True enough as far as it foes, although what's left unsaid seems the bigger issue:
For Rory McIlroy, playing golf has been the easiest part of a truly tumultuous 2022. Being the standard bearer for the PGA Tour in its battle with LIV Golf has been the challenge. That’s why theNorthern Irishman looked content at East Lake Golf Club, where he began the Tour Championship with a triple-bogey 7 on the first hole and ended it with a third career FedEx Cup on the 72nd.“Golf has been the escape for me over the last few weeks,” McIlroy said on Sunday after overcoming a six-shot final-round deficit to beat Scottie Scheffler and Sungjae Im by a stroke and become the first three-time winner of the tour’s season-long title. “When I get inside the ropes, no one can get to me.”
The PGA Tour was gifted a most appropriate champion ahead of a week in which the Saudi-backed circuit is expected to announce it has poached at least five more tour players as new recruits. McIlroy has been the tour’s most vocal public supporter and a most industrious saviour behind closed doors. If any one of the 29 players in the field at East Lake deserved an $18 million FedEx Cup bonus, it was McIlroy.
Do we think the author (the previously-unknown to me Evin Priest) did a spit-take when he typed "29", as in "Gee, that's an odd number of players in an allegedly significant tourney? Both because it's small, as opposed to, just to pick a number at random, 48, but also just a weird number, unless Jay has a thing about prime numbers.
Your humble blogger will graciously down a small portion of crow, having been just a wee bit skeptical about Mr. McIlroy's performance at his day job. Strike that, I remain quite skeptical, but the results are what they are. Certainly Rory played his ambassadorial role to perfection, both as relates to the vanquished, but also in defense of his tour:
“What a week, what a day. I feel like Scottie deserves at least half of this today,” McIlroy said. “Ifeel sort of bad that I pipped him to the post. He’s a hell of a competitor and an even better guy. It was an honor and a privilege to battle with him today. I’m sure there will be many more. I told him we’re 1 all in Georgia. He got the Masters and I got this.”
“Yeah, I’ve been in the thick of things, he said Sunday night. “I guess every chance I get, I’m trying to defend what I feel is the best place to play elite professional golf in the world. It’s in some ways fitting that I was able to get this done today to sort of round off a year that has been very, very challenging and different.”
Of course, if you lay those two Georgia events side-by-side, Rory won the LIVier of the two.....
The Tour Confidential panel paid homage to the Tour's coda....well, eventually:
6. An actual golf question! The Tour Championship concluded Sunday, and with it, the PGA Tour’s regular season. Rory McIlroy rallied from six shots down to start the final round to edge Scottie Scheffler and bring home the $30 million top prize. What did we learn about McIlroy in victory?
Seriously, guys, you couldn't squeeze a question in before the jump? That might be the cruelest cut of all, coming from a virtual house publication.
Sens: Nothing we didn’t know already. When he gets it going, he’s got a rarefied gear.Hirsh: We already knew he was a great chaser. We knew he was resilient. We knew he was the Alpha of the PGA Tour — when Tiger isn’t around. I think this win was a statement of how well McIlroy can let his play do the talking. This was a huge week for him. His last win, at the Canadian Open, was also a huge week for him because it was the week of LIV’s U.S. debut. Maybe these two wins will finally help him get the Masters monkey off his back.Bastable: Like Tiger’s Tour Championship win in 2018, you couldn’t have scripted this one much better. The Tour’s knight in shining armor in 2022 winning the season-culminating tourney and a boatland of (non-LIV!) dollars to boot. It all felt so right. After his win, Rory also spoke of how much his Open Championship disappointment still haunts him. He’s not over it, he said, but surely $18 mil will help soothe the sting.
OK, were they watching the same telecast as the rest of us? Full disclosure, I started to watch it on tape, but the bride turned it on live and I caught that Rory and Scottie were tied, so watched only the last 4-5 holes in real time.
It seemed, first and foremost, mostly about Scottie having one of those days from heck and Rory being the lucky recipient. I certainly didn't sense any actual energy, nor did the level of play impress me. At one moment I thought that Sungae Im would provide that bizarro-world worst-case ending,
Mostly I thought it a soul-sapping exercise, focused exclusively on the size of the winners check, but wrapped up in an opaque algorithm used to create an arbitrary staggered start that seems to be missing only the clown face painted around the hole on the 18th green. Reminding us, quite unfortunately, that the FedEx Cup was LIV before LIV was cool....
As for Rory, even he can't pretend that this makes up for the one that got away:
Quite likely, McIlroy would trade every one of the $18 million in FedEx Cup earnings for that claret jug, but admitted it did provide consolation.“St. Andrews was really hard for me,” he said. “It’s still a tough one to get over. This softens the blow a little bit. It doesn’t make it that much easier to get over, but it’s great to end the season on a high note like this. I went up against the best player in the world today and I took him down, and that’s got to mean something.”
It means 18 million things, just not the things you needed most....
Exodus Monday - We apparently know who's going, and it seems that sound Jay hears are a couple of bullets that missed:
According to multiple reports, those defections are imminent as the PGA Tour’s 2021-22 season comes to a scheduled conclusion Sunday, with as many as seven players expected to beannounced shortly afterward.Most notable of the bunch is expected to be Cameron Smith, the winner of the Open Championship in July and the Players Championship in March and the No. 2-ranked player in the world. The 29-year-old Australian has offered no comments when ask about previous reports of his potential move over the last month, but Golf Channel reported Saturday afternoon, shortly followed by Sports Illustrated and ESPN, that Smith will be in the field at next week’s LIV Invitational Series event at The International in Bolton, Mass.Joining him, according to the reports, will be fellow Aussie Marc Leishman, Joaquin Niemann, Cameron Tringale and Harold Varner III. On Sunday morning, Tringale confirmed his decision to join LIV via social media.
No understating the impact of Cam bolting, an actual top ten player. While we all have our own individual reactions to specific players, the HV Three-sticks one really disappoints this observer.
But, it had seemed to be heading for a really black Monday, yet at the very last moment:
Now that the PGA Tour’s 2022 Tour Championship is completed, with Rory McIlroy hoisting the trophy for a record third time, news is circulating about players deciding to join the LIV Golf Series while others are planning to stay with the Tour.Hideki Matsuyama, who was long rumored to be heading to the breakaway series that’s backed by Saudi Arabia and led by Greg Norman, appears to be staying, according to the Associated Press’ Doug Ferguson.
For now, we should always add...
But, given LIVs investment in the Asian Tour and the importance of the Japanese market, Hideki always seemed to have an out-sized importance. And given that the rumors had him gone, it magnifies the importance of keeping him on board.
This one as well, for different reasons:
If, to paraphrase Tom Lehrer, the average golf fan has been dead for three years, the LIV fields are perfectly constructed to appeal to that valuable demographic.... In keeping a young gun in the fold, that's another notch in the belt for Jay.
Here's the TC take on this round of defections:
4. This week, while the PGA Tour is off, LIV will play its fourth event, just outside of Boston, and as many as seven current Tour players will be in the field. On Saturday, several outlets were reporting that Cameron Smith, Joaquin Niemann and others would leave the Tour and join LIV, following other notable players who have done so already. What do these moves mean to both the LIV and PGA Tour brands?Sens: A blow to the Tour and a boon for LIV. I don’t know how you cast it any other way.Hirsh: It’s a blow to the Tour, but it could have been worse. Don’t get me wrong, Niemann and Smith are both young players just entering the primes of their careers; Niemann may even be a few years away from his. But both of these players certainly don’t draw like Rory, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth or even Adam Scott. It’s definitely a great announcement for LIV as, for the most part, most of the players defecting have been past their primes. If Hideki Matsuyama was going over, that would be a massive blow given his status in Asia. But it looks like he’s staying put for now, thus making this a hit the PGA Tour can weather.Bastable: Yeah, I’d agree that other than the reigning Claret Jug-holder, there’s no names in the next reported pack of defectors that will send shockwaves beyond the golf world, but it’s still another reminder that LIV isn’t done recruiting. Worth keeping in mind, though, that their format allows only for 48 players (for now, anyway), so there are only so many spots. LIV obviously wants those 48 players to be the biggest stars possible, but there are also only so many big-name players who will say yes. Feels like we might be hitting that threshold soon.
I need to eat another portion of crow here having, like Rory, called the fight over back in February. Yet, LIV stubbornly lives on, so what to make of the current state of play?
But I do think Alan Bastable is onto something. Cam and Niemann hurt, as we can no longer state equivocally that they have no top ten players and no young talent. Now they have one legitimate top ten, and a few guys we can lump in with the young guns, although their talent pool still comes with a bunch of asterisks, at least in my view.
But will the field in Boston be compelling? This group of players clearly improves it, but they still seem many bricks short of a load, no? And how exactly do they get there?
And even if we generously call it a tie, doesn't that ultimately go to the incumbent?
The Empire Strikes Back - Not sure I have these in the most logical order, but the TC gang shared their thoughts on the Tour's restructuring (in fact, they led with that):
1. In a recurring trend, most of the news this week came before play. And the biggest was the multiple changes to the PGA Tour’s schedule and money as part of theTour’s fight against LIV Golf. Among the items, announced Wednesday by Tour commissioner Jay Monahan ahead of the Tour Championship, were: 20 players will be defined as “top players” starting next year; the device in which the Tour defines those players, the Player Impact Program, will receive a purse bump, from $50 million to $100 million, to reward those players; four more tournaments, in addition to eight announced in June, will be tabbed as “elevated events” with $20 million purses; the 20 players will play in those events, the Players Championship, the majors and three other tournaments; all fully exempt players will start the season with a $500,000 stipend; and players will receive a $5,000 travel stipend. We’ll start with this: Will these moves work in the Tour’s fight against LIV Golf?
Josh Sens: They seem like effective moves in keeping young American talent around. The upshot feels like both sides are more solidified in their positions. LIV isn’t going anywhere. But the Tour has shored up crucial core support.
Jack Hirsh: Players are choosing between money and legacy, it seems like. LIV has a seemingly unlimited supply of money. The Tour, on the other hand, has history, and if it can make the dollars at least within shouting distance of LIV, I don’t see many players picking them over the Tour. After all, what does $25 million get you that $20 million doesn’t? The league minimum also helps take care of the journeymen pros who help make up a lot of what the dream of playing on the PGA Tour is.
Alan Bastable: You know when this plan would have been really effective? A year ago. This new model has many cool elements and enticements — and it seems to have helped sway at least one rising star, in Cameron Young, to stay put — but it’s still too little too late. Too many ships have already sailed, creating two diluted golf leagues, one of which you can only watch on YouTube. Yes, we’ll see some of the best players in the world get together regularly at the elevated PGA Tour events but not all of them. That’ll happen only four times a year now, at the majors. It’s a real bummer. The top players on both tours are all getting richer, but golf fans will be poorer for it.
2. What change are you most interested in? What change may need some work?Sens: The $500k stipend. A lot of guys are expendable and just can’t cut it. But you’ve got to do something to keep the farm teams alive. The change I’d still like to see is a greater commitment to cool venues. Great designs go a long way toward creating interesting golf.Hirsh: I agree with Josh here, but I’ll change it up to bring up another topic. I’m very interested in how the “elevated events” will rotate from season to season. Will we see an elevated John Deere Classic in 2027? You would think every sponsor would want a shot at hosting all of the top pros at their event. On the other hand, not all sponsors are equal, so I guess we’ll see.Bastable: Yeah, the rotating elevated events most grabbed my attention. Clever idea — but will it work? With the top players’ schedules filling up with the permanent elevated events, majors and — coming soon! — Monday night golf, how much appetite and energy will they have for smaller-ticket tourneys? The John Deeres, the Hondas, the Rocket Mortgages, etc., all seem to be in a precarious spot. The wave of household names who departed for LIV doesn’t help matters.
The $500K costs the Tour almost nothing, and those travel stipends are chump change as well.
But Alan lists three sponsors, to which you can add AT&T, Farmers Insurance, Waste Management, AMEX, RBC, and that's just names off the top of my head, yet he has only three slots to spread around.
What's In It For Us? - Intriguingly, there's a bit of concern for you, the golf fan. First, from the TC journalistos:
3. Max Homa offered up some of the better thoughts on the changes after his Tour Championship second round, and when he was asked about his field size, he also said this: “I don’t care how good I am at golf; if people aren’t watching, we’re just telling people in a bar we’re really good at golf.” That raises a good point. All of the changes by the PGA Tour, along with the large, guaranteed money, seemingly have the player in mind. But where does the fan fit in to all of this?Sens: As a fan, I’m partly put off by the insanity of the money. But there are trickle-down perks in the preservation of talent. More than fans, I see more pluses for bettors. I guess some of them are fans.
Only partly? You must have an unusually high tolerance for pain....
Hirsh: What the fan gets are defined events of when the “top players” are all going to be in the field. This fixes a huge problem for the casual fan, who didn’t really know when they were supposed to be watching a Tour event. I knew the top players weren’t at the Wyndham Championship, but was the Travelers worth watching? Wells Fargo? Bay Hill has the prestige of being Arnold Palmer’s event, but the field had been weakening with the new schedule shifts. Was it still worth watching? Now fans will know exactly when the best weeks to watch golf are.Bastable: Mentioned this above, but, yeah, it’s hard to see how any of this upheaval benefits the fans. Sports fans want to watch the best players, period, competing against the best players, period. In golf, that’s no longer possible, other than four times a year. Don’t get me wrong: The drama around pro golf in recent months has had golf fans and non-golf fans alike riveted. But what happens when that all passes?
Alan Bastable has had the best of it in this weeks roundtable, but I think he's a bit off base here, for the simple reason that, if you want to see the best go head-to-head, those guys are still largely in one place.
But no one seems able or willing to think as far as secondary events. There's a bigger question as to how many events the big tour should actually hold, because those lesser events are the lifeblood for the process by which young talent emerges. This move by Jay is likely necessary to hold off LIV in this moment, but the long-term effects will be profound.
Eamon Lynch focuses his eye on the fans, though it's something of a shotgun (pun intended) approach:
Presenting Monahan with a wish list for the future feels like asking Santa for a gift when he just emptied his sleigh with the rich kid next door, but there are issues that demand his attention. Safeguarding the talent pipeline, for one. Seeing two college stars—U.S. Amateur champion James Piot and Eugenio Chacarra—sign with LIV should have triggered alarm bells in Ponte Vedra. Offering the best and brightest access only to developmental tours won’t cut it. The world’s best amateurs must be fast tracked onto the PGA Tour. (Talent being groomed on the Korn Ferry Tour would benefit from even a small subsidy to offset the cost of competing on a circuit where the average prize money this season is less than $70,000.)
But those fifteen guys demanding guaranteed money and smaller fields makes this a bigger ask.... That's always been one of the profound weaknesses in the LIV vision for the game, but we're straying further and further away from the meritocracy that Tiger and others have trumpeted.
But good luck with this one, Eamon:
The PGA Tour must also eschew insularity. The alliance with the DP World Tour can’t be neglected. On Wednesday, Monahan said the PGA Tour events being accorded “elevated” status are domestic. Tally up those weeks along with majors and it leaves precious little time for top players to compete outside the U.S. Conceding the global stage to LIV would be poor strategy, and the PGA Tour needs to boost key stops on the DP World calendar too.
But trying to span the globe with events is also a partial explanation of how the Tour's product got so diluted. Should the PGA Tour be holding events outside the U.S., or should those be left to others? Nurse Ratched and Jay have basically destroyed what used to be a wonderful season of events in Australia, so haven't we suffered enough?
But here's the fence Jay needs to straddle:
Perhaps most importantly, Monahan must prevent the PGA Tour from becoming LIV-lite, cushioning elite players with an extensive roster of no-cut events. It’s clear that good performances will earn lavish rewards—heck, even middling play pays well—but the Tour can’t lose the penalty for poor showings. The highs and lows of meaningful competition ought to be preserved. There is sufficient guaranteed money in what has already been announced, and fans deserve to see their favorites stress-tested for a pay check. Someone needs to slam their trunk on Friday. The $120,000 LIV pays for DFL is a subject of mockery and disgust. The same perception can’t be permitted to take root on the PGA Tour with an over-reliance on no-cut formats in those elevated tournaments for stars.
I've gotten quite a few things wrong as this story has developed, but one thing on which I remain steadfastly confident is that LIV is terrible model for our game. perhaps you'll think I'm painting with an overly broad brush, but it seems that capture the zeitgeist of contemporary society, where everyone gets a participation ribbon. Admittedly, it's quite a twist that, in lieu of that participation ribbon, everyone gest $100 million.
There's just a wee little problem. Without the Darwinian, survival of the fittest, eat what you kill mentality of the Tour, why should we watch? It's that life or death nature of sports that draws us in, and you sweep it away at your peril, along with most of your fans.
Will I \See You In September? - In a perfect synechdoche of the moment, I decided to check on the International Team's qualification status for the Prez Cup, and got this quite appropriate error message:
Sounds about right.... Poor Trevor, it seemed like such a good idea at the time.
Aussie Rod Morri suggests something I've been long surprised hasn't happened:
For all the hand wringing and public proclamations on both sides, neither LIV Golf nor the PGA Tour/DP World Tour have brought anything genuinely interesting or new to the game these past few months.There’s no doubt players at the top of the sport have done very nicely out of the spat but the game itself – and fans in particular – are yet to see anything of value.With the latest reported exodus from the PGA Tour – one that especially impacts the International Team for the upcoming Presidents Cup – comes an opportunity for the establishment to do something genuinely interesting.It is, of course, something they should have done long ago (like so many other things they should have done but didn’t which is how we ended up here).But ‘better late than never’ is a cliché for a reason so let’s just get on with switching the Presidents Cup from its current tired format to something genuinely innovative by inviting the game’s top women to be part of it.
Funny because it would solve two problems, both the Prez Cup ( which hasn't been competitive, though we should note that the Ryder Cup took many decades to evolve) and the Solheim Cup, which excludes the best women players in the world.
I think Jay missed quite the opportunity. When the first defections happened, including all those South Africans, this event was clearly compromised. The LPGA would be so over the moon to be included, that I'll bet he could have pulled it off on short notice (and I say that without even checking the LPGA's schedule.
I've got more, but the clock is yelling at me. Not sure about the next few days, some golf but also some other issue demanding morning attention.
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