Friday, May 6, 2022

Your Friday Frisson

If this post seems more disjointed than usual to the reader, there's good cause.  It was partially drafted on Thursday morning, then we got Shipnucked again.  Well, someone got Shipnucked...

Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain - In the rousing coda to his fauxpology, Phil told us that he was taking a break to work on being the man he wants to be.  That's a subject worth exploring at a later time, though perhaps the logical starting point would be a full accounting of the man he's actually been.

When Alan Shipnuck dropped his bombshell in February, Phil's fauxculpa included a very strange feature, pre-emptively giving his sponsors permission to cancel his sorry ass.  Don't remember seeing that before, especially since Phil, in his own words, is all about the leverage.  One wag opined that it might relate to the revelations coming in the triptych of books about Phil, of which Shipnuck's unauthorized biography will be the second to be published, dropping the Tuesday of PGA Championship week.

Alan has a new piece at the Fire Pit Collective which covers quite a bit of ground.  It serves as the typical pre-publication tease, but also is a personal reflection on his own role in lighting the fuse back in February.  He also deals again with Phil's allegations of journalistic impropriety, though most saw through that for the weaselly dodge it was.

Such teases always raise an issue, to wit, is this all the good stuff or just the visible portion of the iceberg?  Let's deal with the stuff of headlines first, as I assume you've seen this in a header already unless, yanno, you've been trapped in a cave:

Mickelson’s love of gambling is fundamental to understanding his style of play as a golfer. It might also explain the Saudi seduction. Based on his comments to me, he clearly enjoyed the idea
of sticking it to the PGA Tour, but the real motivation was plainly the funny money being offered by the Saudis. Why was Phil so eager to cash in, at the risk of alienating so many fans and endorsement partners? The massive scale of Mickelson’s gambling losses has never before been made public, but, as noted in the book, during the Billy Walters insider trading investigation, government auditors conducted a forensic examination of Phil’s finances. According to a source with direct access to the documents, Mickelson had gambling losses totaling more than $40 million in the four-year period (2010–14) that was scrutinized. In those prime earning years, his income was estimated to be just north of $40 million a year. That’s an obscene amount of money, but once he paid his taxes (including the California tariffs he publicly railed against), he was left with, what, low-20s? Then he had to cover his plane and mansion(s), plus his agent, caddie, pilots, chef, personal trainer, swing coaches and sundry others. Throw in all the other expenses of a big life—like an actual T. Rex skull for a birthday present—and that leaves, what, $10 million? Per the government audit, that’s roughly how much Mickelson averaged in annual gambling losses. (And we don’t know what we don’t know.) In other words, it’s quite possible he was barely breaking even, or maybe even in the red. And Mickelson’s income dropped considerably during his winless years from 2014 to ’17.

That $40 million is in headers everywhere, but that only covers a four-year period.  But it seems I'll have to buy the book to learn who the lucky recipient of that T. Rex skull was...

Just yesterday afternoon on the course I had the most recent of a series of "He can't possibly need the money" conversations whereas, in fact, he might.  Normal folks can't get their arms around the magnitude of the recklessness, because they suffer from being, well, normal.

Were you wondering about that break-up with Bones?  At the time, I had to turn off my BS Detector, because the constant buzzing was driving me crazy.  Channeling their inner Seinfeld, they tried to convince us that it was the first mutual break-up in Tour history, have you noticed that Bones, in his broadcast career, does not let Phil's name pass his lips?

Money was a big factor in Mickelson’s bust-up with his career-long caddie, Jim (Bones) Mackay.
They announced their split in June 2017 with chummy matching press releases. At the time, the overriding emotion in golf circles was disbelief. “It felt like your parents were splitting up,” says John Wood, a longtime Tour caddie and now an NBC/Golf Channel commentator. The statements made the divorce sound amicable, but that was nonsense. Bones had fired Phil at the ’17 Memorial, over a series of simmering grievances (laid out in detail in the book), including hundreds of thousands of dollars in overdue back pay.

So, what does a successful tour pro do when his caddie quits over non-payment?  That's easy, he sucks his little brother into taking the gig.... How's that working out for Tim?  But Alan has promised a series of grievances, so one assumes Bones cooperated with him.

Perhaps the most promising part of Alan's pitch is that he makes it clear that he's covered all sides of the man, eerily similar to the Good Phil-Bad Phil dichotomy I've been peddling since 2014.  Here's just a sniff:

There is something Shakespearean about Mickelson’s arc. He had it all, or so it seemed, but greed and vanity and recklessness (and perhaps desperation) cost him everything, at least in the short-term. But he will come back, because he always has, through myriad controversies and heartbreaks. Even though he besmirched my professional reputation, I can’t help but still root for Phil. Because of the heat surrounding the excerpt, plenty of folks have asked if this book is some kind of takedown. Far from it. I have always enjoyed Mickelson and devote a lot of the book to celebrating his virtues. It is undeniably fun to be in his orbit. “One of the reasons Phil has lasted so long is because he’s had a joyful life,” says Charles Barkley, one of the few men alive who have been close to both Mickelson and Tiger Woods. “Tiger won a bunch of tournaments, but there wasn’t much joy in it. Sure, Tiger is a better golfer. You’re just in awe of his talent. But it’s not fun to be around him. Everyone in his world is uptight and shit, afraid to say or do the wrong thing. Tiger himself has always acted like he’s under siege. Gimme a fuckin’ break—you’re just a golfer, dude. When you’re with Phil, you’re guaranteed to have fun. He makes people feel good. Everyone around him is always smiling. That’s a huge difference, man.”

I do think "Shakespearean" applies here, as over-used a cliché as it might be.  Even in this short piece Alan details examples of personal and financial generosity that will touch you, and those have always seemed genuine to me.  You'll want to read the whole thing, though that could apply to the book as well as these excerpts.

Peak Petulance - So much for the theory that a happy home life will mellow the piece of s**t, though most of the guys similarly situated are handling their exit with far more grace.  Of course that's a criminally low bar, being commended for acting more mature than a man that spit in a golf cup and destroyed greens while playing a tournament in, ironically, Saudi Arabia.

Sergio, that paragon of propriety, was the victim of a bad ruling yesterday at the Wells Fargo, but petulance first, rules clarity later:

And we can't wait to have you gone.  You gotta love a guy that thinks he's been mistreated, and plans to rectify that by signing on with folks that buy bonecutters by the gross.  Hope that works out for you, Sergio....

But, just spitballin' here, what's your plan after the Saudi effort crashes and burns?  

In the non-paywalled portion of Geoff's latest Quad post, he has this word of caution for Sergio:

Note to Sergio: PGA Tour rules officials work all four major championships, something you would know if he actually interacted with humans in an adult manner. But good news: your exemptions to the PGA, U.S. Open and Open are up after this year.

The Tour has graciously admitted that their rules officials erred:

Unfortunate, but it couldn't happen to a more deserving soul.... Geoff had this fun snark capturing those odd trousers, as well as his history at one of those LIV venues:

There was Sergio, depositing one into the TPC Potomac crap wearing sewage plant brown poly slacks and still very much point-missing after all these years. The Spaniard managed, in one glorious unraveling, to commence his PGA Tour farewell and any hopes of a future Ryder Cup captaincy. But he saud hello to a late career life hurling clubs around Pumpkin Ridge and Rich Harvest Farms, plus a much-anticipated reunion with Royal Greens, the same course where he threw a childish hissy fit and vandalized greens.

I don't believe this coda is captured in the video above:

Now in the fairway, Garcia shoved his clubs into his staff bag, and shouted across the fairway, “I’m going to play slow now, okay?” He striped an iron for a layup and then proceed to berate the official. “That is bulls—t. That is absolute bulls—t. I mean, I’m a minute and a half over [time] and you don’t tell me?”

Serge, you got robbed, but glad to see you handling it with the maturity and grace of veteran professional.  But is we call that bulls---t, what do we call this?

The best part?  That he uses the "nothing but net" defense....

Don't Forget About Us - Given my interest in the PGA Tour governance issues, this play is really quite clever:

The PGL, a different entity from the Saudi Arabia-backed and Greg Norman-led LIV Golf Invitational Series that plans to rival the Tour, is doubling down on its efforts to meet with the PGA Tour and recruit its players.

The letter, obtained by Golfweek and dated for Thursday, May 5, and addressed to PGA Tour Voting Members says that professional golf is at a “historic crossroads.”

Wow, you guys at Golfweek must have your own Deep Throat or something, getting your hands on that super-secret open letter to all PGA, Korn Ferry and Euro Tour members.

But what's it all about, Alfie:

“The ‘International Series,’ funded and owned by LIV Golf Investments (LIV), represents an existential threat, not only to the PGA Tour’s dominance, but also its model. Change is not only inevitable, it is happening — and no amount of purse rejigging, head-burying, ban-threatening, alliance-making or ‘moving-on’ will derail it,” read the letter signed by World Golf Group Limited, which not-so-subtly calls out the PGA Tour and Jay Monahan for his comments that the Tour was “moving on” from rival leagues, as well as the threatening to ban players who play for different leagues.

“LIV’s superb format (based on our very own, original, PGL format) is capable of generating $10 billion-plus of equity value,” the letter continued. “Hence, LIV is prepared to spend $400 million-plus to demonstrate the brilliance of the model, across eight events.”

Maybe they should have signed on sooner, because $10 billion isn't what it used to be... Of course, it's hard to get even a million souls in front of a TV to watch golf, so why so cheap?

I'm not going to go too deep into the long grass on these guys, but here's a snapshot of what they're offering:

A) Own 50% of the PGL and make ~$20 million each ($2 million upfront), with a further ~$1 billion of value to be shared between members of the Korn Ferry and DP World Tours, or

B) Do nothing and leave LIV to generate that value, while the two oldest tours contemplate a full merger that would serve neither membership

Did that strawman really have to be sacrificed?  Don't forget that third option in which Jay uses the money from his new media contracts to buy off the top guys with PIPs and NFTs....

This has been the Tour's quasi-official party line:

“Their proposal has been studied and scrutinized by an independent company to test its viability,” said Kevin Kisner, whose term on the PAC ended in 2022. “The results were presented to all of us. After extensively studying the (PGL’s) finances and the proposal, the (consultants) likened it to having to perform from a financial standpoint of 19 Ryder Cups per year. Not feasible.”

The letter quotes a similar statement from Rory McIlroy and calls both players claims “bullshit,” citing how the consultants, Allen & Co., have never spoken to the PGL nor do they have access to the proper information “in order to produce an accurate valuation.”

Well, yeah, how else do you come up with $10 bil?  There's no way the underlying golf eco-system can support that kind of valuation, so one is left to wonder what game is being played.  At least with the Saudis we understand their motive is to keep the bonesaws humming, so we've got that going for us.

This is their call to arms, the bit I fond clever:

“The call to action is simple – just message your player representatives on the PAC and the Policy Board and tweet/retweet: “As a member of the tour, I instruct you to obtain and publish an independent valuation of the PGL Proposals #playerpower #transparency”. If seventy or more of you do this, it will happen.”

As we've discussed, the modern PGA Tour was formed by rogue players rebelling against the PGA of America in the 1960s, with the insurrectionists amusingly named Palmer and Nicklaus.  So you're excused for assuming that the Tour is owned by and run for the benefit of the players, because how could it be otherwise?   

The PAC, the Players Advisory Counsel, is manned as follows in 2022:

Patrick Cantlay
Paul Casey
Austin Cook
Joel Dahmen
Harry Higgs
Billy Horschel
Russell Knox
Brooks Koepka
Justin Lower
Peter Malnati
Graeme McDowell
Maverick McNealy
Trey Mullinax
Jon Rahm
Webb Simpson
Will Zalatoris

Webb Simpson and Peter Malnati were voted as cochairman, but what does the PAC do?  Well, not much, mostly:

The PAC serves an advisory and consulting role with the PGA Tour’s Policy Board (Board of Directors) and Commissioner Jay Monahan.

To be fair, we have seen the PAC take an active role in a recent initiative under Rory McIlroy's chairmanship, the banning of green books (OK, more the limitation on them) on Tour.  It was great to see them protect their terms of engagement, but the broader issue is they're an advisory board with no, what's that word Phil used...oh yeah, leverage.

Please don't ask me who Justin Lower is, because I won't even pretend to know.

You'll have sensed that the other body, the Tour Policy Board, is where we find the juice, though it's a complicated picture:

During a meeting on March 1, Cantlay was unanimously selected by the four current player directors (McIlroy, Kevin Kisner, James Hahn and Charley Hoffman) to serve a one-year term on
the board, beginning Jan. 1, 2023. Under normal circumstances, players serve three-year terms on the board, representing their fellow Tour players, but this was not a normal promotion.

Back in 2017, the once eight-person board increased in size by one non-player as the Tour set out to negotiate the contracts for its media rights. In the wake of that decision, the policy board held players in a technical minority, owning just four seats in a nine-person board. Adding Cantlay to the mix now makes it a 10-person board, with players owning half of the seats.

Cantlay was selected in part because of his standing within the Tour Advisory Council (PAC), a secondary, 16-person group that serves a consultative role for the board. Cantlay ran for co-chairman earlier this year but lost out when Webb Simpson and Peter Malnati were selected. They will both join the policy board in February 2023 when Kisner and Hahn’s terms come to a close. Billy Horschel, who also ran for a co-chairman PAC role, will not graduate from the PAC.

Obviously this is ultimately the mechanism by which the players retain control of their ecosystem, but the degree of said control is unclear.  For instance, this is from a 2008 article by the late Tim Rosaforte:

Player directors almost exclusively decide competition-related matters. The independent directors defer to the players in these cases, except when they are called on to levy fines and select venues for tour events. But when it comes to non-competitive issues -- such as devising and underwriting the FedEx Cup playoffs or financing construction of the new clubhouse at the TPC Sawgrass -- the independent directors assume a more active role.

The policy board is the committee that approved the tour's much-scrutinized anti-doping plan last November. It will determine if any changes are forthcoming in the playoff's points system (provided the PAC submits recommendations it do so), and it created the floating-cut rule that was first implemented at the Sony Open three weeks ago and kept 19 players from weekend play at the Buick Invitational.

So, is the Tour's reaction to this PGL proposal competition-related?  It's quite murky, which plays into the hands of the entrenche4d administrators, which leaves us with Nurse Ratched and Kubla Jay pretty much doing what they want.

Do they want their events subcontracted to the PGL or Super League?  But what if the members want to take the money and run?  That gets way more complicated, but that's why I've consistently called Monahan the luckiest man on the planet.  It's hard to tell players they can't cash large checks, but it's infinitely easier when you can call the underlying money tainted.

We'll just have to see how this pans out, but Rory did at least feel obligated to take the issue to the Policy Board.  From there it will be killed out of public view, unless there's a groundswell from the players, which is the logic of the open letter.  Of course, the effort is hurt be being pre-empted by the Shirtless Shark and the bonecutters, and Jay will attempt to keep all of these deliberations out of the public eye.

Care for some dueling videos?  First, Lee Westwood makes the case for why it's all OK:

He hits on all the right notes, what can the problem be if it was OK for Keith Pelley to hold an event in Saudi Arabia?  There's an argument to be made about the scale, to wit, that holding one event in The Kingdom is a different order of magnitude than having the Wahabi's control the most prestigious tour in golf, but the trap is obvious.

Eamon Lynch demands his full time allotment for rebuttal:

Well, yeah!  

There is one more development that's perhaps intriguing.   The LIV events are allegedly worth $10 billion large, though we don't even know whether we'll be able to watch Robert Garrigus in action.  There's news on that front:

NEP Group is close to signing a deal with LIV Golf — a move that has the potential to create
some upheaval in the television production world.

That’s because NEP already has a deep relationship with the PGA Tour, which has been dissuading its corporate partners from working with the Saudi-backed upstart league.

But conversations with several executives say that NEP was one of a handful of production companies that officially bid on the rights to handle the TV production for LIV Golf tournaments, which start June 9 from the Centurion Golf Club near London.

At the beginning of April, LIV Golf chose NEP’s bid over ones from companies including Game Creek Video and Gravity Media, according to several sources.

Nothing has been signed yet. The two sides still are negotiating to see if a deal can be had.

That’s where the intrigue comes into play. Most of the companies that have relationships with the PGA Tour have not engaged LIV Golf. Sports media has long been described as a relationship business, and these companies have little interest in potentially angering a longtime partner in the PGA Tour.

A chink in the armor?  It gets a bit arcane but, as part of its new media contracts, the Tour took the actual production in house, as further explained here:

As part of these deals, the PGA Tour took the lead on the television compounds at their events. That means that instead of CBS and NBC rolling production trucks to the events they carry, the PGA Tour is responsible for setting up the compound.

The idea is that such a move would make the quality of the telecasts more consistent through the tournaments.

The PGA Tour hired NEP and is using its trucks for those compounds. Should it cut a deal with LIV Golf, it’s unlikely that the PGA Tour would stop working with NEP. But it appears likely that their relationship would become more strained, at least in the beginning.

Consistent?  Heh, that's a good one, as it's far more likely about control.... Whether it was done in anticipation of the current threats or just because of their inherent need to control everything, I'll leave the reader to ponder.

But, as we've discussed, the issue in broadcasting these events is the cost of production, as they can be streamed on any number of services.  Of course, they don't really want to go the streaming route with its viewership level counted in the thousands, do they?

The other big question is who will carry the LIV Golf events in the U.S., considering that most of the big U.S.-based media companies already have deep relationships with the PGA Tour. Sources said LIV Golf had discussions about doing a deal with Fox, but those talks died down weeks ago.

That's the next front in this war....  But, with The Match having announced its latest installment, I'm sure that Phil could introduce Greg to someone at TBS....  Err, not so fast, those Match thingees still require PGA Tour waivers, although perhaps not for quarterbacks.  

Send In The Clowns - So, we recently had Justine Reed's burner Twitter account accusing Southern Hills of inappropriately assisting Eldrick Woods to prepare for the coming 2022 PGA Championship:

She claimed Woods was receiving preferential treatment, citing a tweet put out by the PGA of America showing him practising with Cary Cozby, director of golf for Southern Hills.

Using the Twitter handle GolfFacts, widely regarded as her anonymous account for letting off steam, she wrote: 'I wonder what it's like to have the director of golf at Southern Hills give you ALL the course notes you need for the upcoming PGA. Do all players get this treatment? For Tiger this is just embarrassing that the PGA posted this photo and very telling.'


I don't know that we know for sure that this is all Justine's, but it's as reasonable an assumption as any.  It's certainly a member of Team Reed, so by all means let's trash the odious Justine.

This is a Derek Lawrenson piece in the Daily Mail, in which he makes the obvious point:

How can you get it so wrong? Causing such a petty commotion is certainly embarrassing for one player who will be at the PGA, but it isn't Tiger.

Attention to detail is just one more area where Woods has excelled over the years, so it's hardly surprising that he should seek out Cozby and pick his brains. Isn't that what great players have always done? I'm sure Cozby would extend the same courtesy to Reed if he took a week off from playing poorly and made it to Tulsa.

Exactly the point I made, but Derek also has a story of Tiger helping Patrick:

Clearly, the comeback continues. Meanwhile, Justine might care to think back on an epic moment in her husband's career when he was also thankful for the advice of a fellow pro.

Preparing for what proved a brilliant singles victory over Rory McIlroy in the 2016 Ryder Cup, Reed was taken to one side. 'I was so amped up I couldn't concentrate, I was hitting it sideways,' recalled Reed.

'He cracked a few jokes and gave me advice that made all the difference. He took my adrenaline high back to a level that was manageable.'

I'm sure you don't need me to spell out the pro who went to such trouble — but he might be reflecting this morning on how quickly people forget.

Fair enough, though Tiger was allegedly Patrick's hero, to such an extent that he wore red and black on Sundays.  I'm still trying to get over how pissed he was at being paired wiht his hero in Paris...

But I rehash this for a different  reason.  We no longer have to speculate about Patrick visiting Southern Hills, because he recently did so as reported by Shack in his freebie Quad:

Reed has already visited Southern Hills in preparation for the PGA. By all on-site accounts he worked hard and was a pleasant guest. And Reed also found time to film an upcoming episode of ESPN+’s America’s Caddie.

All good, but the reader will know that I'm bothering with this for a reason.  Because, if you were Patrick reed and wanted to beclown yourself to the maximum extent allowable under the law, would you do anything different than this:

What, they couldn't get a kids bike with training wheels on such short notice?

The funniest part of this to me is how tenaciously he clings to that Captain America persona, which I'm pretty sure lapsed after that Albany/Royal Melbourne psychodrama.  Patrick will have to earn his way onto another team and, no matter how many embedded balls he concocts, his recent play doesn't make that seem likely....

Sometimes a header is more than a header:

Don't you love a farce?
My fault, I fear
I thought that you'd want what I want
Sorry my dear
But where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns
Don't bother
They're here
 
Not here, exactly, but in Tulsa....

...Into The Fire Pit - It's not often that a golf writers change of mastheads makes it to this blog, but the empty husk of what was once Sports Illustrated/Golf Magazine can ill afford this loss:

And a warm welcome from his from the man of the hour, who made the similar move last year:

I've been known to call Mikey Bams The Conscience of our Game, which perhaps doesn't do him any favors, but he's a unique voice in the golf ecosystem, and there's isn't much left at Golf.com, which Geoff attributes to the Millstein ownership.

 I'll no doubt continue to overuse the Tour Confidential panel on Monday's, but its most experienced contributor will render it less trenchant.  It seems the Fire Pit's home page will need to be added to my morning traipse through the golfing press.

That's it for now.  have a great weekend, notwithstanding the truly crappy weather in store for us.  See you on Monday.

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