Late-Week Lamentations

I had anticipated an earlier arrival at the keyboard.  So, shall we cover just a few bits out there, though I'll promise no baseball talk.

Cue the Walkback in 3,2,1.... - Kids say the darndest things, but how should we feel when those assuming the mantle of reform in our game have the IQ of a mollusk.  Or at least no ability to think through the impact of their words.  Because, assume for the moment that you're responsible for committing $2 billion to Greg Norman....  Yeah, I know, but they didn't ask me before that commitment.  

You find yourself needing to be able to offer world ranking points to your overly-entitled players, yet you're shocked that those whose sinecures you're trying to annihilate haven't capitulated, but there's one silver lining, the fact that the organizations running the majors have previously established qualification protocols.  Shockingly, your gambit to gain those world ranking points through an alliance with a defunct tour didn't work, but who could have seen that coming.  Bellicosity alone has also seemingly proved fruitless, so clearly this is a situation calling for further threats, right? Like this one:

In a feature story this week in the New Yorker about the Saudi-backed circuit, Majed Al Sorour, CEO of the Golf Saudi, discussed how his league would respond should LIV golfers not be able to

compete in the majors. Without LIV events getting Official World Golf Ranking accreditation, players could fall in the rankings and lose an avenue to qualify. Potentially, too, the groups that run the majors could outright prohibit LIV players from competing, as has the PGA Tour. From the piece:

There was speculation that the Masters might ban LIV players. “For now, the majors are siding with the Tour, and I don’t know why,” Sorour said. “If the majors decide not to have our players play? I will celebrate. I will create my own majors for my players.” He went on, “Honestly, I think all the tours are being run by guys who don’t understand business.”

Hmmm, perhaps.  But the man who threw $200 million large at Phil seems to have his own issues understanding commercial economics, no?   Of course, he's going to cash out by selling these franchises, so clearly your humble blogger is unable to understand the complexity of their worldview.

I've said it before and I'll likely have to say it another hundred times, but these guys don't seem specially bright, do they?  The response of the Tour, the absence of a TV partner and the importance of world ranking points all seem to have taken Mr. Norman and his Saudi paymasters as quite the surprise.  Yet, aren't these the kinds of things that were all obvious and should ahve been planned for, yanno, before you bombed Pearl Harbor....

Anyway, they really respect everyone:

“I had a casual conversation with a New Yorker reporter at LIV’s Boston event a few weeks ago, during which I expressed my frustration at the unfortunate blackballing of LIV Golf players by the PGA Tour,” Sorour said in a statement. “When it comes to the majors, tournaments that stand alone and are independent of LIV, I have the utmost respect for the majors. The majors are about history, heritage, true competition and honor.

“The story wrongfully expressed and misrepresented my views. The majors are indeed the best platform where LIV golfers and other tour golfers can compete, despite the PGA Tour’s suspension of our players. As a LIV Golf board member and managing director, I am here to accomplish our LIV Golf investment chairman and the board’s strategic direction by building a team, growing the game and defending player rights. That is my only interest.’’

It's not just honor, it's the utmost honor....Seriously, maybe English isn't his first language, but when you say, "nice little major you have there.  Sure would be a shame is something happened to it", it's just an outrage that such a statement could be understood as conveying anything other than the utmost respect.

And did you catch that "casual conversation" bit?  I did not have an interview with that man.... Gee, where have we heard that, recently? And blackballing?  Interesting term, which translated into English means enforcing the rules of its organization, which apparently took the boncutters by surprise.  

Of course, it's easy to conjure up the nightmare scenarios:

Try not to be silly https://t.co/vFZypCwBXy

— James Corrigan (no blue tick) (@jcorrigangolf) October 18, 2022

Silly?  For sure, since I've been reliably informed that the Wahabis are all about history, heritage, true competition and honor.  And nothing quite shouts true competition  quite like having PReed as your poster child.

Fred Ridley and others would be foolish to believe that they don't mean what they say.  

Doug Ferguson tackled this subject in a piece that seems to argue for the LIvsters, but my interest lies elsewhere.  First, his arguemnt:

The PGA Tour had 12 of the top 50 players in the world ranking competing last week in Las Vegas. LIV Golf also had 12 of the top 50 in the world playing in Bangkok.

The difference, aside from LIV Golf providing triple the prize money, is that only one of those circuits received credit from the Official World Golf Ranking.

That needs to change. The question is how quickly.

Gee, Doug, wasn't there another difference that should be noted?   You've already rigged your thoughts by focusing on Vegas, a silly season event with one of the weaker fields, but they at least had a 144-player field.  Do the same analysis for this week's field at the CJ Cup.

I think the argument he's making is that there's a concentration of talent at LIV that shouldn't, in a perfect world, be excluded from the world rankings.  And it's a strong argument, but again one of those things you might have wanted to, yanno, think about before committing $2 billion.  He does at least hit on my due diligence failure angle:

These guys knew what they were getting when they signed up: money. If they thought world ranking points would come easily — or even quickly — that would be the same misguided thinking as Norman texting Sergio Garcia in February that the PGA Tour couldn’t ban players “for one day let alone life.”

PGA Tour suspensions, backed preliminarily by a federal court, are in their fourth month.

Ugh!   Those suspensions were in no way "backed" by a federal court, it just refused to offer injunctive relief.  But, yeah, Harold Varner III was correct, this is what they signed up for.

Norman isn’t doing himself any favors with a not-so-clever attempt to expedite the process by aligning with the Mena Tour (an acronym for Middle East and North Africa). The Mena Tour entered the OWGR family in 2016 as a developmental tour with 54-hole events. It’s so far down the ladder that its leading players now have access to the Asian Development Tour.

But nothing screams legitimacy more than hiding behind a defunct tour...

That much is true. There could be as few as six LIV Golf players left in the top 50 by the end of the year, and the number will shrink when it starts up its 14-event schedule in 2023. Still to be determined is if LIV Golf will adjust its format (perhaps by introducing a cut).

Even then, the new formula is not favorable to smaller fields. The PGA Tour not only has most of the top players, it has depth. LIV Golf players will still be at a disadvantage when it gets world ranking points.

The only thing that will grow at a rapid rate is their bank accounts.

From the strength of field measures I've seen, I'm far from sure that he's correct on this point, though I'd feel better if he were.  

So, why spend so much time with Doug?  he gets a good one in against one of our favorite targets:

However, it’s worth noting that since 1983 — when the PGA Tour was able to keep complete records — players who had at least a share of the 54-hole lead went on to win 39% of the time. The same percentage applies to majors.

Norman, of all people, would not be surprised by that.

Heh!  Good one, Doug, though you might have thrown in Greg's own record in that regard, especially his record in those pesky majors.... Of course, Greg will be running his own majors soon enough...

Musings - A certain Ulsterman has become the éminence grise of the PGA Tour, so his recent comments on scheduling are of interest:

The Tour has officially reverted to a January through August regular season schedule with a

major injection of money, creating 13 “elevated” events in addition to major championships. After the season ends in August, though, there’s still some uncertainty. The Tour has clarified that the top 50 players in the FedEx Cup will qualify for a series of fall tournaments with no cut and huge purses as well, likely to be held overseas. The rest of the Tour is bound for a different fall series of events that commissioner Jay Monahan dubbed a “compelling, consequential final stretch” where players can improve their status entering the next season.

Much of it is…still quite murky. So Rory, while the Tour figures it all out, what should the fall season really look like?

“Football,” he said.

“I mean, it’s football season, right?”

So?  It so happens that Rory is arguing for a curtailed schedule, but is he a tree falling in the forest?

“I think we need to get to the place where it’s not oversaturated,” he continued. “I would love us to come back in January and people will have missed watching competitive golf. I don’t think that happens right now because there’s 47 events a year.”

What McIlroy is arguing for is not something anyone could have been prepared for years ago. When Tiger Woods burst onto the scene in the 90s, the PGA Tour couldn’t get enough events on TV. But a modern conundrum has manifested. It’s become difficult for golf fans to know which events are the most important beyond the majors.

“I think to get the most fan engagement that we possibly can, we have to let people miss it for a little bit,” McIlroy said. “I’m not comparing golf to football at all, but you think about the exclusivity of the NFL and they play 18 weeks a year. Then people are just so ready for football season to start again. I’m not saying that golf’s going to be that way, but you’ve got to let people miss it a little bit.”

You go, girl!  

But Rory, have you actually had this discussion with Jay?   Because, going back to the time of Nurse Ratched, it's been the policy of your organization to fill every nook and cranny on that 52-week calendar, with the lone exception of Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks.

With a bit of a qualifier:

“And I’m not saying we’re not going to play any golf in the fall,” McIlroy said, “but the fall is maybe more of an international flavor. It’s an opportunity for guys to travel the world a little bit, grow their brands in different countries, but the real competitive golf season is January to August. That’s where I see it.”

Yes, but I would have said that the Ponte Vedra folks should leave that to the other world tours, though that doesn't obviously square with the ambitions of those whose new crystal palace has been dubbed the "Global Home."

 Two of the Golf.com writers tackle these thorny scheduling issues with very mixed results:

Sean Zak: Hello, young James! Finally, the PGA Tour has settled most of its schedule moving forward. We’ve got 13 elevated events taking place next year featuring $20 million purses and the

top players in the world. The first one is just months away in Hawaii. Add the majors and that’s 17 times where the best players in the world are guaranteed to be playing together. The honor of being an “elevated event” will be permanent for all but four tournaments, which will change among the list of Tour events every year. This year, the WM Phoenix Open is elevated. In 2024, perhaps the Honda Classic will be. In 2025, maybe even the 3M Open! My first question for you: did they choose the right events to kick this off (Phoenix Open, RBC Heritage, Wells Fargo, Travelers Championship)?

James Colgan: If I were a teacher grading the elevated event selections, I think I’d give the PGA Tour half-credit for their efforts. I like the Phoenix Open and the Wells Fargo. Both of those events feel like bigger events each year, and it helps that I can name at least half of their recent winners. The RBC and Travelers, while fine Tour events, are pretty eh to me. I don’t get the feeling that making them worth $20 million is going to make me care very much about them, even if it helps to juice their respective field strengths a little bit. I’d much rather have seen the Farmers, Canadian Open, or Schwab in that same slot.

Are these guys like sixteen years old?  Did Jay pick the right events isn't exactly the right concept, as he shockingly picked the events whose sponsors were willing to pay up.  And they don't seem to have noticed that two of the four are the week after majors....including one with a five-hour flight time.

Also, no real concern about those events that remain unelevated.... I'm sure they'll be fine Korn Ferry fields.

Seriously, how naive are these two?

Sean: Well, I’m all in on watching Jon Rahm or Rory McIlroy play Harbour Town, but yeah, I tend to agree. If I can try and guess the theory there, it’s that the Tour can’t have the most perfect set of four elevated events every year. They really need to spread the love, because basically every event raised its hand and asked to become elevated.

Do you not recognize a pay-to-play scheme when you trip over it?

They at least recognize this point of vulnerability:

Sean: Can we pour out a pint of Tennent’s for the Scottish Open not being selected?

James: The DP World Tour must be furious at that development (not all strategic alliances can be as easy as ours!). I wonder if the cross-sanctioned nature of the event was its eventual undoing. If the Tour is shelling out $20 million for an event, it would make sense to me that they want to be damn sure that money is winding up in the pockets of its full-time members.

Fine, as long as Jay has the Euro Tour under lock and key.... It's not just that the Scottish isn't elevated, the players are required to play so many events that they would be hard-pressed to add the Scottish, even is they think it'll help their preparation for the Open.

There's some good stuff buried, but it's at the same time comically inept.  For instance, James Colgan makes an impassioned plea for improved venues, but the citations are just bat guano crazy:

James: LOL. Now you’re just getting a rise out of me. The biggest thing I’d change with the PGA Tour schedule is the quality of the venues utilized. Every year, the overwhelming majority of golf’s best courses go entirely unseen by the public. This never made sense to me. Imagine having an NFL season without a game at Lambeau Field — it’s weird! The Tour should be trying like hell to fit as many top golf destinations into its annual calendar. It’s how you educate your fanbase, and how you draw in the most enjoyable events. Pinehurst, Bandon, Chambers, Bethpage, Gamble Sands … and those are just the public tracks worth considering! If you’re going to go to Chicago, like you suggested, play Chicago G.C., Medinah, or Shoreacres.

Let's see, the compelling need to go to Pinehurst, which is hosting the 2024 U.S. Open, is what exactly?   

He checks off cool names he's familiar with, such as Bandon and Chicago Golf Club, without regard for whether those golf course are remotely suitable.  And remote?  How many fans would you guess you could get to Bandon, OR?  He's absolutely correct on the larger issue, that's a place the Tour could improve dramatically, but it takes a lot more thought.  Interestingly, the Tour did actually find an interesting venue this week, but the degree of difficulty is higher than James realizes.

They do try to discuss the larger of issue of what to do with the Fall, but they don't get very far with it.

Fully Committed - I'm just not a fan of this:

Los Angeles Country Club set to host 2032 U.S. Women's Open and 2039 U.S. Open

Geoff explains:

Anyway, this officially commits the U.S. Open to all but nine years between now and 2051, and unofficially through 2035 with the next openings in 2036, 2038 and 2040.

The U.S. Women’s Open is officially taken through 2032, with the next openings coming in 2033, 2036 and 2037.

As a minor quibble, you're hosting this year's U.S. Open at LACC, which I think will prove to be a wonderful venue, but doesn't it make more sense to see that Open before committing to additional events? 

More importantly, they've selected the site for the 2051 Open, which seems rather, well unnecessary.  It strikes this observer as hubris to think one could anticipate the state of game and the demands for a venue so far into the future.  Do tey have a Plan B in case Trump buys one or more of these entities?

They should be planning the next decade or so of events, but this business of committing forty years out is just nuts.

I'll wish you a great weekend and catch you on Monday.