It never hurts to get off to a fast start at a major championship, but it really matters at Southern Hills in Tulsa, site of the 104th PGA Championship, if history teaches us anything.In a Q&A for the golf newsletter The Quadrilateral, Southern Hills club historian Clyde Chrisman noted that in all seven of the major championships the club has hosted as well as its two Tour Championships and last year’s Senior PGA Championship, the 36-hole leader has gone on to hoist the winner’s trophy.“In fact, the only two who didn’t lead or share the lead after the first round are Dave Stockton and Tiger Woods,” Chrisman told Geoff Shackelford. “It’s not a course where someone has gotten hot in the last round or two and made a late charge to win.”That’s a staggering stat. Ten events, 10 36-hole leaders win? C’mon, that just doesn’t happen.
Here it is in table form:
Yeah, that 2001 U.S. Open finish still makes me laugh. This clearly means that somebody will come from six back on Sunday, or not.
You may have heard that the course is some 300 yards longer than it was in 2007, but did you stop to wonder where that 300 yards comes from? Of course you didn't\, that's not your job. In July, we'll see the R&A commit some unnatural acts, placing tee boxes on adjoining courses to accommodate the player's ab crunches and high-fiber diets. Southern Hills, in contrast, could require air traffic controllers to keep the players at their assigned altitudes:
The long days in the Oklahoma sun might feel extra long this week at Southern Hills, for no other reason than the 3rd, 5th, 6th and 7th holes. The holes are not extra long themselves, they’re juston top of each other. Literally.Normally, fans at home watching on TV struggle to gain a sense of how holes weave around each other, but there is no choice here in Tulsa. The golf course Tetris of how the 13th interacts with the 16th, or the 6th with the 7th, is very much part of this PGA Championship. The tee shot for the 13th hole flies over the 12th green. The tee shot that trickles long of the 6th green will suddenly find itself on the 7th tee box. It might not seem like a big deal 51 weeks out of the year, but little things hold bigger meaning during these major championship weeks. With 30,000 fans surrounding them, making those 156 golfers fit comfortably inside the ropes and play in under five hours becomes a bit daunting.
Under five hours? Have you seen the weather forecast?
Why must golfers inject this level of patience into an already slow game? It’s an unwritten part ofPGA Tour code, where even the slightest sound can seem to throw a player out of their routine.“You don’t want to be thinking over the ball that, oh, is the ball going to land now … or now … or now,” Viktor Hovland said Monday. “You kind of want to get that out of the way and get ready for your shot.“I’m sure the player on the tee would maybe communicate with a guy back on 6 tee to make sure he was going. But then that makes it go pretty slow. So we’ll see how that goes.”Yes, Vik. That makes it go pretty slow. Especially in a field of 156.
What Hovland so aptly described is the idea of players on the 7th tee waiting for balls to land from the 6th tee, on which players will have to alternate with competitors teeing off on 3, who will be sure to hold off until shots land on both 2 and 5 greens. Dizzy yet?
It sounds like the 6th and 7th holes at Willow Ridge, which is not the model I'd choose for a major championship, but about that weather...
If that isn’t unnerving enough, Mother Nature is ready to do her part, too, with forecasts calling for 20-25 mph gusts throughout the opening rounds. If we know anything to be true in high level pro golf, it’s that more wind = more thinking, more thinking = longer rounds, and longer rounds require a lot of daylight! These long days in the Oklahoma sun will need to be long days of Oklahoma sun.
Can you say six-hour rounds? I wonder if they gave any thought to a shotgun start? You could send each wave out in Tulsa cabs and.... yeah, never mind.
Have you scored tickets? You better check the credit limit on your AMEX card, because if you think folks are paying through the nose for baby formula
What’s the price of a good time? At the PGA Championship, you don’t even wanna know.On Monday, the concession menu at Southern Hills made its way to social media, and its prices left golf fans dreaming of the days when a Georgia Peach Ice Cream Sandwich was the biggest of their golf concession-related problems.On the grounds at Southern Hills, the beers are liquid gold … and priced like it. For the hop-minded fan, Michelob Ultra represents the far most egregious menu offense. At the PGA, a single, 24 oz. can retails for the nosebleed price of $18 — or $1 more than the cost of an 18-pack of Michelob Ultra at your nearest Target. For $19, fans can upgrade their beer selection to a Stella Artois of a similar size or a Mich Ultra organic hard seltzer.Bargain shoppers will be excited to learn that for just $15, they too can own a 12-oz. Kona Big Wave or standard cocktail. Step that up to a “signature” or “souvenir” cocktail, however, and the cost returns once again to $19. Wine by the glass likely represents the best bang-for-buck, costing just $13.
Hey, Seth's got those dues to pay on his sixteen golf clubs... I doubt this guy will be lining up at the concession stand, but when give Tour pros sticker shock you might want to reconsider:
“$18 for a freakin (sic) beer??????” Justin Thomas commented on one post. “What does it cure cancer or something!!????”
Elsewhere I saw reference to a $16 salad, not that your humble blogger needs further encouragement to eschew the greens...
Ok, enough of that, as we've got lots to cover on Philgate.
Happy D-Day - The Shipnuck bio drops today, and he was on Golf Channel from Southern Hills last night, talk about catching lightning in a bottle. As of 30-seconds ago, it should be on my Kindle, so Ill let you know how it reads as I dive in.
We've got two principle pieces to cover today, including an emergency Ask Alan from that Shipnuck guy. But first we'll start with an ESPN item that's surprisingly good:
To me, this is the best of the piece, because we've focused so much on the events and disclosures since February. But Phil was quite unhinged and combative on other subjects as well:
Depending on your perspective, Mickelson's tweets and comments in the months that followed his victory at Kiawah paint a picture of someone who either was in the midst of a burgeoning midlife crisis, or had come to view himself -- and his opinions -- -- as beyond reproach.He argued with random users about Jon Rahm's vaccination status; he attacked an investigative reporter from the Detroit News for writing an accurate, if unflattering, story about how a mob-connected bookie had refused to pay Mickelson a $500,000 gambling debt; he suggested his excessive coffee-drinking habit had protected him from catching COVID; he attacked the USGA for rule changes limiting the length of drivers to 46 inches; he criticized the PGA Tour policy board's ban on green-reading books; he claimed that the PGA Tour was holding on to $10-20 billion in "digital moments" that top pros had created; he thanked Elon Musk for grumbling about his $11 billion tax bill; he asked why we couldn't try achieving herd immunity with the omicron variant; he announced (incorrectly) that he'd won the $8 million first-place prize in the PGA Tour's Player Impact Program; he claimed he was considering leaving the PGA Tour because of its "obnoxious greed"; he chimed in to agree when Hoffman claimed an unfair ruling at the Waste Management Phoenix Open was an example of why players were considering other tours. All this occurred before the release of his interview with biographer Alan Shipnuck in which Mickelson implied he was playing LIV Golf and the tour against one another.
His behavior in Detroit was quite the low for sure. the question I always ask is, if his objective had been to destroy his reputation and standing in the game, what would he have done differently?
They make the point that certain players are supportive, though it seems curious to this observer:
It would be unfair to classify Mickelson a pariah. He still has a legion of fans and a core group of peers who believe he has been singled out for an avalanche of criticism and framed as a scapegoat by a tour that is facing the existential threat of a rival golf league."We're in a cancel culture right now," said Webb Simpson, who considers Mickelson a close friend and mentor. "If you say one thing, or somebody digs up something in your past, they cancel you. There have been many situations out here, and in sports, where a player might have done something wrong, sure we can all agree, but I would rather be in an environment where it's a forgiveness culture, not a cancel culture."I'm going to screw up. I know I'm going to screw up. I'm going to say things I don't mean, or say things in the moment that sound bad, and I would hope people give me the benefit of doubt. And yeah, there should be consequences for when we screw up, but I don't think it should be as much as we've seen where it's like 'Hey, you're out. You're gone.'"
Which would be fine if I had any sense that Phil wanted to come back.... All he has to do is say he's sorry and break with the Saudis, no?
You caught that oblique reference to the Charley Hoffman ruling in Phoenix, and perhaps Charley thinks he owes Phil one. But Charley, perhaps you should go a little slower with the analogies:
"Obviously, there were some things he said that people didn't like," said Hoffman, who said he considers Mickelson a friend. "It is what it is. You can't take that back. He's a leader in this game, and unfortunately he stuck his neck out and it got chopped off. Hopefully, he learned from it, and everybody respects him and cheers him on."
OK, you think he's taken anything he said back? But, more importantly, the bit about sticking his neck out and having it cut off? Right on brand for the Saudis, but are you sure you want to go there?
But while I'm not expecting much more in the way of damaging stuff from the Shipnuck book, that's never seemed the book that Phil might worry about the most:
As damaging as the excerpts of Shipnuck's book were to Mickelson's reputation -- there were additional allegations that he lost more than $40 million gambling from 2010 to 2014 -- people close to Mickelson say he's more concerned about another upcoming book. Walters' memoir, which is being co-authored by journalist Armen Keteyian, will be released sometime next year. In 2017, Walters was convicted of 10 counts of conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud. Federal prosecutors alleged Walters illegally made $40 million while trading Dean Foods stock from 2008 to 2015. He was released from prison in April 2020 and was granted clemency by former U.S. President Donald Trump in January 2021.In 2018, Walters told ESPN that Mickelson might have helped his defense if he had agreed to testify during his criminal trial."Here is a guy [Mickelson] that all he had to do was come forward and tell the truth," Walters said. "That was all he had to do. The guy wouldn't do that because he was concerned about his image. He was concerned about his endorsements."
Yes, Phil's relationship with the truth has always seemed transactional....
This recitation of the forgiveness of Phil's fans includes one that I either hadn't heard of or had forgotten:
Mickelson's loyal fans have forgiven him for mistakes in the past. They barely shrugged in 2015, when a California man was sentenced to prison for money laundering. The man, allegedly acting as a conduit for an offshore gambling operation, laundered approximately $2.75 million of money that belonged to Mickelson, who wasn't charged in the case. The next year, the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that Mickelson made $931,000 by purchasing stock on an insider trading tip from sports gambler Billy Walters (Mickelson wasn't criminally charged but agreed to pay back more than $1 million in "ill-gotten gains"). The federal government alleged that Mickelson used some of the money he made to pay Walters for gambling debts. Mickelson's fans forgave him again after he intentionally hit a moving ball on the slick 13th green at Shinnecock in the third round of the 2018 U.S. Open.
That first one I have no recollection of, but it's such a target rich environment. Notwithstanding that I've excerpted at length, it's well worth a full read.
Are you ready to rock with Alan? I haven't even made it through the full article, but I've given up on any thoughts of sequence, and will just let Alan dictate the order:
Knowing what you know, and in light of his withdrawal from the PGA Championship, do you think he can ever come back? @MrChickSportsPhil is a survivor. He has been through numerous controversies in his long career, and he has always emerged with his vast fan base (mostly) intact. As Jack Nicklaus recently said, we are a forgiving nation. Sports fans love a comeback and a redemption story. Tiger Woods has put his fans and family and the game through much worse and he has never been more beloved than right now, so there is certainly a road back for Mickelson. The complicating factor is the Saudis: If Phil takes their money, after revealing his true feelings about how scary they are, it is going to be hard for many fans and folks in the game to forgive him. But if he shows the tiniest bit of contrition and pledges his fealty to the PGA Tour, I think the golf world will be happy to cheer for him again.
Still with the fealty bit?
To me this isn't a great question. All he has to do is quite the Saudis, and all will be forgiven. the far more interesting question is what path forward does Phil see? No relevant Tour professional seems willing to fight for his grievances, so what's his plan and can he come back under that plan?
How much did the Tour not granting his release influence this? @Scall1968Mickelson is at a personal and professional crossroads. The PGA Tour’s hard-line refusal to allow any of its members to play in the first Saudi event in June has only made Phil’s decision-making more complicated. There is safety in staying with the herd, and if the Tour had granted releases, a bunch of its members would have played in the inaugural Saudi event. Now Mickelson has to decide if he wants to be the player who defies the Tour and potentially triggers an antitrust lawsuit that could reshape the business of professional golf. This would appeal to Phil’s ego and deep desire to be celebrated as a visionary agent of change, but it carries a considerable risk of forever alienating fans and would-be corporate sponsors. By not playing in the PGA Championship, Mickelson bought himself another few weeks to see how the ground will continue to shift.
It changed the timing, perhaps, and it might have affected his decision as to whether to play the PGA Championship, but releases were never going to be issued for Pumpkin Ridge.
As I noted yesterday, it may change the arc of the story because it probably denies LIV any chance of having a successful first event.
What’s going on? Is he suspended? I’m confused. @PeteVilesThere is no question the PGA Tour put Mickelson on ice; whether it was a suspension or a voluntary leave is purely semantics. But it has been 90 days since Phil’s comments became public, which was reportedly the length of Dustin Johnson’s suspension after he failed a second drug test years ago. Forcing Mickelson to the sidelines for longer than that feels excessive. Unlike the Masters, the PGA Championship is not an invitational run by an all-powerful club that can do whatever the hell it wants; Mickelson is exempt into the PGA field as defending champ. And even if the Tour wanted Phil to stay in the penalty box for longer than 90 days, the PGA of America does not have to uphold the disciplinary action of a rival organization. Let’s be real, the PGA of America would have loved for Phil to roll up to Southern Hills, as it would have been a monumental news event that drove monster TV ratings. The organization is funded largely by the proceeds of the PGA Championship, plus the Ryder Cup it hosts every four years. Of course Seth Waugh and everyone at the PGA wanted Phil to play. That he’s not doing so had to have been his call and no one else’s.
It's a little disconcerting that Alan would compare it to a suspension for a recreational drug, because that relevance escapes me. the crime is treason and, most importantly, the crime is ongoing, as Phil continues to work with the Saudis against the interests of the Tour. So why would the suspension have a limit?
I think Seth and the PGA wanted Phil to play because, duh!, he's the defending champion. I think the baggage is more of a split decision, they'd be happy for the bump in ratings but they'd be unable to control the circus and it would dominate the week.
Can we just play golf? So many other issues in the world, this is a game, a distraction—when and why did it get so political? @ShodulukThat’s an idealistic vision, as sports and politics have been intertwined going at least as far back as Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics. Gary Player was a lightning rod for South Africa’s apartheid. Lee Elder broke the Masters color barrier more than two decades after Rosa Parks. Shoal Creek laid bare country clubs’ shameful history of racial discrimination, and Martha Burk further highlighted the game’s exclusionary practices. So controversy is not a new phenomenon for the sport. Professional golf does not exist in a vacuum; the players and tournaments are shaped by the world around them. I understand it is tempting to wish that golf would be untouched by the issues of the day, but willful blindness has often led the game astray.
This isn't about politics, Alan, it's about money. Jay is very lucky to have a Saudi face on the threat, though there's also a trap in that....
But here's where things get more interesting:
How much of this was seeing the Greg Norman debacle and realizing he was walking into asituation where he was not going to be able to exit looking good? @Bradorado1Mickelson and Norman have never really been friends, but they are kindred spirits. Both have played the game the same way: aggressive bordering on reckless, and they have brought this same energy to the Saudi situation. Part of Mickelson has to be relieved that Norman, through his increasingly outrageous public statements, is taking some of the heat off of him. But, yes, it must be disquieting to imagine hitching your professional future to a pariah like Norman. A prominent Tour agent recently confided that he is hearing Norman is on the outs with the Saudis, which would be another wild development in this saga. If a leadership change is imminent with LIV Golf, that would be all the more reason for Mickelson to pass on the PGA Championship and take more time to assess a chaotic situation.
That would be wild, though I've never considered Norman anything more than a figurehead in all this, the guy that would sign up with them after Jack turned down $100 million large.
As clueless as Norman has sounded, do we think he's taken the heat off Phil? I actually think he's done just the opposite, highlighting the moral contortions necessary to sell your credibility down the river and take the Wahabi's tainted riches. How does that help Phil, who has quite clearly made the same deal with the devil?
Now, this one is strange:
#AskAlan If Phil passes on London, can we say this is a self-hiatus that has no end in sight? @cmupensfanNot necessarily, given the Tour’s refusal to grant releases. But if Mickelson doesn’t turn up for the ensuing U.S. Open, that raises the question as to whether he will write off the rest of this season. We all know the U.S. Open is the missing piece on Mickelson’s resume and winning the PGA brought him a five-year exemption to attempt to complete the career Grand Slam. To give up one of these precious chances would be an especially big deal.
Is there anyone following this story that thinks Phil isn't going to London? I keep hearing TV talking heads speculating as to when we'll see Phil, which doesn't seem much of a puzzle to me. And just a reminder that the London press has reported that Phil has been paid $42 million to commit to all eight LIV events.
One thing I’ve always been curious about: After Phil acknowledged all the issues with the Saudis out loud… they still wanted him on the tour? Isn’t the whole point to sportswash and pretend none of those issues exist? @ref513I would say sportswashing is more about converting hearts and minds and turning skeptics into believers. If Phil starts making regular pilgrimages to Riyadh, visiting with girls in classrooms and eating at stylish restaurants alongside the female patrons Norman likes to cite, that would generate a ton of commentary given Mickelson’s previous skepticism. So perhaps his blunt comments make him the ideal ambassador to “see the light” and launder Saudi Arabia’s reputation.
Yeah, that was awkward. But it explains why the only actual apology in Phil's fauxpology was to the Saudis...
Do you think Phil cares what his true fans think of him now? I am a little younger than Phil, I have grown up a huge Phil fan, and I am super disappointed in him. @Stoner7976Yes, he cares. He hasn’t signed all of those (hundreds of thousands?) autographs through the years because he doesn’t care. But he is also a strident personality who has to feel like he is always right. His only public statement has been a word salad in which he made himself both the hero and martyr of this situation. Mickelson didn’t acknowledge that many fans are hurt he would collude with a country that birthed 15 of the 9/11 hijackers and assassinated a Washington Post reporter who was a resident of the United States. To truly apologize would require that Mickelson admit he made a monumental mistake, and he is loathe to do that; in his mind he was a shrewd negotiator who was gaming the system. I’m not sure if some fans will ever get from Mickelson the contrition they need to forgive him.
Phil needs to be loved, so he cares about the fans to the extent that they can fill that gaping need.
But this isn't about contrition, as insincere apologies are easy (and insincerity is a core competence of Phil). What Alan and others seem to keep missing, is that Phil isn't willing to not take the Saudi riches. he is simply unwilling, at least until now, to stop doing what has made him a pariah.
LIV ”tour”… I have not actually heard/understood where one could follow/watch the matches in the U.S. or globally. Would it be pay-per-play with or without commercials? @Foregolffer
Nothing has been announced yet, as the tour is still scrambling to figure out its television/streaming situation. This could be a win for golf fans, meaning free broadcasts with no corporate intrusions, at least in the short term.
With that field it's a hard pass, Alan.
This is a very overlooked aspect of the story, especially given that Phil will have rendered actual change more difficult:
Why has the golf media not discussed the issues with the PGA Tour that Phil originally brought up? They own the media rights of players, having pay-to-play in a made-for-TV event, etc. Are his issues not valid? @JStew68129215Yes and no — the athletes in the big team sports don’t own their media rights either. If they did, TV contracts would be far less valuable and player salaries would shrink. But part of the irony, or tragedy, in all of this is that Mickelson was (is?) correct in many of his critiques, but that has been largely lost in all the outrage. Because of a lack of competition, the Tour product has become stale and its streaming and social media efforts are tepid, at best. Players should have a bigger voice in the business of the Tour and a bigger slice of the revenue streams. Phil was beginning to make inroads on these issues, and others, but clearly he has lost his political capital.
One of the amusing aspects of this to your humble blogger is that Phil, despite his innate communication skills, has done such a God-awful job of making his substantive arguments. As Alan notes, the digital rights argument is 99% bullshit, but even there he's been disingenuous, complaining about the Tour's obnoxious greed, while citing the owner ship of his 20120 shot from the pine straw, which of course is not owned by the Tour, but rather by the Lords of Augusta. They'll be amused to know that they're exhibiting obnoxious greed.
But, while I completely agree with Alan about the Tour product being stale, in what sense is that an issue Phil is objecting to? Phil always has the best interests of the game at heart, but somehow those best interests of the game involve putting more more money in Phil's pocket. there's plenty to dislike about the Tour, I just don't think Phil is the public advocate we need.
This is a good one on which to close:
Do you feel guilty at all about all this shit, Alan? @wokekenzieIt has been uncomfortable to be in the middle of this story. I have a lot of emotions about it, but
guilt isn’t one of them. I did not force Mickelson to engage in sneaky dealings with the Saudis that could subvert his home tour even as he had a clear-eyed knowledge of their atrocities. I didn’t make him call me and tell me everything. Those were his choices. He created this mess. Once I knew the real story of Mickelson’s involvement with the Saudis, I had a fiduciary duty to bring the truth to fans and other stakeholders in the game. My fidelity is to the readers, not Phil Mickelson, not the PGA Tour and certainly not the Saudis. But part of me most definitely wishes Phil had never called me. At that point, I was a week away from my publisher’s deadline and the book was basically done. It was full of fun, lively, outrageous stories about Phil and enough juicy bits to create some buzz. His phone call to me turned both of our worlds upside down.
No, this is not Alan's fault, though citing a "fiduciary" obligation is a bit rich. But Phil is where he is because of Phil. In fact, I'd argue that this is the inevitable result of Phil's reckless behavior aided and abetted by the rationalization and coddling of the Tour and media. The Tour has allowed his relationships with mobsters and professional gamblers, his seven-figure unpaid gambling debts, all without consequences. Where did they think this would end?
That's it for this unscheduled post. We'll have more as the week unfolds.
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