Late-Week Lamentations

Lots to cover, little of it good....

Sadly, this first item might be more depressing than the LIV nonsense...

Lucky Thirteen - In 2017 Augusta National purchased a plot of land from adjoining Augusta Country Club and this became inevitable:

The purchase initially allowed for an access road’s installation, leaving room to extend the 530-yard 13th once two holes were re-worked at ACC. Construction crews have now begun opening a gap, suggesting the tee will be in play for the 2023 Masters.

The work signals an unwillingness to wait for proposed equipment rule changes not expected to make an impact before 2026.

This should liven up those wild and crazy Five Family gatherings at The 150th! Then again, anything will be more fun than discussing world ranking algorithms to keep Greg Norman and the Sword Wielding Sponsors Of Al-Qaeda at bay.

“Fred, ye of so little faith?” would be an understandable reply from a blue blazer, Scotch in hand as ancient portraits of golf pioneers look down on the assembled banterers.

The R&A and USGA are currently awaiting comments on hefty distance proposals, with a September deadline. If the proposals not watered down by whiny manufacturers, the changes would put a premium on certain ballstriking skills and chip 8-10% off of elite-level drives.

I'll admit that I always have trouble making out what's involved from these satellite images, but the intent here seems pretty clear.  

Geoff and others have been revisiting Chairman Fred's comments from back in April, most notably this:

“There's no timetable. Nothing to announce at this time. That's something that certainly we have considered and will continue to consider. Admittedly, and I've said this before, the 13th hole does not have the same challenges that it has historically, and, I mean, I can just remember as a young guy watching the Masters, you know, some of the triumphs and tragedies. And while we still have those, the fact that players are hitting middle to short irons into that hole is not really how it was designed.

“Having said that, my reluctance to date has been that it's such an iconic hole. And probably along with 11 -- or 12, rather, and maybe 15, probably the three holes where the most history has been made at Augusta National.

“So that probably has been a counter -- a counter to doing anything. But at some point in time it's something that we likely will do. We just don't have anything to say about it right now.

He's not wrong for sure, and he further made it clear that he doesn't foresee sufficiently aggressive action to address the magnitude of his issue:

“So we really can't make any predictions as to what's going to happen, but I think if there are some marginal modifications to the equipment rules, from what I have observed over the past few years with the players and their athleticism, their strength, their size, the efficiency of their golf swings, I don't think that we are going to see courses being shortened.

“So perhaps the two sort of factors might converge, but I don't think that what the governing bodies do is going to have a direct impact on what we might do at 13 or any other hole on the golf course.

“What I'm saying is, is that I think the likelihood of a ball going 50 yards shorter is not very great. My point is, we don't really know where it might come out. There's going to be a process -- there's going to be a lot of input from constituencies.”

Your humble blogger would have gone a different direction, preferring instead to leave the hole as it is and merely change the par from five to four.  Not going to dive too deep into that logic, but the dogleg is so severe that from fifty yards back I'm unclear as to whether the players can clear it.  Could be some awkward lay-ups, but we can revisit that in April.

Augusta As Proxy - This will veer dangerously close to architectural geekdom, so you've been forewarned. if you're inclined to risk a few shekels on that forthcoming 150th Open Championship, this guys has a betting model you might wish to consider:

Can Augusta form help predict this year’s Open winner at St Andrews?

Here's his conclusions:

In short, all four Open Championships held at St Andrews since the turn of the century have absolutely confirmed the Augusta National link.

Crucially, the vast majority of high finishers on the Old Course had already shown they could thrive at Augusta so Masters form can be a predictive tool for this year's Open Championship.

In fact, throw in Jack Nicklaus' two wins at the Old Course in 1970 and 1978 and seven of the last nine Open champions at St Andrews had already won a Green Jacket.

Starting from 1963, only three of the last 10 Open winners at St Andrews hadn't already tasted Masters glory.

However, Oosthuizen would go on to lose a playoff at Augusta National in 2012, 1995 Open winner John Daly was third at the 1993 Masters and Tony Lema was runner-up at the 1963 Masters before winning the Open a year later.

 Why is this interesting?  Because ANGC claims genetic ties to the Old Course:

On first glance, Augusta National and St Andrews are like chalk and cheese: one a tree-lined parkland track in the United States and the other a wide-open links on the windy Scottish coast.

But golf historians will be aware that Augusta's creators, Bobby Jones and Alister Mackenzie, had strong connections with St Andrews.

Golf writer Geoff Shackleford noted in a 2010 feature for Golf Digest International that St Andrews "influenced the genetic code of several key holes" at Augusta National and when the Georgia layout was designed and constructed, the Old Course was very much on their minds.

Shackleford quotes two-time Masters winner Ben Crenshaw, who says of Jones and Mackenzie: "They created so many shots that remind one of how you think and play your way around St Andrews."

It was very much on both of their minds, and the Good Doctor even wrote this homage to the old girl.

Where it gets interesting is the extent to which the club has in the last few decades departed from the original design intentions, frequently through the planting of trees to narrow playing corridors.  Simultaneously, the Old Course is a different animal these days for elite players, who can carry much of the trouble, which mostly means bunkers.

My sense is that the strategic overlap has significantly lessened over the years, and that these two golf course are now at opposite ends of the spectrum.  As Paul Azinger notably and presciently said:

“The Old Course at St Andrews, the home of golf, is different, because the course isn’t as long and the greens are pretty easy to putt and don’t have nearly as much slope,” Azinger said. “Augusta’s greens are frightfully fast, and they can stick the pins two paces from the edge.

“Augusta can always be defended. St Andrews is in trouble.”

They will place tees on the adjoining course, but there's no land to purchase to add length.  If the wind is down, there is no limiting principal as to how low these guys can go.

LIV Long And Prosper - Since we last met, the big news was this:

Wars involve alliances.

And on Tuesday, the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour moved to strengthen theirs, marshaling forces in their escalating conflict with a Saudi-funded circuit that is fast reshaping the professional game.

In a joint press conference, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan and DP World Golf Tour CEO Keith Pelley detailed a new 13-year joint operational agreement between their organizations, a deal designed to provide a fresh pathway for players onto the PGA Tour while increasing prize money in DP World Golf Tour events. As part of the arrangement, the PGA Tour will increase its ownership stake in European Tour Productions from 15 percent to 40 percent, providing a cash infusion to boost purses. The arrangement also guarantees that, starting in 2023, the top 10 finishers on the DP World Tour will receive a PGA Tour card for the following season. Because the DP World Tour also has alliances with the Sunshine Tour and the ISPS Handa PGA Tour of Australasia, the partnership will open pathways toward the upper echelons for players from around the world.

Yes, and alliances can get expensive, as Jay is no doubt finding out.  Those ten PGA Tour cards strike me as quite the get for the guy in blue eyeglass frames, though the unknown is whether Jay has locked the Euros down, or whether we'll see this resurface again.

Buried in this announcement is this substantial change:

As part of changes to the PGA Tour qualification process announced Tuesday along with news of a strengthening of the PGA Tour’s alliance with the DP World Tour, there will now be PGA Tour cards awarded to the top five finishers and ties at final stage of Qualifying School beginning next year.

The last time the PGA Tour awarded access to top finishers at Q-School was in 2012. That year, 26 players earned PGA Tour cards, including Patrick Reed, Billy Horschel and Chez Reavie. Since then, only Korn Ferry Tour cards were given out through that pathway.

The first revamped Q-School will take place beginning next fall for the 2024 season.

The Tour's effect on the amateur game is its own important subject, one that we won't have time for today.  But I'm pleased to see them retreat to a form of the status quo ante whereby top level college talent can qualify directly to the big tour, although the concern is that it's only five slots.

I caught the commissioners' interview on Golf Channel, and was struck by Pelley's adamant assertion that they're not a feeder tour for the PGA Tour.  That's of course belied by the fact that his big get, in addition to a slug of cash, were those ten PGA Tour cards.  But the starker reality is that being a PGA feeder tour would be aspirational, because right now they're barely a Korn Ferry feeder tour.

This weakness is partially attributable to the relentless expansion of the PGA Tour under Nurse Ratched, but the Euros weakness is now one of Jay's biggest headaches.  And listening to the players from Portland won't make Keith and Jay any happier...

Shack had a blog post up on the presser, in which he focused on those recent American defections.  Although there's what appears to be a typo:

From Bob Harig’s account of this LIV Portland prick conference.

Asked if there was something the PGA Tour could have done to thwart the LIV Golf effort or improve, Reed said: “Listen to the players for once.’’

I've listened to Patrick Reed, which has reinforced the wisdom of, yanno, not listening to that particular player...

One of the big surprises was Pat Perez, just because he was among the strongest critics of Phil when the story broke.  But his check cleared, so he's now toeing the party line:

“For me, it’s real simple. I’m 46. I’ve played 515 events. I’ve been on the road since 1998. I’ve been on the road longer than Matt Wolff has been alive. I have an almost 4-year-old. I missed my son’s birth last year,” Perez said, when asked why he decided to jump from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf. “The bottom line is I’m tired of being on the road every day, and I don’t have to do it now. This opportunity [is] like winning the lottery for me.”

We can all understand the temptation to the older players, whether or not we agree with their decision.  But I had been reliably informed that these guys are all gentlemen, and this is how this alleged gentleman presented in Portland:

I know it'll be a moment before you can focus on Pat's shirt, but those are C-notes.  It's a really classy group of guys they've assembled, no?

And Brooksie accidently drops a dollop of truth while he's lying to us:

Koepka, the four-time major winner who two weeks ago at the U.S. Open scoffed at LIV Golf questions – his brother, Chase, had played in the first event the week prior – said his affiliation with LIV didn’t occur until after the tournament at The Country Club.

“My opinion changed; that was it,’’ he said. “You guys will never believe me, but we didn’t have the conversation 'til everything was done at the U.S. Open and figured it out and just said I was going to go one way or the other. Here I am.

“Like I said, opinions changed. And I feel very comfortable with the decision I made. I’m happy, and I did what’s best for me.’’

His tirade at the U.S. Open made me project him as the next defector, so sure.... But that last bit rings very true.

Dylan Dethier files a report from on the ground at Pumpkin Ridge, and it won't be easy reading for Jay:

To hear them tell it, the players are thrilled to be here. Whatever you may think of LIV, that’s crucial to understanding its future; the pros will be its most effective advocates and recruiters

going forward, and happy pros will attract others. One the one hand, it seems obvious that these guys are enjoying the party. Most have just secured enormous sums of money just for showing up, and life is good for those enjoying a sudden influx of generational wealth. On the other hand, given the controversial nature of the tour and the contentiousness at the upper echelons of men’s professional golf, it wouldn’t have been shocking to hear pros express buyers’ remorse, wondering what they’d gotten themselves into.

But this core group has gotten tight, and fast. That began at the inaugural event in London, when some pros spent Saturday’s afterparty recruiting fellow pros via drunken Facetime. It continued with early arrivals this past weekend, when pros made time for some off-course bonding. Pat Perez said he’d accomplished a career first on Sunday, grabbing a beer with Brooks Koepka.

Of course they do....  They can play a handful of exhibitions, cash nine-figure checks and be fat, dumb and happy.  It's just not a great model for the game.

Is it getting away from Jay?

It’s remarkable how quickly and seamlessly the who’s-who of tournament golf infrastructure have adapted to a new tournament run by a new organization. That means specific individuals like Slugger White, the ex-Tour rules official, who works for LIV now. It means big-name coaches like Claude Harmon III, Boyd Summerhays and Chris Como, who accompanied their players throughout practice rounds. It means agents, too, helping their clients navigate a new world filled with brand-new questions. Some player-agent pairings have strained or split over the Saudi question. Most haven’t. There was Dave Winkle, Dustin Johnson’s agent, rocking an “Aces” hat on Wednesday, repping his player’s team colors. The times, they are a-changing.

LIV has announced their intentions for 2023 as well:

The series will transition to the LIV Golf League next year and the events will grow from eight this year to 14 in future years with 48 contracted players on 12 teams. The number of events will be capped at 14.

The Saudi-backed series has grown faster than expected with eight of the top 50 players, and 20 of the top 100, in the current World Golf Ranking joining LIV to date.

Here's where the truthfulness of the defector's accounts will be tested.  To maintain PGA Tour membership they are required to play fifteen events, although I am unclear as to whether that includes the co-sanctioned majors.  The older players tell us that the appeal is a shorter schedule, but the commitment seems comparable to their prior tour.  It just might be that, when they tell us it's not about the money, we need to check what shirt they're wearing.

But they also hint at further signings to come:

It’s tough to say. LIV says it has more players under contract to make the leap directly after the Open Championship and is in talks with several more. By year’s end it will have all 48 players under contract for next year, when the tour’s 14-event schedule begins in earnest.

I'll close on this with an amusing item from Eamon Lynch, which mirrors some of my thoughts.  But his basic premise rings pretty true:

A couple hundred million for 52-year-old Phil Mickelson, a feckless overspend even if

exaggerated by a multiple. Something similar so Dustin Johnson can accomplish his stated goal of not actually playing golf. A stout backhander to soothe the blushes of Brooks Koepka, who had to perform an about-face that would be the envy of Linda Blair in The Exorcist. Another nine figures for Bryson DeChambeau, whose surgically-repaired hand will find it easier to carry the check than his playing future. And that’s all before you tally ‘B’ tier guys like Sergio Garcia (best add a premium to cover tissues for his unceasing tears) and Lee Westwood (whose thirst for lucrative tinpot tournaments long predates his cushy landing, at age 49, on the Saudi scrap heap).

Seen through a clear business lens, these players would be classified not as assets but as liabilities, their peaks long past and their popularity severely diminished. But their pragmatic value bears no relation to their price when Norman is writing checks on MBS’s account. That’s why those who have managed to clamber aboard Greg’s gravy train can’t believe their luck.

Have they ever overpaid! I think they've thrown big money at guys who, if they're successful at continuing to recruit, wouldn't even make their 48-player roster.

Eamon goes in two interesting directions as well, first this:

A threadbare piece of armchair analysis says the Saudis have a bottomless purse and can finance Norman’s folly in perpetuity. That’s true, at a surface level. They can, but will they? Even the Saudis will reach a point of accountability, when some luckless bureaucrat must reconcile what has been spent with what has been returned. The LIV Golf ledger already shows an imbalance that is impossible to correct, and not just financial.

I think that's a good reminder.  As vast as the resources are, the $2 billion given to Greg Norman is $2 billion that can't be spent elsewhere, not that we might understand their objectives and assessments with any great accuracy.

That's important because of this.  Perhaps:

Even if one views it as an exercise in sportswashing where the only desired return is reputational, LIV Golf is proving a great white elephant, serving only to draw renewed attention to matters the Crown Prince might rather see forgotten. The dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, for example. Or his country’s links to the September 11th hijackers, as repeatedly pointed out by the families of their victims. Or the hit-and-run killing of 15-year-old Fallon Smart not far from Pumpkin Ridge, where LIV Golf is staging an event this week. A Saudi national faced manslaughter charges in her death but was whisked home before he could stand trial, and the regime has refused to return him to face justice. Until Norman found a willing stooge venue in Pumpkin Ridge, the death of Smart had been forgotten, except by those who loved her.

The logic of sportswashing is that it helps to improve their reputation.  But this effort to intrude on the golf ecosystem has led to what seems to Eamon and your humble blogger see as just the opposite result, giving new life to the accounts of their varied and sundry human rights abuses.

P.T. Barnum famously asserted the premise that there's no such thing as bad publicity.  And yet LIV seems to have garnered all sorts of publicity, little of it striking this observer as helpful to their interests.

Ironically, perhaps the worst of it has been the various public appearances of their advocates, the players that have cashed their outsized checks.  These guys, most notably Phil, have been sullen ad defensive, looking all the world as if they'd sold their souls to the devil.

As we stand, DJ, and No. 17, is the highest ranking player in the world to jump.  You don't need me to tell you that those top sixteen are where the action will be as, even with all the name brand additions, its' still not a credible field in Portland.  But can Jay keep those sweet sixteen on the reservation?  Stay tuned...

Have a great Fourth of July weekend.