Friday, June 10, 2022

LIV Friday

 Did the Earth move for you?

No?  All that innovation and guys doing what's best for their families?  What's wrong with you?

C'mon, this doesn't excite you, perhaps golf isn't the game for you:

1. Charl Schwartzel -5
2. Hennie Du Plessis -4
T3. Scott Vincent -3
T3. Phachara Khongwatmai -3
T5. Branden Grace -2
T5. Justin Harding -2
T7. Dustin Johnson -1
T7. Phil Mickelson -1
T7. Sam Horsfield -1
T7. Laurie Canter -1
T11. Chase Koepka E
T11. Oliver Bekker E
T11. Peter Uihlein E
T11. Adrian Otaegui E
T11. Hideto Tanihara E
T16. Sergio Garcia +1
T16. Talor Gooch +1
T16. Wade Ormsby +1
T16. Ian Snyman +1
T16. James Piot +1
T16. Viraj Madappa +1
T22. Pablo Larrazabal +2
T22. Louis Oosthuizen +2
T24. Richard Bland +3
T24. Ratchanon Chantananuwat (a) +3
T24. Ryosuke Kinoshita +3
T24. Jediah Morgan +3
T24. Oliver Fisher +3
T24. Kevin Yuan +3
T24. Jinichiro Kozuma +3
T24. JC Ritchie +3
T24. Shaun Norris +3
T24. Kevin Na +3
T34. Graeme McDowell +4
T34. David Puig (a) +4
T34. Martin Kaymer +4
T34. Matt Jones +4
T38. Turk Pettit +5
T38. Travis Smyth +5
T38. Lee Westwood +5
T38. Ian Poulter +5
T42. Sadom Kaewkanjana +6
T42. Itthipat Buranatanyarat +6
T44. Hudson Swafford +7
T44. Bernd Wiesberger +7
T46. Blake Windred +8
T46. Sihwan Kim +8
48. Andy Ogletree +12

I have been reliably informed that there was no grind in Graeme McDowell's +4, so that sound you hear is golf growing.

Lots of reports from on the ground, including this from Sean Zak:

Nothing about this was normal for a pro golf tournament. But most things surrounding it were. Around 11:30 a.m., players began to take their typical formations on the range. Mickelson was among the first, soon joined by Ian Poulter and Kevin Na. The team aspect of the event — which isn’t as organic as it’s being advertised — could be seen in the driving range placards and the bibs worn by caddies, but not on the players. Mickelson wore all black for the second straight day, adding a new logo Thursday: Augusta National’s, on his vest.

That they could accommodate all 48 players on the range is newsworthy, but I just Googled LIV team results and came up with squat.  So, while Mr. Norman promised it would be just like the Ryder Cup...

In the parking lot next door, players began filing into black taxi cabs, a cheeky if contrived ode to London, the host city. Poulter refused to enter his cab, for sake of staying loose. He crouched in
the parking lot, working out his lower back, as a dozen photographers leaned in for pictures. He was set to drive to the 18th tee box in the back of a tight cab, but couldn’t leave until Louis Oosthuizen showed up. “Is Louis walking?” Poulter asked his caddie. No one knew where Oosthuizen was. No one knew where Shaun Norris was, either. (He decided to walk to the 15th tee, shirking the cabs.)

The cabs have plenty of space, until you start to fill them with multiple bags, multiple caddies, multiple players and their significant others. Martin Kaymer and his partner wanted to ride together out to his starting hole, but had to split up. The confusion was understandable, on some level. Just minutes earlier, the leader of the taxi division had changed plans: No more waiting for players to tee off before returning to the staging area. Drop them off and get outta the way. From the draft to the media training to the literal placement of bodies on the 1st tee, organizers are making up the rules as they go.

“We don’t want media on the 1st tee,” we were told around 2 p.m., ushered to the side. They were expecting more important people shortly. Namely, the CEO, Greg Norman, and Majed Al Souror, a club director of Newcastle United Football Club.

Good thing Poults stayed loose, otherwise he might have ended in Ogletree territory.

John Huggan posts his own version, including this bit on the field:

In its own publicity, this event boasts that 18 members of the 48-strong field are inside the top-100 in the World Ranking. Which also means that 30 are ranked lower than that arbitrary figure. And only four are inside the top 50. Significantly too, only 20 players are younger than 30, while 10 have already passed their 40th birthdays. So this gathering is neither top-heavy nor youthful.

Nor competitively relevant....

Just before the 2:15 p.m. local time shotgun start to Round 1, the last man on the range was the
familiar figure of Phil Mickelson. That made sense given that the six-time major champion was due to start from the nearby first tee alongside Scott Vincent and Dustin Johnson. No cab ride for those guys.

Logo-less in all black attire (only those with 20-20 vision would notice the blacked-out Masters emblem on his vest) the six-time major champion warmed up in preparation for the tee shot that would soon enough see the PGA Tour suspend him and 16 other players. “Vindictive” LIV Golf called it in a prompt rebuttal.

Trust me, John, everyone noticed the blacked-out Masters logo.

 It appears that Phil changed black vests which insinuates that he *wanted* the ANGC logo visible when he hit the first tee shot in a rebel league he apparently helped create. Which I have to say, in a week full of weird activity, is quite possibly the weirdest. pic.twitter.com/xwfKVBLTy2

It is weird.  If you believe, as Eamon Lynch speculated, that this will all end up at the feet of Fred Ridley, seems an odd choice to show him your middle finger.  Of course, more on that later.

About Those Suspensions - No point to waiting:

Among the biggest questions associated with LIV’s debut was how and when the PGA Tour would respond to players officially teeing it up in an unsanctioned, unapproved event.

They didn’t have to wait long. A release from PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan came through as the pros were on their second holes on Thursday and Monahan didn’t mince words: The Tour players in the LIV field were immediately suspended from participating in any PGA Tour events. The duration of their suspensions was not immediately clear.

“These players have made their choice for their own financial-based reasons,” the statement reads. “I know you are with us, and vice versa. Our partners are with us, too. The fact that your former TOUR colleagues can’t say the same should be telling.”

Geoff, in the freebie portion of a Quad post, comes down hard on the Ponte Vedra mafia:

For years the PGA Tour’s arrogance grew as a brain-drain in Ponte Vedra People shipped out those with enough golf, legal and business savvy—tinged with absurdly conformist ways to match Commissioner Farquaad’s desires—and swapped them out despite holding things together through recessions and insurrections by rugged individualists in Sansabelts.

The brainpower has been swapped out mostly for marketers who might or might not like golf and spend half their days burnishing LinkedIn profiles. So Thursday when the PGA Tour faced a
complicated, existential threat years in the making, it became apparent that Cult Ponte Vedra never imagined the same players they’d lionized suddenly giving them the bird. Or that an entity would come along with advances so great that players could shrug off lost blue chip endorsement deals. Or that the longtime Titleist CEO’s son would be helping to lead the charge after the company profited so handsomely for so long off its PGA Tour ties.

He also excerpts this quote from Kyle Porter of CBS:

The PGA Tour, by the way, is in some real trouble. A mostly toothless letter on Thursday banning players who traded their PGA Tour cards for LIV Golf lanyards is emblematic of just how little leverage or power the Tour currently wields. When your annual revenue is $1.5 billion, and your rival league has a war chest roughly 400 times that, there is no logistical change you can make to retain all of your players. When your only recourse is to point out to players how much money the other guys have, and how much harder it is to exist and thrive on the PGA Tour than the more comfortable LIV Golf league, then you're foisting a trust upon professional athletes that they will choose legacy and morals over wealth.

Because the PGA Tour is, and always has been, weak.  This was the agony of Nurse Ratched, as all-powerful as they appear, they don't control the four (4 1/2, really) events that people actually care about.  We'll get to this, but they can't control who can play in the majors, so that's the predictable plan of the renegades.

Who's Got Next? -  Did you have Bryson on your bingo card?  Rocket Mortgage should be ashamed of themselves:

Rocket Mortgage, headquartered in Detroit and the title sponsor of the PGA Tour event at the Detroit Golf Club, has ended its relationship with Bryson DeChambeau, who plans to play in the new Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf Invitational Series.

According to ESPN, Rocket Mortgage spokesperson Aaron Emerson said the move is effective immediately.


Why the shame?  Because they should have fired his sorry ass last summer, when he refused to speak to the media at the event in Detroit.  The treatment of Rocket and RBC, among others, should have a chilling effect on the sponsorship prospects for other players, and I do hope they let Phil know how they feel about it...

Luke Kerr-Dineen has a post up guessing what comes next, and here's your bingo card:

Players are moving quickly. A source with intimate knowledge of Bryson DeChambeau’s imminent departure to LIV Golf says that for a while, the deal was dead. But when negotiations resumed, his offer surpassed the previously-reported $120 million signing bonus and came together in less than two days. When DeChambeau jumps, Patrick Reed will join him and potentially Rickie Fowler, too. Bubba Watson and Matthew Wolff recently appeared in recent promotional materials for LIV golf, which raises questions about their futures.

Hard to see how the PGA Tour could survive those losses, but isn't Anthony Kim due to show up one of these days.  More importantly, this is the current state of play:

Yes, for now; 19 of the top 20 in the World Ranking seem rock solid (DJ is 15th, the highest-ranked defector), plus Tiger Woods, but it's impossible to know how secure any of this really is until we get deeper into the process.

I wouldn't go with rock solid, especially in view of this bit on Bryson:

Players are moving quickly. A source with intimate knowledge of Bryson DeChambeau’s imminent departure to LIV Golf says that for a while, the deal was dead. But when negotiations resumed, his offer surpassed the previously-reported $120 million signing bonus and came together in less than two days. 

These guys apparently find $120 million in their sofa cushions, so good luck, Jay.

Dylan Dethier is a young punk, but speaks for many of us here:

The Tour sucks, but somehow the remedy for that seems to be to pay Phil more.  Funny, that!

Nothing To See Here - Nothing says growing the game quite like.... well, it's quite the good look:

Maybe Phil Mickelson has had enough of Alan Shipnuck or Greg Norman wanted to make a point.

Either way, one of the strangest days in recent golf history ended at the Centurion Golf Club near London on Thursday evening with Shipnuck, the author of “Phil: The Rip-Roaring (and Unauthorized!) Biography of Golf’s Most Colorful Superstar,” being removed from what’s known as the flash interview area at the LIV Golf Invitational Series inaugural event.

Shipnuck, a partner for The Fire Pit Collective, traveled to the United Kingdom for the event and followed Mickelson during his opening round. Afterward, Mickelson spoke to members of the press, as is customary.

Here's Alan's take:

Well, a couple of neckless security dudes just physically removed me from Phil Mickelson’s press conference, saying they were acting on orders from their boss, whom they refused to name. (Greg Norman? MBS? Al Capone?) Never a dull moment up in here.

But that's not even the most bizarre part, which is here:

Ironically, it was Alan who told us that the Saudis weren't over the moon about Norman.  Whereas this incident seems to indicate that they're a perfect team.

The Road Ahead - Just a couple of bits, then I need to go take a shower.

In that LKD piece linked above, he does a better than most job of identifying the order of battle:

3. The Tour will try to strike a deal with the majors

The unintended consequence of a spread-too-thin golf product is that the game has consolidated around the majors, which means The Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open and Open
Championship have perhaps more leverage than anyone in this debate.

The timing of events means the majors have the luxury of waiting and seeing how things play out. The ship has sailed when it comes to sanctions for this year’s Opens, and it’s not a Ryder Cup year, so the PGA of America (which runs the Ryder Cup) can wait on that decision.

Perhaps I’m wrong, but I struggle to see the majors taking on the burden themselves, and straight-up excluding players from their own field just to do a favor for the PGA Tour.

It's a complicated picture, but the two Opens would be especially hard-pressed to ban players.  It's more complicated for The Masters and the PGA, but LKD gets to the gist of it:

What I do think may happen, however, is that the powers that be will use the OWGR as a kind of proxy to make life difficult for LIV players, should they choose to do so. Could LIV players be deemed ineligible for OWGR? Or could OWGR refuse to recognize those events and therefore not award players playing any points? Could they re-jig their own qualification along the way, to make it ultra-dependent on OWGR points?

This is pretty intense theorizing, of course, but a cursory look at the governing board of the Official World Golf Rankings means I wouldn’t discount any of those as possibilities, if they choose to stand in solidarity with the PGA Tour…

This was the logic for the Saudis throwing money at the Asian Tour.  Even if the 54-hole events are granted points, and I'm a bit surprised that Jay et.al don't seem to have cleaned that up, strength of field numbers will be quite low.

But this is the choke point, though it also explains why Phil and DJ are able to thumb their noses at Jay.  Their recent major wins provide exemptions into the majors, which others considering the jump can only qualify through the OWGR.  Not that some of them care a lick...

Scenes From Golf Twitter - just some random bits:

Well, Folz!  remember, his check cleared as well...

The guys are self-identifying for us.  Those that think they can win a green jacket aren't in London....

Do we think Alex is being ironic here?  I think and certainly hope so:

Do you need a palate cleanser?  I sure do, then a shower and perhaps a delousing... Can't be too safe.

Living The Dream - Which is great, though he's living my dream:

What really pisses me off is that he's living my dream....  Not exactly, because he's doing it as a young man.  My dream involves doing it as a middle-aged man, whereas reality now informs me that, if it is to be done, it will be as an old man.

My job, all summer long, is to capture some of that magic — both the exciting aspects of the biggest tournament in the world, but also the more mundane brilliance of what makes St.
Andrews the true Home of Golf … and an otherwise incredible place to visit. I’ll be doing it from a one bedroom rental on Allan Robertson Drive, named after the original Best Golfer on the Planet. Tom Morris gets all the acclaim, and he rightfully has a street named after him nearby, but it was only after Robertson’s death that the Open began in 1860, an attempt to replace him with a proper Champion Golfer of each year.

On this Summer in Scotland journey, we will no doubt get into some generic stuff like visiting Old Tom Morris’s grave — a classic American golfer pilgrimage — or spending a night among the heathens trying to win a tee time. We will provide updates in the lead-up to the Open, like how the cold, dry spring has the course playing as firm as can be right now. But hopefully, we find some undercovered topics along the way, like how the name “St. Andrews” has become currency in this part of the world, how the Open can dictate the economics of everything in this town, and also my 90-day hunt for a Large version of the sweatshirt Tiger Woods wore during the second round of the 1995 Open.

The grave is still there, but don't bother looking for Old Tom's shop along Golf Road.  That's been rebranded, because Old Tom apparently isn't relevant to millennials...

Sean's first dispatch is here, before he was, yanno, dispatched to London to cover the circus.  This bodes ill for our daily ballot odds in August:

In the run-up to the 150th Open Championship, demand for tee times couldn’t be greater. The course has been hosting more corporate outings than usual, which last week meant a group of
influencers. TikTok-ers, as one course marshal called them, taking parkour leaps and twirls over the Swilcan Burn.

But even with 12 hours worth of tee times, the search for one of them is a bit chaotic in the final 11 days before it shuts down for a month. Visitors are lining up earlier than ever the night before to sleep comfortably on the pavement or in the parking lot just to ensure a tee time. Whereas it might normally be a midnight or middle of the night commute, one golfer began waiting at 7 p.m. last week. A father and son joined him at 8 p.m., followed by another two at 8:30. They snuck comforters and pillows out of their hotel rooms, and laid sleeping bags down on top of yoga mats. I found the bunch at 5:30 a.m., sheltered from the wind whipping off the sea. Temperature: 45 degrees. Feel: a lot colder.

I assume those are folks trying to get on as singles.... but still.  Quite the crazy year.  We have six tee times at Crail, and it's not clear where else we'll play.

Interestingly in a GMTA mode, Sean has discovered street signs:

St. Andrews Thing I’m Now Obsessed With: the lively street signs

I’d like to commemorate this trip with biweekly appreciations of tinier things in town that help explain life in St. Andrews, some of its simplicities, intricacies, and things you’d otherwise miss (when pulled toward the golf). For starters, we have these dynamic street signs.

Now you’ve seen it — the very first photo I took upon arrival: a pic of the ‘Elderly People’ sign that I lovingly sent to my parents. A few things I love:

1. The words Elderly People is not enough. We must make these people look elderly. Give the man a cane! The figures are way more animated than their rigid American counterparts.


2. This feels like the equivalent of the “SLOW, Children Playing” signs found in residential neighborhoods across the States. Only these feel more bustling. More lively. They certainly get the point across more.

In fairness, the signs do feel necessary. Roads are skinny here, with cars parked everywhere. My neighborhood is on the outskirts of town, where many elderly locals and families live. I hope they’re reading along.

OK, Sean, but I got there first, though admittedly Employee No. 2 would be guilty of a hate crime (for the record, this was in Northern Ireland):


I also did a full post on signage back in the Ballyliffin days, though multiple hate crimes are involved.

Have a great weekend and we'll sum it all up on Monday.  Or not.

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