Not much to mull over, so we'll just grab a few bits and get you on your way....
LIVing History - I've been reliably informed that the winners write the history, so this from Dylan Dethier seems at best a little early:
Fair play, I guess, although for those last two it seems more about the lack thereof...
He takes us back to those Riviera days, reminding of how fraught with peril it all seeemd:
It was February in Los Angeles, the week of the Genesis Invitational. Riviera is one of the PGA Tour’s prized venues. Genesis is one of its top sponsors. And the tournament is hosted by its greatest icon, Tiger Woods. But, behind the scenes, there were two sides bracing for war.Suddenly sensing the extent of the threat on its doorstep, the PGA Tour was frantically seeking to secure its players’ loyalty and, by extension, the Tour’s future. On the other side, LIV Golf was readying an announcement that would serve as the introductory paragraph to a new chapter in the sport — one that would put the first serious challenge in decades to the Tour’s supremacy.The breakaway league, funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and helmed by Tour legend Greg Norman, still consisted of just a half-dozen employees and zero public presence, but months of wheeling and dealing — plus promises totaling hundreds of millions of dollars — had turned them into a serious player on golf’s world stage. Now, unbeknownst to much of the golf world, they were on the brink of securing commitments from 24 players. That was a significant number because it represented fully half the slots in their new venture, which would accommodate only 48 golfers: 12 teams of four players each.
But on the morning of round one, all the jockeying was abruptly upended by one explosive two-word phrase. Sensing that the sport was nearing a seismic shift, former GOLF writer Alan Shipnuck posted an excerpt from his soon-to-be-released Phil Mickelson biography. In it, Mickelson — who’d been commingling with Saudi financiers and, more recently, publicly airing his discontent with the Tour — spoke openly about LIV’s controversial Saudi backing, calling the Saudis “scary mother-f—–s.” Still, that wasn’t enough to dissuade him from aligning with LIV.
No, in fact they were the only ones to whom Phil apologized, so we can objectively consider him pro-scary mofos.
I owe Dylan a thank you note for informing us that your humble blogger wasn't the only one to make this premature call:
By week’s end, LIV’s demise seemed imminent, from without and within the organization. Rory McIlroy, unquestionably the PGA Tour’s most prominent and vocal supporter, summed up the mood: “It’s dead in the water, in my opinion,” he said.
Once Jon Rahm showed off his expanded vocabulary I figured that Jay had compromising photos of all his alpha players.
Dylan does not that, player objections notwithstanding, that we can't rule out the possibility that this might, just perhaps, be about the money. Yeah, we got there ahead of you, but this little bit of delusion is quite priceless:
That argument has proven more compelling for some players than others. When LIV employees talk about the league, they don’t mention “sportswashing.” Instead, they compare themselves to Uber or Netflix, companies that prioritized growth and disruption over cash flow. The players who’ve signed on talk about balanced lifestyles and the pleasure of more family time. But, inescapably, money is the driver.
Yeah, that Netflix citation is unintentionally hilarious, given that they seem consigned to YouTube for eternity.
But then, Dylan goes all existential on us:
In other words, things seem to be working out fairly well for the players, who are getting paid. But what about the fans? Big picture, and in light of LIV’s guaranteed money, maybe the better question is: Does all this dough make for a better product? Or does the division that comes with it mean a potential calamity for the sport?
I've been using this wee platform to argue from Day One that LIV's vision for the game is truly dreadful, an elitist series of exhibition matches of no import. But the one issue neither Dylan nor I have pondered, what happens to a sport when a major gaggle of the elite talent reveal themselves to be tone-deaf, narcissistic a*******es? Pull up a bench, the movie just started...
My belief is that the Saudis over-reached but then, rather than retreating quietly, decided to use their vast reserves to teach the rest of us a lesson.
The sad part is that this will have you nodding your head:
The PIF considered the PGA Tour ripe for disruption because its product was, they say, stale. The Tour’s calling cards can also be considered shortcomings. There are tournaments every week, which leads to oversaturation and burnout for fans and players alike. Four days of golf with as many as 12 hours of competition every day? That’s a lot to keep track of. And despite the Tour’s wishes, not every one of its 48 tournaments can draw a compelling field and blockbuster ratings.
The Tour simply could not abide any other professional golf events happening outside their control, so expanded to fill every week on the calendar. Not only did they thereby produce a watered-down product, but they damaged other players in the ecosystem such as the Euro and Asian Tours (and don't get me started on what they did to the amateur game).
There's a whole lot of bits thrown at the wall here:
LIV’s argument is that it has developed a superior golf product, or at least one that makes pro golf more attractive to viewers, specifically younger viewers. The tournaments are shorter, running 54 holes instead of 72. Shotgun starts mean the viewing windows are five hours instead of all-day affairs. LIV’s team format adds, they think, a compelling extra dimension, affording fans the chance to — à la any team sport — align themselves passionately with a group rather than a single player.That team element ties into LIV’s vision for the future of golf — and ties back to money too. Beginning next year, its “franchises” — with names like the Niblicks and the Iron Heads — will solidify. Team captains (think Mickelson, of the Hy Flyers; or DeChambeau, of the Crushers) own a 25 percent equity stake in their franchises. Over the next several years, they’ll plan to do what they can to increase the value of those franchises before LIV offers them up for sale to outside investors. In a world in which the value of sports teams continues to skyrocket, LIV envisions a day when it consists of a dozen billion-dollar franchises.
In tailoring its product to the younger fan, it has rendered its competitions into mere exhibitions. The 54-holes is quite troubling, though that requires math. Golf is problematic as a viewing sport, because the best players win so infrequently. The problem for LIV is that 54 holes presents less time for everyone to regress to their mean, so the best players will logically win even less in such shortened events.
The bigger issue should be that, in order to play shotgun-style, the field sizes need to be limited to at or near the current 48-player limit. That's not remotely close to a sufficiently large field, even if it were all top-level players, but here the Tour has made it's own life tough. Not only do they play their "Super Bowl" (and continued thanks to the doofus LIV attorney that gave us that gem) with a thirty-player field (29 this year), but they were happy to award world-ranking points to a little exhibition in the Bahamas to make you-know-who happy.
The team bit is quite clearly the potentially most interesting bit. I'm still quite skeptical on that, as it necessarily remains a stroke play team event. I know I'm supposed to be excited about a South African team, although I'm not now nor have I ever been South African...
Dylan does hit on some important points, although this one has me in "Yeah, but..." mode:
It’s easy to cringe when Tour fans cite values like “tradition” and “legacy” because it all sounds boring. But these things are also vitally important. Why do we care who wins the World Series? Terence Mann told us in Field of Dreams. “Baseball has marked the time. It reminds us of all that once was good and that could be again.” We know what it’s worth because of comparable competitions for decades prior. Think of sport’s greatest stages: Wimbledon. March Madness. The Super Bowl. We care about this year’s because we cared about last year’s, and the year before that, and the decade before that. Rip away that context and tradition and sport suddenly becomes less romantic. Less worth rooting for. Less… essential. In an age of upheaval, that may matter only to the nerdiest of the golf-watching community, but this is golf, where “A tradition unlike any other” actually resonates. LIV defectors have secured guaranteed millions, with millions more to come. That is clear. Less clear is what it means for golf that some of its biggest names might just be kicking its institutions to the curb.
Dylan has defended the Tour with an appeal to authority centered in the Masters (A tradition unlike any other) and, well baseball. The latter is easy to dismiss, as all of baseball is pointed towards that October (really November these days) coda. But for the PGA Tour, once you sever the majors off, the Tour itself seems, well, unstable.
It's got some history and continuity, although your humble blogger has more than once railed against their contempt for that very history, such as the cancellation of the Western Open. But they were too blinded by their dominant roll, and they allowed themselves to get fat, dumb and happy, and the guys that use bonecutters know a soft target when they se eone.
But growing the game? Errrr, this isn't how it's done, Phil:
The Ryder Cup is one such institution under threat, not only because some of its more interesting characters — Poulter, García, Koepka — are now ineligible to participate, but because Henrik Stenson chose to walk away from the Cup captaincy, an honor he’d counted among the highest of his career, to take a LIV deal. In the end, if the game’s best players aren’t invested in the meaning and importance of golf ’s history and historic events, why should fans be?
You built you reputation by success in certain institutions. Then, on the way out the door, you destroy said institutions? What do we think happens to your reputation?
I'm sure you saw this video of Billy Ho and our old friend Poults, though no lip-readers have emerged to inform us of what they said. Poults, though, will have his own circle of hell awaiting:
You have a right to be a dick, and you've never shied away from asserting that right. So, do enjoy your timer in YouTube obscurity, and keep working on that "Just sold my soul to the devil" look, because yours isn't quite up to Phil's standards.
the only relevance Ian Poulter has ever had in the game of golf is in the Ryder Cup, so I think it entirely fitting that he's now made it his life's work to destroy that event.
At Wentworth, they went to pains to avoid pairing the LIVsters with the loyalists in the early rounds, leaving us to contemplate potentially awkward pairings for Saturday (Rory-Poulter, anyone, or would we prefer Rory-PReed?). Now I don't know when that might happen:
As the world stops to mourn Queen Elizabeth II’s loss, so, too, will professional golf.The BMW PGA Championship suspended play on Thursday afternoon “until further notice” immediately following the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning monarch in British history.“Out of respect for Her Majesty and the Royal Family, play has been suspended at the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth Club for the remainder of Thursday and flags at Wentworth Club will be lowered to half-mast,” a statement from the Tour reads. “Furthermore, no play will take place at the BMW PGA Championship on Friday and the golf course and practice facilities will be closed.”
That's a shame, because I was so looking forward to a continued discussion of Ian Poulter's rights.
Too Good To Fact Check - My favorite part of the LIV nonsense is the PReed defamation suit, a whiny pleading to stop Brandel form saying mean things about the delicate flower. The entire LIV field has reeked of entitlement, but this bit might just top the charts.
It's virtually impossible for a public figure to win such a suit, so we're left to guess as to why the pusgy one thought this in his best interests. To me it's an obvious parallel to the entire LIV initiative, which to this observer has generated nothing but bad publicity for their $2 billion large. OK, Patrick, you want to talk more about your time at the University of Georgia?
My hopes are raised further, tough, be the remembrance of when John Daly did something similarly short-sighted, which resulted in the public disclosure of his PGA Tour disciplinary file, a fun read for sure. How thick would you imagine PReed's to be?
But this is schadenfreudalicious for sure:
Of all the legal venues in all the world, Patrick Reed’s defamation suit against Golf Channel and Brandel Chamblee has landed in the chambers of Alfred H. Bennett, a federal judge in Texas.While Reed has little reason to know much about Bennett, Bennett is surely aware of Reed.The judge is a golf fan and an avid golfer. At Golf Club of Houston, where he belongs, he has recorded 15 rounds in the past six months, and five more at other courses, according to his GHIN profile. His handicap index is 7.6, and you can bet he’s not sandbagging, friends and colleagues say.Judge Bennett isn’t one for fudging numbers.“He’s an absolute stickler for the rules,” said Randy Wilson, a justice in the 14th Court of Appeals who has played numerous rounds with Bennett. “He counts every stroke and putts out everything.”
But riddle me this, Batman, when the players went to sue the Tour they hustled themselves to the scoundrels day spa in the Northern District of California. Why would Patrick sue in Texas?
Obviously this is going nowhere:
What matters is the law. And in that regard, the challenge for the plaintiff is even steeper than the challenges of proper punctuation. For public figures to prove defamation, they must show that they have been the victim of “actual malice” — that the person they’re accusing has knowingly made false statements about them or acted with a “reckless disregard for the truth.”It’s a stout legal standard, and with good reason, says Meredith J. Duncan, professor of law at the University of Houston Law Center.“In this country, we enjoy a First Amendment right to freedom of speech, and defamation law errs on the side of protecting that right,” Duncan says. “There’s a high burden of proof, especially for public figures.”
Reed would have to prove that Chamblee knows he's not a cheater, but I can help draw up the defense's witness list, beginning with teammates at both colleges. But it does sound like he found the perfect attorney, no?
Reed’s attorney is Larry Klayman, who, like his client, has a colorful reputation. It stems from his history of filing headline-making suits against high-profile figures ranging from Bill and Hillary Clinton to the comic prankster Sacha Baron Cohen. A former colleague once described Klayman as the sort of person who would “sue you for criticizing his tie.”
I think the lawsuit is most interesting for it's revelation of character to wit, that Patrick thinks he is due a life without criticism. The solution for that is at hand, though it's a life without attention, so I do hope Patrick enjoys himself.
The defendants have not yet filed the inevitable motion to dismiss, although the real hope for us is that they instead files a motion for discovery. That could be good fun.
That's it for toady. I'll be back, although there really isn't much of interest going on, so a good time to dial it back a few notches. So, I'll see you as events demand, but have a great weekend.
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