Tuesday, July 26, 2022

Tuesday Trifles

A little of this, a lot of LIV.... Just another day here at Unplayable Lies.

Golf With A Feeling* - The diminution of the Euro Tour is its own tragedy, but it's helpful to remind ourselves of what's actually compelling about our game.  My biggest frustration with the LIV story is that folks don't seem to grasp what an awful vision for golf that they have, though this isn't the time for that argument.

But there is nothing more compelling in our game than the struggle for professional survival, and those brief, infrequent moments of success.  Submitted for your approval, Richie Ramsay with his first win in eight year:

The win paying off a promise to his daughter:

Gee, I'm new at this stuff, but isn't that the kind of thing that could, yanno, grow the game.  Or better to watch a bunch of mid-forties players that have already banked hundreds of millions of dollars?

* A Little Walter reference for the especially savvy among you.

Golf With A History - From Dylan Dethier's Monday Finish feature, a brief shoutout over two warriors resuming their hostilities:

Karrie Webb, GOAT-beater

Over the years not many women have stared down an in-flow Annika Sorenstam and come out on top. But that’s what Aussie legend Karrie Webb did on Sunday, holding off Sorenstam by four strokes in the Senior LPGA Championship.

Didn't know there was a Senior LPGA Championship or that Karrie was still playing at any level (Annika we've seen some of recently), but I'd have watched a bit of it.

Golf With An Asterisk - I've never been able to warm u to the event or the winner, but perhaps that's a personal failing:

Brooke Henderson, national hero

This week’s undisputed champion: Brooke Henderson! The 24-year-old Canadian star gave away a two-shot lead with an early four-putt on Sunday at the Evian Championship. But then she bounced back with birdies at 14 and 15, setting up a walkoff birdie putt from just outside 10 feet at No. 18.

Remind me, is that girl's sixth or seventh major?  Really, only the five?  Sounds reasonable to me...

But the girls are headed to Muirfield, interesting because of the Honourable Company's longstanding support for women's golf (I kid), or just the fact that we haven't seen the joint since 2013.   

Math, Still Hard - You might remember last week's discussion of the Prez Cup points race, wherein your humble blogger was unclear of the PGA Tour's treatment of the LIVsters.  Some seemed conspicuous by their absence, most notably the South Africans, but others were listed.  Apparently they're guided by a legal protocol that is explained here:

Let me see if I have this right?  The Liv situation is affecting Rickie's FedEx Cup prospects, up until he jumps to LIV?   I mean, doesn't Rickie check all their boxes?

Normally deducting who is on the FedEx Cup Playoffs bubble is easy. Take a look at the players near the cutline of No. 125 and boom, there’s your bubble. But this year, like so many other
facets in professional golf, analyzing the confines of Who's In and Who's Out is far from simple.

The complexity lies in LIV Golf, for those who have defected to the fledgling Saudi-backed circuit are A) under indefinite suspension from the PGA Tour or B) have renounced their PGA Tour membership. The upshot from the latter group—which includes the likes of Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed and Kevin Na—has already been calculated, as they have been removed from the FedEx Cup standings. The former group, however, remains listed in the postseason race. While the PGA Tour has yet to officially state how these players will be handled, sources tell Golf Digest the LIV Golf members currently on the FedEx Cup list are expected to be skipped over and replaced. Currently, that means 10 players inside the top 125—Talor Gooch, Abraham Ancer, Charles Howell III, Matt Jones, Brooks Koepka, Jason Kokrak, Carlos Ortiz, Pat Perez, Hudson Swafford and Matthew Wolff—aren’t eligible for the playoffs, meaning the real FedEx Cup line is likely in the No. 134-136 range. (Perez, for example, is currently No. 121 but is in danger of falling outside No. 125).

Bring money, guns and lawyers, in the immortal words of Warren Zevon...

Though I suspect this pattern might change:

Wrinkles remain. Until now, the PGA Tour has not suspended LIV Golf members until they have teed it up in a LIV event. But LIV Golf also also used the first two events to announce future signees, with Reed and Bryson DeChambeau announced in London and Paul Casey announced in Portland. The reason this matters is that, should LIV Golf follow the same cadence at Trump Bedminster this week, more players will be announced in the following days, but the next LIV Golf event won’t be held until the first week of September … the week after the conclusion of the tour’s season-ending Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta. Meaning the PGA Tour would have to break from its precedent of waiting to suspend a player, or a future LIV Golf member would get to compete in the postseason.

I wouldn't expect that this week, since anyone that intends to but hasn't jumped yet is likely keeping their pie hole closed to ensure they can get a piece of the FedEx money grab before turning their back on their mates.  But, on the flip side, the mood in the FedEx boardroom can't be very pleasant these days....

Give Me LIVerty... - Scraping the bottom of the barrel on punny headers, but such are the times in which we live.  Geoff has an amusing Quad post up, at least the tease that's outside the paywall has some worthy sanrk:

But we also have to savor Greg Norman showing us his true colors and watching the PGA Tour squirm. Particularly given how much energy the Ponte Vedra gang devoted to gaining control of its media partners, attempting to discredit critics of their fading model, and all while ignoring a gaping thermal exhaust port hole in the Global Home. Still, the truly bad guys in this Jenkins-on-Addy novel also see golf as just a thing to sell. But the Saudis want to fund a disruptive league to get more people thinking they aren’t so awful.

This week, you have to laugh at what’s before us: LIV Golf arriving at Trump Bedminster armed with old blood in the form of Stenson, Kokrak and Howell III, hosted by a man 59% of Americans believe should be criminally charged.

Growing the game!

Geoff, keep the faith, I'm sure he'll actually be indicted any day now, but you were all in on Russia! Russia! Russia!, so perhaps we should skip the politics?

I did want to include that 'graph, though, because of the feebleness of the reinforcements.  Wow, Chucky Three-sticks, that'll really move those You Tube ratings.

Speaking of those YouTube ratings....

Contrary to the bleak assessments of those who also have skin in this grow the game effort, the coming months will not lead to a tragic implosion of the sport. As R&A Chief Martin Slumbers reminded us during The Open, the sport is defined by the 70 million who play golf, not the inner workings of professionals and the size of their newly established offshore accounts. A strong case could be made that LIV is doing the sport a favor by scooping up the worst of the worst, then burying them on YouTube where they’ll be the 496th most viewed item each day behind a Bad Bunny music video and just ahead of squabbling corgis.

My thought exactly.  The a*****es have self-identified and quarantined, so win-win, baby!

But on a more serious note, Slumbers was the first of the fine-families to actually make the case for why LIV is a horrible model for our game, something Jay and Seth might want to take notes on.

He's obvious taking a shotgun approach (pun intended), but that works in such a target-rich environment:

There should be joy in watching the greed, arrogance and waste of dirty money going to grown men who happen to play a ball-and-stick game decently during the right months in human history. And sure, the pro game will move to even greater niche status in a LIV world. But by not addressing their “product”, the PGA Tour has unknowingly been on a pro tennis trajectory by supporting entitlement, the dreary power game and an incoherent schedule vision that will Grand Slam events the only meaningful weeks.

None of this is funny if you are the television executives who sold the bosses on nine years and dreams of raking in millions from live betting. Nor is this funny for the charities relying on tournament proceeds. Otherwise?

You just have to laugh…

The pampering and protectiveness of the Tour is a rich vein, most notably the failure to disclose disciplinary actions.  We were assured that these guys are all gentlemen, so it comes as quite the shock that they're (at least some of them) money-grubbing turncoats.  Noted.

But, like your humble blogger, Geoff can't help but laugh at the signing of Charles Howell, because....well, he's a perfect fit:

At the players LIV gives millions to. You could see some wisdom at throwing huge advances toward U.S. Amateur champions and promising young players even if the dollar amounts were absurd. Or, hiring journeyman who will be good in a pro-am and somewhat recognizable to fans. But as LIV gained some name major winners, they have not grown discerning. Just laugh at this spectacular waste of oligarch riches on players just riding out their careers a little longer.

Yeah, mediocrity has paid well on the PGA Tour, but they've been offered more.... All well and good, although they don't seem an especially happy lot.  But your humble blogger still struggled to understand why they'd even want Chucky Three-Sticks, as there isn't a single additional viewer who would tune in to see him.

 Just a bit more bashing from Shack before we move on:

At David Feherty moving to LIV Golf. Needing go-fers to get you to your mark and relentlessly mailing it in? LIV’s most on-brand hire yet!

At Phil Mickelson’s cameo in the Feherty welcome video where he’s speaking from a gorilla pen in Rwanda. FIGJAM’s really on an optics roll!

It's pretty much the bar scene from Star Wars.

Bob Harig takes a shot at peace in our time, though with some curious premises:

But it’s clear that LIV Golf is not going away, as many expected. And as the LIV Golf Invitational gears up for its third event this week at Trump Bedminster in New Jersey, the rhetoric only will seemingly get worse, as the prospect exists for more players to defect.

There's a logic that seems to imply that, since LIV has made it this far, they'll never go away....  I happen to think that the Saudis are generating nothing useful except bad publicity, they're producing a God-awful product and  they continue to throw money at stiffs like Charles Howell.  Does that scream sustainable business model to you?

I'm not arguing that anyone should assume they won't continue to waste their billions, especially Jay, but if they don't land some actual front-line talent soon, I just don't see them as getting much for their largess.  

Remember the Patrick Cantlay-Bryson DeChambeau duel at last year’s BMW Championship in the FedEx Cup playoffs? The six-hole sudden-death playoff won by Cantlay that helped propel him to the FedEx Cup title? Something like that can’t happen outside of the major championships now.

Why does he say this?  OK, the one guys is gone, but he's pretty much damaged goods at this point.  We'll see how the faux playoffs come off, but the Tour has been a mixed bag.  It's put on a pretty good show at its major stops, I thought the Canadian and Jack's place came off well, but the soft sports on the schedule looked dreadful, most notably last week.

So, here's his basic premise:

1. Allow PGA Tour players (and DP World Tour) to complete in LIV events

Compromise is key and without it there is no chance for any of this to work. But for there to be a way forward between the two entities, there can’t be suspensions of PGA Tour players. They need to be able to compete on both circuits. The question: how?

Norman has said he believes that LIV Golf is “additive.’’ He continually has stated he’s not looking to replace the PGA Tour or even thwart players from players doing both. But if you are going to play 14 LIV events – the League concept going forward – it’s impossible to meet the PGA Tour’s minimum of 15 events for membership.

So here’s the compromise: LIV reduces its number of events to 10, and the PGA Tour lowers its minimum for those competing in LIV events to 10. That’s 20 events total, including the major championships, with obviously the ability to play more on the PGA Tour if desired.

Norman has said a lot of things, none of which any of us should take seriously.  But the top players don't want to play twenty events, and the PGA Tour ecosystem kind of collapses without the alpha dogs committed to a sufficient number of events.  Which Harig admits here:

2. LIV Golf would help subsidize PGA Tour purses

If you pass that first hurdle, those who compete in LIV events could still be PGA Tour members. And in exchange for the rights to get any PGA Tour member to sign on, LIV in turn could subsidize purses for the events played opposite LIV events. Let’s say $5 million per event, or a total of $50 million if there are 10 LIV events. If Saudi’s Public Investment Fund can afford huge signing bonuses to players, it can afford this rather paltry sum when the end game will help make LIV money in the long run. So this week’s Rocket Mortgage Classic, in theory, would get a $5 million boost, which would go a long way toward helping the rest of the membership not able to play in LIV events.

Right.  Shouldn't there be unicorns involved, given the extent to which we've departed from reality?

4. How is the PGA Tour helped by this arrangement?

It beats seeing a slow trickle of players – which is bound to happen the longer this plays out – head to LIV. And while you’d possibly be losing a majority of the top 50 players in the world to 10 LIV events, at least you’d have them for 10 of your own with the possibility of more. No matter what you think of this concept, it's not great that Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka, among others, won’t be playing in the Players Championship in March.

Not great?  but you're saying that Jay should capitulate over Bryson?  Obviously this is quite the mess, but that slow trickle has to date been marginal players.  If they start grabbing top ten players it's be Armageddon, but we're not there yet (Cam, keep us posted).  

But Harig is also misinterpreting quite a bit:

5. The Schedule

The way LIV is set up now, five of its eight events this year are scheduled for after the FedEx Cup playoffs. That was not done randomly. LIV saw September and October as a good time to play a majority of its tournaments. There’s nothing to keep that from happening with a PGA Tour collaboration.

The reason for that is mostly that it got cobbled together in reaction to Jay's moves last spring.  They're holding events in the U.S. that conflict with longstanding PGA Tour events, yet Harig takes Norman's words about co-existing at face value....  maybe I could interest him in some swampland.

I actually think the Saudis have made a huge blunder in over-reaching.  Yes the Tour is weak in the Fall and the Saudis could perhaps have worked out something on a mutual basis if they were content to hold events then outside the U.S., but they thought they could buy supremacy.  Perhaps they can, but it's not like Jay is going to roll over and hand them the keys to the Global Home.

Have you bene following the existential torment of Sergio?  He believes he should be able to live in a world without consequences, and we'll have to wait to see how that plays out:

When Sergio Garcia wrapped up his T-68 finish at the Open Championship at St. Andrews, he
was just about ready to resign his membership from the DP World Tour, which would make him ineligible for the 2023 Ryder Cup in Italy.

A couple weeks later, Garcia has changed his mind on his DP World Tour membership future.

“But thanks to the things that Jon Rahm said, and I had a couple of good conversations with guys on the (DP World) Tour, I’m going to hold off on that. I want to at least see what’s happening when the Ryder Cup qualification starts. See what kind of rules and eligibilities they have in there,” Garcia said to ESPN. “If I agree with what they (are), I’ll definitely keep playing whatever I can on the tour and try to qualify for that Ryder Cup team. And if not, then we’ll move on. But it is definitely something that is in my mind.”

“I told (DP World Tour CEO) Keith Pelley, ‘I want to keep being a member of the DP World Tour. I want to play my minimum, still support the tour, still have my eligibilities to make Ryder Cup teams,'” Garcia explained. “He said, ‘That’s great, but we got to do what’s best for us. We’ll see what that is.'”

That's great, Sergio, but do any responsibilities come with all these rights you think you have?  Or you just think you should be free to spit in the cups of any tour or event you choose?

But the reek of entitlement is a little off-putting:

“Now it’s gotten a little bit sadder with fines and bans,” Garcia said of the rift between LIV, the PGA and DP World tours. “What they did to Henrik. It’s a little bit sad.”

Henrik Stenson was stripped of his Ryder Cup captaincy last week after he joined the upstart circuit. The 46-year-old Swede will make his LIV debut at Bedminster.

What they did to Henrik?  Gee, Sergio, did Henrik do anything to them?  Did he maybe lie just a little bit... did he maybe violate the terms of a contract he signed in March?

But have you been wondering about the shear number of has-been golfers now and prospectively under contract?  It's all been forseen:

The Saudi-backed upstart organization confirmed at its first U.S.-based event outside Portland, Ore., last month that it would transition from the LIV Golf Invitational Series to a league schedule with 14 events and 48 players beginning in 2023, one year earlier than previously scheduled. Under the new format, each player will participate in all 14 events, and the 12 four-man teams will be set for the entire season.

It was not immediately clear how those 48 players would be determined, and the vast majority of those spots are expected to be filled by players with multi-year commitments to LIV. But, according to the Si.com report, the bottom four finishers in the 2023 year-long LIV standings will be relegated from the league, with three spots filled by a qualifying tournament called a "Promotions" event and the fourth going to the winner of the money list for the LIV International Series, which will be co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour and LIV Golf. The report says details for the inaugural qualifying tournament will be shared before the end of the current LIV season, which wraps up with the tour championship at Trump Doral on Oct. 27-30.

Be still my foolish heart, as I'll now have the opportunity to root for Sergio to face relegation... Or Bryson.  or Brooksie.  I'm flexible....

Relegation to where, though?  Never mind, of course the fix is in:

...but some players and team captains may be exempt from relegation depending on their individual contract with LIV Golf. Other players outside the top 24 finishers could lose their playing privileges should their team decide against renewing their deals.

 Can you say Micky Mouse league?  I thought you could....

Food For Thought - Mike Bamberger with a depressing, but timely question:

Does the Ryder Cup matter anymore?

I thought it did, but it's a fair question given how those whose reputations were burnished in the event seem especially eager to spurn it:

The sudden influx of $1 billion (or $2 billion or $3 billion) from the House of Saud is proving to be the single-most disruptive force professional golf has ever felt. We’ve seen the hand-wringing from PGA Tour and DP World officials. But what’s obvious now is that this Saudi money will have a devastating impact on Ryder Cup golf. If one of the goals of this golf investment by Saudi Arabia’s national investment fund, overseen by its crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, is to appear more Western, that part is already backfiring.

The greatness of the Ryder Cup has been the many years the event has been a nail-biter, and how the pendulum has swung between Europe and the U.S. But the root of the greatness has been how Ryder Cup passion has been handed down. In this regard, there’s a straight line from Seve Ballesteros to Jose Maria Olazabal to Sergio Garcia to Jon Rahm. The U.S. equivalent to that would be Ben Crenshaw to Payne Stewart to Phil Mickelson to Dustin Johnson. That’s all in jeopardy now.

It took sixty years or so for the Ryder Cup to become important, though we seem to be trashing it on a more expedited basis. 

You could say the Ryder Cup, one of the great spectacles in all of sport over the past 40 years, is in jeopardy. Over all those years, the event has been viewed, accurately or not, as a civil war between scrappy European Tour players and coddled PGA Tour stars. All the Europeans made their first marks in the game abroad. The path to the U.S. team was the American country club, followed by a short stint at an American university, followed by success on the American tour, the gold standard for professional golf.

The Ryder Cup was king-of-the-jungle stuff, which is why so many people who aren’t avid golfers watch it. As a sporting event in North America, the Ryder Cup had a secure perch, south of the Super Bowl, of course, but north of the Stanley Cup finals.

I'm not sure this is one of Mike's better efforts, as this events prominence is quite the happy accident, an unplanned melding of natural rivalries, a dollop of bad blood and an epic team match play format.  

The other point that Mike misses are the pre-existing conditions, that the LIV threat hits at a time when the Ryder Cup prospects appear to be at low ebb, because of what seems to be an historically weak talent pool of Euro players and a corresponding weakness in the Euro Tour itself.

Mike also misses perhaps the largest and saddest point of all.  Many of these players have acknowledged that, in cashing the LIV check, they have assumed the risk that they will not be able to play in future majors, and went ahead and jumped.  If you're willing to forego future Masters and Opens, you're not gonna fret a silly Ryder Cup.

These are our modern touring professionals, men we've been long told are all gentlemen.  Feel free to reassess.....

I went long today because I won't be with you again until Friday.  Until then LIV long and prsper.

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