LIV Thursday

Balls are presumably in the air in London, but do those London taxis just sit idling until the players finish?  Amusingly, just getting the players to their holes is not the easiest bit, so stay tuned.

There's way too much going on for this t be comprehensive, so I'll just pick my shots.

Phil Noir - One of my better headers I think, though your mileage may vary.  But Sean Zak tells us it's the same, yet different:

Before Phil Mickelson even said a word, it was clear that his Wednesday press conference at the maiden LIV Golf event would be different. When the 51-year-old arrived in the press room here at

the posh Centurion Club, preparing to face the media for the first time since his controversial remarks about the upstart league turned his world upside down, he had just one logo on his person: his own — a silhouette of himself.

No Callaway, no Workday, no KPMG, or any of the other brands with which Mickelson has been associated in his 32-year professional career. He wore mostly black, with aviator sunglasses, and sported a trimmed beard. Though his three new teammates — Justin Harding, Ratchanon Chantananuwat and Chase Koepka — were seated at the dais beside him, every one of the first 26 questions were directed at and answered by Mickelson.

But that doesn’t mean he was his typical, expressive, outspoken self. The new Phil, who will play this week for the first time in more than four months, was calculated, bordering on tentative, in his answers ahead of the London-area event, the first in a series of LIV tournaments he will play this year. Above all, one thing was clear: his reluctance to discuss anything that pertains to the PGA Tour.

I wasn't there, but at his presser I assume Benedict Arnold mas mum on the Continental Army as well...

“I have really enjoyed my time on the PGA Tour,” he said. “I’ve had some incredible experiences, some great memories, and I have a lot of strong opinions on things that should and could be a lot better.

“One of the mistakes I’ve made is voicing those publicly. So I will really make an effort to keep those conversations behind closed doors going forward. I think that’s the way to be the most efficient and get the most out of it.”

I think you've already gotten the most out of it, Phil, $200 million large if the rumors are to be believed.

In terms of actual substance, this is where it gets interesting:

The only topic to which Mickelson added any real context was his status as a PGA Tour lifetime member. While Dustin Johnson and numerous other LIV-committed players have resigned their Tour memberships, Mickelson has not. “I’ve earned that, and I don’t plan on just giving it up,” he said. And yet, he knows that decision is not completely up to him. PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan has repeatedly threatened a lifetime ban for players participating in LIV events. He and Mickelson have not spoken, Mickelson said.

Golf Digest reconvened their panel for this, and the guys there don't seem as bought and paid for as the Golf.com crew:

Are you surprised Mickelson, after all the backlash over the past three months, still made the jump? Are you surprised LIV Golf still wanted him after he admitted he was using them for leverage?

Joel Beall: Surprised at Phil? No; he’s long been a carnival barker, and the show he’s selling is himself. His comments in February had a bit of a Cortes burning the boats feel to it in regards to the PGA Tour, so there may not have been a choice (more on this in a second). As for LIV … kind of! I know they’re desperate to get this thing off the ground, but, boy, he essentially took a flamethrower to the entire operation and almost burned the place down.

Shane Ryan: Definitely not surprised Phil made the jump, he's been telegraphing this for a long time and though we don't have access to his financials, everything we've learned lately seems to indicate he needs the money. I am at least a little surprised that LIV Golf wanted him, after he called the Saudi government homophobic journalist-killers with a terrible record on human rights. But clearly, for an outfit looking to launch their enterprise with some buzz, having Phil Mickelson on board clearly outweighed any offense felt in the House of Saud.

Tell us what you really think, Joel.  Phil needs them right now, but they might need him even more...

I caught an Eamon Lynch segment on Golf Channel last night, which was a bit amusing.  He was asked a question about the LIV field, framed as they have players at the beginning of their careers as well as at the end, how would you characterize it?  Eamon took the lay-up, reminding us that what's missing from the field is competitive relevance.  Oh yeah, there's that.

Majors aside, has Mickelson made his last PGA Tour start?

Chris Powers: If he’s getting a Dustin Johnson-sized bag to play on the LIV, I think the better

question is: Will Phil even want or need to play on the PGA Tour again? Even without the career grand slam, his golfing legacy is fully intact, despite this questionable late-career move. Another few PGA Tour Champions wins or the odd win at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (assuming the tour allows him to play again) isn’t going to change that.

Rapaport: It all depends on the courts—if they rule in the PGA Tour’s favor and uphold any potential discipline, which would force a choice between the PGA Tour and LIV, I do think Phil would go with LIV. He's in too deep now. But if forcing a choice doesn't hold up legally, he—and everyone else—will at least have the option to have their cake and eat it too.

I think one over-looked aspect of this is that Phil needs the Champions Tour more than the big-boy tour, though ironically this week's field looks much like a weak Champions Tour field.

Scenes From The Press Room- The tourney is only three days, but the sound bites will live forever.  Graeme McDowell didn't help his legacy with this bit:

Lynch: Graeme McDowell’s reputation the latest victim of the Saudi rent-a-stooge scheme

Here's the Ulsterman's geopolitical theory:

“We all agree the Khashoggi situation was reprehensible,” he said. ‘Situation’ is a curiously antiseptic word choice to describe the bonesaw dissection of a Washington Post writer that was

ordered by his new employer, the Crown Prince, who might also require convincing that his handiwork was reprehensible. At least McDowell’s phrasing compared favorably with the contemptibly amoral guff of LIV Golf’s CEO, Greg Norman.

It’s what came later that represented the most disappointing moment in McDowell’s otherwise admirable career: “If Saudi Arabia wanted to use the game of golf as a way for them to get to where they want to be, and they have the resources to accelerate that experience, I think we’re proud to help them on that journey,” he said.

McDowell probably didn’t realize that his words were an unwitting explanation of how sportswashing works. It requires the three things he noted: an image-making objective, cash, and willing stooges. Nor will he grasp just how that craven statement will forever stain his legacy. He effectively equated doing public relations work for an abhorrent regime—one whose crimes are ongoing, not matters of history— with his servicing of any other corporate sponsor.

Gee, Graeme, what's that patch on your left sleeve?   Are you equally proud to be effing RBC?  Because I'm guessing that their checks, while quite a bit smaller, also cleared.  Any thoughts on what you're doing to them and to other PGA Tour players?

Nothing new here, but Eamon rants are among the best of the genre:

He saw his near-term reality — guaranteed cash for a spent force on Tour — and decided it outweighed his long-term prospects of a lucrative career as a broadcaster, corporate pitchman and senior circuit regular. He chose the easy money and pariah status because the alternative required work.

McDowell’s decision is purely financial. There’s no surprise in that, and in many quarters no shame in it either. The same is true of every other player in London, and those who will join before the next event in Portland in July (LIV is clearly staggering player announcements to simulate momentum that a single unveiling of unknown and uncompetitive players would not otherwise confer). If people prioritize money over morals, fair enough. There’s something admirable in the upfront whore who doesn’t disguise the motivation underpinning the act, who offers no mealy-mouthed pretense of noble impulse or greater good, nothing beyond the purely transactional. But the honesty of streetwalkers was not in evidence at the LIV Golf launch.

Which is worse: the spent force or the upfront whore?  

These two guys look like they're having all sots of fun as well:

Looks like the Greater Moscow Four-Ball is still an option for Poulter and Westwood. https://t.co/4iq4c63tFJ

— Geoff Shackelford (@GeoffShac) June 8, 2022

You Can't Fire Me, I Quit -  One interesting question is why the guys are resigning from the PGA Tour in advance of the inevitable suspensions, which would seem a predicate for the inevitable antitrust litigation:

Johnson, the highest-ranked player in the field at this week’s inaugural LIV Golf event outside

London at World No. 15, has joined a growing list of players who have resigned from the PGA Tour in recent days. Kevin Na announced his decision to resign Saturday, and four other LIV-ers have followed, as first reported by the Associated Press: Sergio Garcia, Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel and Branden Grace. Then, in the first-ever LIV pre-tournament player press conference Tuesday, Johnson shared that he, too, had walked away from the tour that has seen him earn more than $79 million on-course, trailing only Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.

There has been speculation that the resignations have been made with major championships in mind. The line of thinking goes like this: While the governing bodies for these events themselves have not decided publicly what they think about players competing on the LIV series, they could defer to the PGA Tour’s eligibility rules, meaning a suspension from the tour could include a suspension from the majors. That’s not going to happen, at least in the immediate future. The USGA confirmed as much on Tuesday afternoon, sending out a release stating all qualified players for the 2022 U.S. Open will be allowed to compete.

In the short term, I think they have few worries.  But in that Eamon Lynch item I noted above, he predicted that this all ends up at the feet of Fred Ridley, which is quite the horrible image for our game.  I'm old enough to remember when Augusta National was going to save us by using a dialed-back tourney ball, which always struck me as a big ask for the club...

This is another possibility:

There are other, more practical reasons for the pre-emptive resignations. “They’re giving themselves a chance to take unrestricted sponsor’s exemptions as non-members,” says a different agent.

Non-major, non-FedEx Cup playoff events offer sponsor’s invitations to a few hand-selected players. The PGA Tour has a rule that some of the sponsor’s invites must be given to full members of the tour who did not get into the event on their priority number, but there are “unrestricted” sponsor’s invites that can go to any player. Johnson, for example, is listed in the field for the Travelers Championship the week after the U.S. Open. Theoretically, he could be given a sponsor’s exemption from the tournament itself. The PGA Tour declined to comment on that possibility.

Really?  I guess this guy nailed it:

“The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”

― Vladimir Ilich Lenin

Having seen the treatment of RBC, were other Tour sponsors to offer exemptions to these clowns, they would truly be getting what they deserve.

New Blood -  No doubt you've heard that reinforcements are headed to Portland:

The inaugural LIV Golf event is set to begin in London on Thursday, and player announcements and the ensuing controversies have been sucking up all the air in the golf world this week. Now

two more big names are reportedly taking their talents to the Saudi-funded, Greg Norman-led golf league: Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed.

According to a report by James Corrigan in The Telegraph, DeChambeau and Reed “will be announced imminently as the latest big-name players to sign up with the Saudi rebel circuit.”

DeChambeau’s agent confirmed Bryson’s involvement in a text to GOLF, writing, “Bryson has always been an innovator. Having the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of something unique has always been intriguing to him. Professional golf as we know it is changing and it’s happening quickly.”

I see why you'd go with innovator, because there are other adjectives that we might employ.  For instance, while he doesn't like to talk to the press, that's actually win-win:

Despite monthslong rumors linking his name to the upstart LIV series, DeChambeau denied his participation in LIV just five days ago at the Memorial Tournament.

“Me, there’s obviously a lot of conversation,” DeChambeau said. “For me, I personally don’t think that at this point in time I’m in a place in my career where I can risk things like that.”

Yeah, a pretty consistent liar, for which he compensates by being a first class a*****e. Daniel Rappaport has the receipts:

“It began to feel like an unwinnable situation,” a tour source said of DeChambeau. “It was clear

that he did not feel like he had to play by anyone’s rules.”

DeChambeau’s defiant and often erratic behavior began shortly after he played his way onto the PGA Tour in 2016. At an AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am early in his career, DeChambeau unleashed a profanity-laced tirade on a volunteer who failed to spot his errant ball. The incident was reported up the chain of command and, per sources familiar with the tour’s operations, almost certainly resulted in discipline. The tour didn’t speak to the incident, as is their long-standing policy, but according to one tour player, a similar situation played out years later at the Rocket Mortgage Classic.

Rocket of course is one of Bryson's sponsors.  Eamon Lynch has argued that Jay's coddling of the players has fueled this mess, and here he's got the goods.  Bryson refused to speak to the media at the Detroit event, and Jay excused it because Bryson was "Going through things."  Sure, Jay, now he's going through a cool $100 million.

These are not one-offs:

In the summer of 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, tour officials and volunteers were instructed to be particularly conscious of where people could and could not go. After pounding range balls long after sundown, DeChambeau attempted to enter a building without his credential. When he was denied access, he grew agitated. Shortly thereafter, a tour official addressed the incident with an adamant DeChambeau, who was dumbfounded that the volunteer did not recognize him. This was the same week he objected to a cameraman following him for too long, after which he took a thinly veiled shot at the PGA Tour.

“I understand it’s his job to video me,” DeChambeau said, “but at the same point, I think we need to start protecting our players out here compared to showing a potential vulnerability and hurting someone’s image. I just don’t think that’s necessarily the right thing to do.” He wound up winning the tournament with an emphatic display of his new-found power.

As DeChambeau’s physical transformation and strong play continued to elevate his profile, his relationship with the PGA Tour steadily deteriorated. In his next start after the Rocket Mortgage, at the Memorial, DeChambeau told a rules official that his ruling was “garbage” and bluntly asked for a second opinion. His seminal six-shot victory in the U.S. Open that September was met with groans from Winged Foot members who, with the help of a hot microphone, caught his under-his-breath assessment of the putting surfaces (These greens f***ing suck), objected to the way he treated volunteers and cringed when he listed sponsor after sponsor during his winner interviews. Throughout these semi-frequent blowups, tour officials would try to placate the burgeoning star. With little success.

I miss him already....

Now, does this solve that competitive relevance issue?   That would depend upon whether Bryson is actually healthy.... But, in that sense, it's easy to draw parallels to the spent forces grabbing one last payday.  To the extent that Bryson himself isn't confident that he can stay healthy, this makes a whole lot more sense.

Other quotes that will haunt Bryson:

“I want to make it very clear that as long as the best players in the world are playing the PGA Tour, so will I,” he wrote. At present, each of the top 14 players in the world remain committed to the PGA Tour, but DeChambeau has bolted. Just six days before his agent, Brett Falkoff—who has been described as “vastly underpaid, no matter what he’s making”—confirmed that DeChambeau would make the jump to LIV, a reporter at the Memorial asked DeChambeau why he wasn’t listed among the names set to play in LIV’s inaugural event this week in London.

Hey, they've got Westwood and Poulter.... 

As for that other guy?

Reed’s exit is similarly unsurprising given his history with the PGA Tour. The gripes by “Team Reed” with the tour were so frequent that his wife, Justine, had a direct line of communication

with a high-ranking tour official. The two would speak often about what Justine perceived to be unfair treatment of her husband. The complaints, many of which were aired publicly by the usegolfFACTS Twitter account, which is widely believed to be associated with the Reed family, were constant. They didn’t like his tee times. They didn’t like his pairings. They wondered why he didn’t get asked for a pre-tournament press conference. Then they were upset that he was getting asked so often for interviews. And the complaints came despite the tour’s best efforts to protect Reed’s image, even after a number of dust-ups—including his rules violation at the 2019 Hero World Challenge and his caddie’s physical altercation with a fan during the following week’s Presidents Cup.

One tour official described Reed’s inner circle as the single most difficult group they’ve had to deal with on the PGA Tour. And that inner circle kept changing—while DeChambeau has had the same agent for his entire career, Reed has cycled through multiple managers.

“He’d hire one guy to bridge the gap with the tour,” says a source, “and then the guy will say ‘hey, the tour isn’t being so bad here,’ and then he’d fire the guy for not telling him what he wanted to hear.”

Again, reed has not played well in years, and this has the added benefit of being the final nail in the Captain America coffin.  Win-win, baby!

In The Belly of the Beast - Golf.com's Sean Zak has set up shop in St. Andrews for the summer, about which I had hoped to blog more.  But, yanno, events keep intruding...

He travelled south and reports from LIV Central, this to me being the funniest bit:

One major difference, though, will take place Thursday afternoon, when London black cabs usher

players out to their starting holes. Twenty-five cabbies have been hired for the job, each slapping a LIV Golf decal on the sides of their vehicles. They’ve all received maps of the property and on Tuesday began rehearsing their commutes.

Their job is both simple and complex. Centurion is bisected by a small forest, and is bordered on its west side by farmland. There is no quick trip to the 7th tee. In fact, it requires leaving the property and driving on local roads adjacent to the course to reach holes 6 through 13. One cabbie, who will be bringing players to the 5th tee, said he was nervous for his compadres who have a more chaotic route. Getting there is easy; getting back not so much. The drivers have been instructed to drop off players and wait until after they’ve all teed off, so the broadcast can include an iconic London image. But once play begins, some drivers may find themselves taking a bit longer to return home so as not to disturb play.

Cute bit, though I'm guessing a couple of the cabbies would improve the field.

A couple of bits and I'm out of here.  Shack had this photo of Mr. CEO heading one of his Quad posts, without any attribution.   But funny is funny:

Lastly, I was unable to open the broadcast on my TV, but had slightly more success on my computer.  Oddly, and thus far it's only been Jerry Foltz interviewing Norman, there's an LIV logo over Norman's face.  I know, win-win, baby.  Also doesn't help that the feeds keeps cutting out, though that could be at my end as well.  

The discussion so far is all about attracting non-golf fans which seems ironic, since this golf fan just closed the browser window.

I'm sure we'll have more tomorrow.