s world. I heard about it, and I just kept moving on.”

If by taking ownership you mean refusing to acknowledge that it happened...

But who could seen this coming?

Among those who saw Norman’s remarks was Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, who told The Telegraph: “It is so hurtful when Jamal’s brutal killing is brushed off as a ‘mistake’ and that we should just move on. Would you say that if it was your loved one? How can we go forward when those who ordered the murder are still unpunished, and continue to try to buy back their legitimacy?”

The bitch should be happy that they would allow her to drive or eat in a restaurant.... 

Tone deaf much?  This too:

Notwithstanding his assertion that he doesn't work for that guy that ordered the killings, somebody felt compelled to clean up the mess he made in aisle 4:

"The killing of Jamal Khashoggi was reprehensible. Everyone agrees on that, including Greg, as he has said as such previously on many occasions. Greg also knows that golf is a force for good around the world and can help make inroads toward positive change. That is why he is so excited about LIV and that was the point he was making."

So, you're promising that golf will stop the beheadings?  Huge, if true!

Then there were those pesky 81 beheadings on national TV:

But Norman continued to face tough questions about his upstart tournament’s Saudi connections. A reporter later asked whether he’d heard about the execution of 81 people in a single day at the hands of the Saudi government.

“I got a lot of messages, but quite honestly I look forward, I don’t look back,” he replied. “I don’t look into the politics of things. I know the mission I have as CEO of LIV Golf and that’s how we can grow the game globally. I’m not going to get into the quagmire of whatever happens in someone else’s world. I heard about it and I just kept moving on.”

So, you're looking forward to the next 81 beheadings?

Yet they keep sending him out.  But stop the presses, he may have hit peak solipsism, as competitive as that category can be with our Sharkie:

The hits keep on coming, with more of Norman’s comments to a group of journalists getting their chance to settle in. Apparently, Saudi Arabia’s horrendous record on gay rights is not an issue for the Shark because, well, who could imagine this answer.

"I’m not sure whether I even have any gay friends, to be honest with you.”

I'm sorry, is that now the standard?   I can see why he gest along so well with those guys for whom he doesn't work, since they also have no gay friends....or at least none that have come out.

But I'm already liking these new rules under which I don't have to worry about anyone outside my immediate orbit.... Win-win, baby!

I could trash the guy all day, but doesn't this capture it better:

The little girl in me just died well and truly!! Has anyones childhood hero disappointed them as much as I am now?? 🫣😢😭 https://t.co/p17klqYdCp

— Karrie Webb AO (@Karrie_Webb) May 12, 2022

When you've lost Karrie....

Rationalizing Phil -  So, they had us believing that Phil was ghosting everyone, whereas the reality seems to be that everyone is talking to the guys and rationalizing his intransigence.  First, Seth Waugh:

Seth Waugh, the CEO of the PGA of America, said on the “5 Clubs Conversation” podcast this

week that he’s had a “number” of talks with Mickelson over the last several weeks and that they will continue to do so as Mickelson's possible defense of the PGA Championship title approaches in less than two weeks at Southern Hills in Tulsa. Mickelson is registered to play in the PGA, but has not yet said if he’s going to compete.

“I think he’s trying to figure out when the right time for him is,” Waugh told podcast host Gary Williams. “I think the game is trying to figure out the right time for him, too. How long is long enough? And is he ready mentally and physically to do it?”

Seth obviously has the right to speak to Phil about the PGA Championship, but is seth empowered to speak for the game?   And, do you notice something missing?

Next, this one strikes me as way problematic:

Nantz was asked what advice he would give Mickelson.

“I’m going to keep that private,” the broadcaster answered. “I’ve actually communicated with him and I don’t feel like that’s something I’m sharing with everyone else, so I’ll leave it at that.”

It's later in the call that he goes a bit further:

“Totally a personal decision for Phil,” Nantz said. “I’m not going to make any public

advisements, but he will be back. Sometimes we get caught in the cyclone of a story and we think it will be forever. It won’t be forever. He’ll be back.

“Of course, his age is a factor in how much he’ll be able to compete at a high level, but that’s what they said a year ago. He’ll be back. He’ll play. He’s got a ton of fans out there. This is a forgiving nation. There’s a million examples of people who have been somehow able to find their way back to be on top again. I fully expect he will.”

Nantz and Phil are apparently quite close, which I did not know previously.

But the bigger issue in both comments is, what do you mean by "back"?  Because Jim Nantz is one of the voices of the PGA Tour, and Phil has shown no inclination or intention to return to the PGA Tour.  Jim is quite on the mark when he says that Phil has millions of fans and that we're a forgiving people, but that's kind of in Phil's court right now, no?  

Phil can be back tomorrow, if he'll stop carrying water for the bonecutters.... Will we still be forgiving, though, if he wants to keep doing that which sent him into purgatory?  That seems a stretch to this observer.

An Antitrust Primer - No, really, it'll be fun.  Amusingly, I had this very conversation Wednesday on the golf course, and got it mostly right.  

Golf.com's coverage has been a hot mess lately, but this piece is actually very good, although it lasted about twenty minutes on their home page:

Is it now time for a legal battle?

Yes. next question.

We’re speaking, of course, about the escalating conflict between the PGA Tour and Saudi-backed

LIV Golf, which took a heated and unexpected turn Tuesday after the Tour denied a request for waivers from players looking to compete in the first LIV Golf event, in London, next month.

Greg Norman, CEO of the rival league, wasted no time decrying the decision, calling the Tour “an illegal monopoly” that is “anti-golfer, anti-fan, and anti-competitive.” If you smell an antitrust suit — or multiple such filings — you’re not alone.

Craig Seebald is a partner and antitrust specialist with Vinson & Elkins, an international law firm.

First, an antitrust primer:

Antitrust law is a sizable topic, but it mostly boils down to two concerns, Seebald says: monopolization and conspiracy. Broadly defined, the first is when an entity uses unfair practices to gain or maintain a stranglehold on a market. The second is when two or more entities work together to thwart competition. Any cases filed against the Tour would rest on one or both of those fronts.

There's nothing illegal about being a monopoly, it's the use of that monopoly position that must be proven.  I probably won't go too deeply into that last point, but here the issue will be the PGA and Euro tours conspiring to keep out competitors.

Here Seebald makes a point that I had not considered:

A player or a group of players would be the most likely plaintiffs. But LIV Golf could also file suit, as could the government at the state or, more likely, the federal level through the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which administers antitrust and consumer protection legislation.

As it happens, the FTC has scrutinized the PGA Tour before. In 1994, following a four-year investigation, attorneys for the agency determined that two Tour polices (one being the requirement that players get permission to compete in non-Tour events) violated antitrust laws, and recommended that the federal government nullify them. Though FTC commissioners ultimately decided not to take action, times have changed.

 Hold that thoughts, as to me we're going in the wrong order.

This to me is the key issue:

WHAT MIGHT A SUIT SEEK?

Monetary damages. The catch is that antitrust suits can take years to resolve, which doesn’t do much good for a plaintiff seeking swift results. “If you go after damages, it can drag on and on,” Seebald says. “You want the court to do something quickly.”

The shorter-term remedy, Seebald says, would be a motion seeking a court injunction that would prohibit the Tour from enforcing its rules. Players could seek this. So could LIV Golf. Or the feds. If such an injunction were granted, it would allow golfers to continue competing in LIV Golf events without facing sanctions from the Tour, even as a longer legal battle played out in the courts.

This is the key issue, and reminds me of the USFL lawsuit against the NFL, which they ultimately "won" many years after the league failed.  The scare quotes are because, while they won in the sense of the NFL being deemed to have violated antitrust laws, they were awarded $1 in damages.

So, an antitrust action seems a loser for the House of Saud, unless they're willing to fund 10-15 years of litigation.  A loser, that is unless a judge will order injunctive relief, which to me is the threshold question.  As I understand the law (and my license to practice law remains pending), the litigants (and, per the USFL example, I'd think the players would be the more effective litigants), would have to show a couple of things to succeed:

1. A likelihood that they would prevail on the merits;
2. That money damages would not adequately compensate them.

Each of those is its own interesting subject, though they don't scream winner to this observer.  That said, the relevance of the law to what any one judge might do is, at best, speculative.  I remember many years ago i was supervising an oddball case and our litigator made a point that surprised me.  he said our case was so strong that we needed to settle it at the earliest opportunity.  When pressed on this counter-intuitive reasoning, he answered that you can't predict what a judge might do, so when the facts are in your favor use that leverage to get what you can from it.  When the facts aren't on your side, you might well see if a judge will bail you out.  A really depressing take on the stae of our jurisprudence, but kinda makes sense...

Now circle back to his point about the FTC, which is an arena that could solve the Saudis conundrum.  But here, I see two issues that push in opposite directions:

1. The current administration would logically have no sympathy for the PGA Tour, which represents a melanin-deprived community that tends to vote for the wrong team.  At least they used to, with my namesake amusingly being a notable outlier.   I can't say that I've seen this issue addressed recently, but they all cluster in Florida, Texas and Arizona, so perhaps Harold Varner might become their poster child.
2. But any action from the FTC or Justice department would give aid and comfort to the Saudis, and that doesn't seem a hill that the Biden administration would exert much effort to defend.

Now there's two further issue that come to mind, but I don't have enough knowledge to know whether they're factors.

1. The Biden administration will have a union filter for any action they take, or one at least assumes they will.  Their union allies are fighting right-to-work laws in many states, and it isn't hard to see that thee will be some level of overlap in the underlying issues.  Unions attempt to require employees to be members of their organizations in a very similar manner to which the PGA Tour restricts the playing opportunities to its members, all allegedly for a greater good.
2. Antitrust law obviously contemplates economic markets and the pursuit of profits, which form the basis for the damages claimed.  To what extent will it be relevant that the Saudi's objective is not profits, but rather to hide the crimes of its government, i.e., sportswashing?  This is a major reason why I noted above that the players seem better litigants than LIV, but even there it seems an interesting angle.  It's one thing to say they have a right to play where they want, it's quite another to say they have a right to conspire to improve the reputation of a noxious regime.  Interesting, no?

I'm enjoying this sorry spectacle more than is seemly, but i didn't need them to tell me this:

WHAT SHOULD GOLF FANS DO?

Stay tuned.

I would assume this piece of the puzzle will be quiet for a bit, as guys will actually have to violate Tour rules by teeing it in London, then the suspensions (one assumes) will be issued and then retainer agreements get executed and checks get written.

the next front will be in Tulsa, most specifically will Phil play.  My guess on Wednesday was that Jay surprisingly refusing to issue the waivers (not so surprising to me, I hasten to add) made it less likely that Phil would endure the grilling.  I don't see any reason that would changed, especially as we're now two days closer to the event.  Has anyone looked into whether he's rented a house?    

As the man said, stay tuned.

A Golf Manningcast - There's much more that we should cover, but I'm only one man.  But I did want to finally get to this story, which is of interest:

Joe Buck is returning to professional golf.

Buck, who quarterbacked FOX’s U.S. Open coverage from 2015 to 2019, will be leading an ancillary broadcast of the 2022 PGA Championship for ESPN.

The alternate broadcast will air all four days of the PGA Championship. 

You might be surprised to hear that I agree with this:

After a rough debut at the 2015 U.S. Open, the Buck-led FOX broadcast received positive reviews in the subsequent four U.S. Opens. FOX also earned acclaim for technical innovations in its broadcasts, including use of drone technology and shot-tracing capabilities that provided unique perspectives and pushed other networks to consider similar production improvements. However, FOX ended its USGA relationship in 2020, with the USGA media rights transferring to NBC Sports.

Once they dumped their lead analyst (Anyone remember who that was?  He's been in the news lately) the broadcast really started humming.  But the thing is, the one thing to which I could never adjust was Joe Buck, as his voice just always seemed jarring for golf.  I just have no clue whether Buck will be good at this, as it's obviously very different than a rigid play-by-play call.

That said, it's a great idea to try it, and given that it will allow fort us to avoid Sir Mumbles, I'm having trouble identifying any downside.

Of course, when I say Manningcast, the immediate reaction is skepticism about Peyton and Eli calling golf.  Just to be clear, Payton's Omaha Production is involved, but the brothers will be only guests:

Buck, who previously led U.S. Open coverage when it was on Fox Sports from 2015 through 2019, will host the show with Michael Collins of ESPN. The Mannings will be guests at some point during the tournament, and other guests include Couples and Barkley, Troy Aikman, Josh Allen and actor Jon Hamm.

But, while I see their issues, this is the downer:

The alternate broadcast will air all four days of the PGA Championship. While the first hour will air on ESPN, it will eventually transfer to ESPN2 and ESPN+ when traditional coverage begins.

Not a big deal for those viewing live, except for the ESPN+ bit.  But not sure they'll actually do us any good on the weekend:

The alternate telecast will be shown for four hours a day during all four rounds. It will air from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. ET on Thursday and Friday during the final hour of live coverage on ESPN+ and then move to ESPN2 for the last three hours (as coverage moves to ESPN). On the weekend, Buck & Co. will be on from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. on ESPN (live coverage is on ESPN+) and then switch to ESPN+ as live coverage shifts to ESPN until 1 p.m.

Figures that CBS would limit our options here.  I'll try to catch some of it on Thursday-Friday, and let you know what I think.

I wish the Saudis would give up on fixing golf and focus instead on fixing the CBS broadcast.  

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