Midweek Musings

A latish Wednesday Game tee time allows for some microblogging, especially as one certain story broke...

About those iconic London cabs....  We now know who will be in them, including one rather large surprise, as well as a dog that surprisingly didn't bark.

After much deliberation and repeated delays, the field for the first LIV Golf Invitational has finally been released, and there are some surprises: Dustin Johnson is in. Sergio Garcia is in. And for now, 40 others.

Yeah, DJ is a bit of a shock, but Sergio's flight from the inhumane PGA Tour is the human rights issue of our era.  Forget your Uighur concentration camps, this man was denied the full three minutes to search for his golf ball in the proper location, a hate crime if I've ever seen one.

A list of 42 players was announced Tuesday — notably six shy of the promised 48 players for the event — just nine days before the first round of the event, which will take place at Centurion Club

outside of London. It is the first of eight LIV events scheduled for 2022, five in the United States and three international, which will compete both directly and indirectly with the PGA Tour.

Johnson’s inclusion is somewhat surprising as three months ago he pledged his allegiance to the PGA Tour in a statement. “Over the past several months, there has been a great deal of speculation about an alternative tour,” the statement read. “Much of which seems to have included me and my future in professional golf. I feel is now time to put such speculation to rest. I am fully-committed to the PGA Tour.” His stance didn’t seem to change at all in previous months, though he did offer a slightly different thought during the PGA Championship two weeks ago:

“I mean, I think golf is in a good spot, and I think what [LIV Golf is] doing is — could potentially be good for the game of golf. I’m excited to see what happens here in a few weeks,” Johnson said.

“Excited meaning?” a reporter asked.

“I’ll be watching,” Johnson said.

Perhaps more than just watching?   But that image above itself has a dog notably not barking.  Shall we find one more on topic?

I direct your attention to that left sleeve, upon which the logo of RBC is prominently displayed.  Such sponsorship, as you might have heard, typically involves money changing hands for goods and services, one such service being to play in said sponsor's event.

Where is the PGA Tour playing the week of the LIV London event?  That would be the RBC Canadian Open.  RBC issued this rather muted statement:

BREAKING: @RBC statement on Dustin Johnson.

DJ is listed in the field for the first LIV Golf event, in conflict to next week's @RBCCanadianOpen. pic.twitter.com/sfcNHNtUBn

— Adam Stanley (@adam_stanley) June 1, 2022

Do they actually wish him sell?  Would you?

The old conventional wisdom about DJ was that he was too stupid to feel pressure, though he put that to bed at Pebble.  The new conventional wisdom is that he's too stupid to see where this leads, so Papa Wayne must be so proud.

And, as you might recall, this was DJ back in February:

Funny you should mention sponsors.  Did you consider that your actions, violating contractual terms, will poison the well for other players?  Right, I now see that using "DJ" with the verb "consider" is a rookie mistake...

Geoff had these thoughts:

Johnson’s participation is silly on so many levels. Besides the lack of loyalty to the PGA Tour and

a sponsor like RBC that puts him in ads despite being a less than eloquent pitchman, the 2020 Masters champion has been back and forth on his desire to grab the Saudi cash. In February he was out, but by May’s PGA he was looking forward to seeing how the event played out.

He’s all about the money.

The move rules out a future Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup captaincy. Ok those were not happening anyway. The Hall of Fame might be tougher now despite those two majors. Not that he cares. And definitely no Rolex billboard on Washington Road—that might actually matter to him.

Jay has to make it stick, but DJ has clearly sided with the bonecutters.  Most curiously, at least to this observer, he's done so at a time when their prospects for success seem at low ebb.

Here's the complete list:

Oliver Bekker
Richard Bland
Laurie Canter
Ratchanon ‘TK’ Chantananuwat (Amateur)
Hennie Du Plessis
Oliver Fisher
Sergio Garcia
Talor Gooch
Branden Grace
Justin Harding
Sam Horsfield
Dustin Johnson
Matt Jones
Sadom Kaewkanjana
Martin Kaymer
Phachara Khongwatmai
Sihwan Kim
Ryosuke Kinoshita
Chase Koepka
Jinichiro Kosuma
Pablo Larrazabal
Graeme McDowell
Jediah Morgan
Kevin Na
Shaun Norris
Andy Ogletree
Louis Oosthuizen
Wade Ormsby
Adrian Otaegui
Turk Pettit
James Plot (Amateur)
Ian Poulter
David Puig
JC Ritche
Charl Schwartzel
Hudson Swafford
Hideto Tanihara
Peter Uihlein
Scott Vincent
Lee Westwood
Bernd Wiesberger
Blake Windred

This is mostly along the lines of what we expected, but Talor Gooch?  What could he be thinking?

Shack is amused by this concentration:

As for others in the field, you have to wonder what’s going on in South Africa to make eight of their guys sign up, including Charl Schwartzel, Louis Oosthuizen and Branden Grace. The RSA’s are also wheeling out a Hennie Du Plessis and JC Ritchie who make Shaun Norris and Justin Harding seem like global superstars.

Mostly of the over-the-hill variety...

This is about what you'd expect:

The Friends of Greg division suggests the Shirtless Shark’s Rolodex is not filled with many Aussies. That contingent is led by the recently hapless Wade Ormsby (one top 10 in the last two years), another Aussie named Jediah Morgan and one more named Blake Windred. The latter won the Australian PGA this year.

Kind of what you'd expect, as they've moved on from the Shark for obvious reasons.

Amusingly, you can watch one player in the field tonight:

Then there are the amateurs, including one competing in the NCAA final Wednesday as part of the Arizona State squad.David Puig sounds bitter he has not received European Tour sponsor’s exemptions but still dreams of playing the PGA Tour. He’s taking an NIL deal to appear, as Ryan Lavner reports after hearing Puig’s thoughts.

ASU is in the NCAA finals against Texas, airing at 5:00 p.m.

You'll be wondering about that dog that didn't bark:

Absent, for the moment at least, is Phil Mickelson, who has long been rumored to be involved with the league, but who has taken a leave of absence in recent months. Comments that Mickelson made about the PGA Tour in a recently published book drew widespread backlash, and even scorn from fellow Tour players. Mickelson skipped the Masters and even the PGA Championship, where he was defending champion. When he plans to play, both in LIV Golf events or on the PGA Tour, remains to be seen.

If Phil is genuinely not planning to play in London, then I've no explanation for his behavior the last three months, beginning with the fauxpology.  Of course, you'll note that LIV has announced forty-two names for what's pegged as a forty-eight player field, so one has suspicions...

It seems easy to understand the calculus of the Graeme McDowells and Ian Poulters, not that I agree with their decisions.  But it is interesting to see their devaluing of opportunities such as Ryder Cup captaincies, given our own fetishization of the Euro Ryder Cup juggernaut.  But players in the peak years of their careers, including DJ and Gooch and Na, are willing to risk their legacies for thirty pieces of silver, which I guess is good to know.

But they seem not to understand basic concepts of cause and effect.  If sponsors can't be assured of players' loyalty and performance of their obligations, what is the value of such sponsorships?  So, chasing riches from dubious sources, DJ has just undermined the PGA Tours ecosystem.  I would hope his fellow players would let him know that they think of that.

We'll stay tuned, but right now it's time to go peg it.  See you later this week for sure.