Wednesday, October 19, 2022

Midweek Musings

The plan was to clear out some browser tabs, but then the boys in Ponte Vedra Beach dropped some actual news....

Elevate This - If LIV exists to make golf louder, then the PGA Tour seems to be responding by making golf...well, higher.  Of course, everything remains relative:

The PGA Tour is set to announce a further four tournaments with elevated status for 2023, Golfweek has learned. The additions will bring to 13 the total number of Tour events designated as
“elevated,” meaning the presence of the game’s biggest stars will be guaranteed as they compete for lucrative purses of at least $20 million. The Tour plans to communicate specifics on the events to players later this week.

In August, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan announced the first nine elevated events for the 2022-2023 season. Those were the Players Championship; three FedEx Cup playoff stops (FedEx St. Jude Championship, BMW Championship, Tour Championship); the three invitationals (Genesis, Arnold Palmer, Memorial); the WGC Dell Technologies Match Play; and the Sentry Tournament of Champions.

Don't want to make the trek to Hawaii right after New Years?   Don't fancy August in Memphis?  Suck it up, bucko, they were only kidding when they called you an independent contractor.

I thought they'd milk the drama longer, after all there's sponsors to be extorted:

The four additional tournaments to be elevated this season are the WM Phoenix Open, the RBC Heritage, the Wells Fargo Championship and the Travelers Championship, according to five sources familiar with the discussions. Several sources said the Tour is still in the process of finalizing negotiations with the events. A spokesperson for the PGA Tour declined to confirm the details or to comment on potential announcements.

While the nine previously-announced events will have elevated status every year, it’s expected that the four unveiled this week will rotate between tournaments each season, ensuring that every sponsor interested in paying for elevated status would be guaranteed the best possible field every few years.

All righty then, I guess the announcement will be withheld pending clearance of the checks.  But why exactly would you do business with the Tour?  You signed up with the expectation that you'd compete with other events for your field through amenities, the venue and the other soft factors that go into making a schedule, only to be told that the Tour is now a Pay-to-Play Ponzi scheme.  

You'll no doubt be unconsciously nodding your head and thinking these are worthy events, well, worthyish at the very least.  But it's quite bizarre in a number of ways, and Dylan Dethier does a credible job of identifying the winners and losers:

 

WINNER: SUPER BOWL WEEKEND

The WM Phoenix Open has been a behemoth of a frat party for decades. The 2023 edition was always going to be even more behemoth-y, given the Super Bowl is coming to the same city the same week. Now that it’s going to be an elevated event? Yowza. TPC Scottsdale’s about to be a tough ticket — never mind State Farm Stadium.

LOSER: CANADA

After an invigorating edition of the RBC Canadian Open this summer, there was plenty of positive chatter about the national open hosted by our brothers and sisters to the north. This year? Yikes. The Tour’s trek to Canada comes the week after the Memorial and the week before a back-to-back duo of the U.S. Open and Travelers Championship, both elevated events. Something’s gotta give, and this year that something is a trip to Oakdale Golf and Country Club.

But don’t fret, Canada. There will be a brighter 2024. The Presidents Cup is coming to Montreal, after all. And RBC is sponsoring the Tour’s elevated event at Hilton Head in 2023 — could it take that money north of the border in 2024…?

OK, as long as you promise that the scene in the upper-right hand quadrant is not repeated....

Most folks won't care about the diminishment of the Canadian Open, but isn't RBC expecting all its sponsored players to show up at its flagship event (which just happens to be their national open)?

The Texas guys get pimped pretty good:

LOSER: TEXAS

The Lone Star State isn’t getting shut out of the elevated events; the WGC-Match Play in Austin remains one of the most fun tournaments on the calendar. But the rest of its events are in a bit of a pickle. The Houston Open’s future is uncertain after this fall. The Valero Texas Open sits the week before the Masters-RBC back-to-back stretch. And playing both DFW-area events in the spring (Byron Nelson and Colonial) would require playing five events in a row (and seven of eight, including the U.S. Open-Travelers stretch). Jordan Spieth contemplated that dilemma on Tuesday:

“You know, if that’s the case, then that does put me and a few other people like Scottie, Zalatoris, some guys who like playing both the Dallas events in a situation where you’re looking at five in a row, which I’ve done once. I don’t particularly like doing more than four in a row, but I love my hometown events.”

Your humble blogger believes that folks think they know what they want, but are perhaps not accounting for all the factors involved.  This is a perfect example, where we fail to incorporate the importance of  home games.  Heck, I thought the Byron Nelson would die after its namesake did so, but it was sustained at least in part due to the loyalty of the Texas boys.  Guess what, if you wanted to kill those two events, this is how you'd do it.

No surprise then that I don't really agree here:

WINNER: FANS

It’s fun to pick through the minutiae, and there obviously is some collateral damage, but big-picture this is a really positive development for PGA Tour fans. Finally we have some clarity around which events *really* matter and we know when all the biggest names are going to show up. That’s a net gain; the big events will feel bigger, the fall “offseason” will get us revved up for the start of the next year and we’ll have a healthier balance of big-time golf in our lives. There will still be golf, like, every week, but it’ll be easier to make sense of it all.

In attempting to strengthen some weeks, you've inevitably weakened others, so it seems more of a push than a win.  Admittedly, the core problem is that there are simply way too many events, but at least wait until you see the fields at the non-elevated events before crowing.  

But here's where it goes off the tracks badly:

LOSER: POST-MAJOR WEEKS

I’ll be clear on this one: I hate the idea of having elevated events the week after a major. Hate it. If I was in charge, the Tour wouldn’t have any PGA Tour events the week after a major, much less an elevated event where you get the exact same group of fellas together. But this year we’ll do that twice, first from the Masters to the RBC Heritage (which at least makes geographic sense)

I cut Dylan's thought unceremoniously, because what comes next is beyond parody.  But even Harbor Town is profoundly silly.  It has always worked as a palate-cleanser after the Masters.  A dramatically different kind of venue, it offered a suitably low key week for those that wanted it.

While that one works, kinda, get a load of what Jay is making the lads do:

and then from the U.S. Open in Los Angeles to the Travelers in Connecticut (which makes less geographic sense).

Blergh. Let the gravity of what you’ve just done at the majors soak in! Every other sport builds up to its biggest competitions and then takes a break immediately thereafter. You’re not likely to see NFL teams suiting up the week after the Super Bowl, after all. I’d much prefer if there was a way to work in the elevated events the week before majors, to serve as a sort of tune-up. Otherwise we’re just resigning ourselves to weeks of anti-climax and this feels more like sponsor service than the best possible schedule for the Tour.

Yeah, I know, that Super Bowl reference is quite the category error, especially since confusing golf with football is pretty mush how we got the incoherent FedEx Cup in the first place.    

Imagine, you're in the final group on Sunday at LACC, and suffer a heartbreaking loss on the last hole.... You take a quick shower and ...get on a plane for Hartford?  I'll predict that the Tour sets a record for injury withdrawals in Hartford, so we got that going for us.

Of course, the next two Opens are at Pinehurst and Oakmont.  Wouldn't either have been the better year to elevate Hartford?

One last point that Dylan captures relates to that great strategic alliance, which got coal in their stocking.  Jay's Achilles heel might well prove to be headquartered at Wentworth:

LOSER: THE STRATEGIC ALLIANCE (FOR NOW)

Here’s hoping a sizable contingent still shows up to play the Genesis Scottish Open this coming year despite its lack of elevated status. And here’s hoping the Tour allows its cross-tour members (like Jon Rahm or Rory McIlroy) to count their DP World Tour starts towards their required three “non-elevated” starts on the PGA Tour. That would seem like an easy and logical nod to the Tour’s strategic partners across the pond. For now, though, the Euro Tour doesn’t seem overly present in the Tour’s immediate plans.

But I think “for now” is an important caveat here.

And Dylan has barely touched on the issue raised by Jon Rahm, that it's simply too much golf being demanded of those who also belong to the Euro Tour.

Even one of the "winners" can see where this leads:

In a story published this week by the Associated Press, the all-time major winner questioned the Tour’s recent move to give 12 events more lofty status, with purses between $15 million and $20 million, and the promise of having the circuit’s “top players.” Nicklaus’ concern centered on the Tour’s other tournaments.

“I’m not sure what to make of it yet,” Nicklaus told the Associated Press. “I think the Tour was going to get there, but the LIV thing pushed them. That’s pretty obvious. What it’s done is made the PGA Tour almost two tiers. All of a sudden the other tournaments become feeders.”

Jack is wrong only in the sense that it's always been thus, a few years back the divide was where Tiger played and where he didn't.  It's just that, with players free to make their own schedules, sponsors could market their events and attempt to draw enough talent to maintain interest.  Now the Tour is basically prohibiting elite players from playing in, say those Texas events, merely by requiring them to play in so many other places.  

I don't see anything good in this, especially since the vast majority of the top players were already participating in most of those elevated events.  All this does is calcify the status of the non-elevated events, and I just don't see why you'd want to play Jay's game.  

The Weekend - felt a little remorse at not blogging the actual golf, which was more interesting than a typical mid-October weekend delivers.  First, the battle of the has-beens (as per the Tour Confidential panel):

Keegan Bradley made a long birdie putt on the 71st hole to win the Zozo Championship on Sunday in Japan, beating Rickie Fowler and Andrew Putnam by one. It was Bradley’s fifth career PGA Tour victory and first since 2018. In the process he beat Fowler, the second- and third-round leader, who sits at five career victories and hasn’t had one since 2019. It was an emotional win for Bradley but another close call for Fowler. Who needed this victory more?

Berhow: Neither of their bank accounts really needed this latest check, and kudos to Keegan for pulling this off — you could see how much it meant to him afterward — but I think it would have been bigger for Rickie. He hasn’t played as well as Keegan the last few years and has staked his named to the PGA Tour in the battle vs. LIV. (Remember, Fowler was on that jet with Tiger that went to Hartford for that rallying cry.) Fowler’s still a huge name in the golf world and would have secured a pretty substantial contract to go to LIV, and winning on Tour now would have helped validate his decision. Regardless it was a good week for Rickie, who has turned in top 10s in two of his three starts this season. One last thing about Fowler — he’s long been criticized for having just five career Tour wins, but I was shocked today when I realized he’s had 15 (!) runner-up finishes. Man, coulda would shoulda, but turn a few of those into Ws and look at what it does for Fowler’s career.

Zak: Rickie needed the win more. Their droughts were virtually the same, but Rickie had become an average performer. Bradley was still elite tee-to-green, a la Adam Scott, just waiting for a great putting week. Fowler’s game has shown no elite aspects the last two years, and even if that might start changing with Butch Harmon back in tow, Fowler has plenty to prove.

I was surprised by how many people cared about an event in Japan in October, a reflection of the good will people have for Rickie.  Surprising, because I'm old enough to remember the days of Orange Man Bad....But if we're looking for a guy that could benefit from not taking the blood money, Rickie is well positioned there.

I know it's the round bellies, but respect is due:

There’s shooting your age, then there’s what Fred Couples did on Sunday.

The 63-year-old Couples finished with seven-straight birdies to beat his age by three and lap the field at the SAS Championship by six for his 14th PGA Tour Champions victory and first since 2017.

Couples career-low 60 featured 12 birdies, with the run of seven-in-a-row coming on the final seven holes of the par-72 Prestonwood Country Club. He put it on the par-5 17th in two, giving him a chance for a 59. He also had a run of five-straight birdies on the front nine.

“It’s easy to say because we’re standing here, but I think it’s the best round I’ve ever played,” Couples said. “I hit a few loose shots, got away from them, but I made so many putts. I don’t know what other rounds I’ve ever shot on the Champions Tour that are close to 60, so this would probably be my best round and lowest score by far.

Wow!  I don't care if it's mini-golf, it's just crazy low.

This isn't making our life any easier, but this one could get tricky:

Here's the background:

In June, Otaegui played in the inaugural LIV Golf Invitational in London, finishing tied for sixth, and made subsequent starts in Portland and Boston. After his initial LIV appearance, the DP
World Tour suspended Otaegui and the other tour members who competed on the rival tour for three events and fined them £100,000. Otaegui subsequently appealed those penalties to an arbiter, who quickly stayed the suspension.

With a full hearing scheduled in the U.K. for February to decide whether the DP World Tour can prohibit defectors from playing in its events, LIV golfers are still allowed to enter tour events. Otaegui was making his ninth start in a DP World event since June.

You see the range of issues for Jay?  In a perhaps far-fetched scenario, who's to say that a court would similarly reinstate Henrik Stenson's captaincy?

There are no shortage of Euro players that want Keith Pelley to accept a Saudi bailout, as they think their tour is being dissed by the evil Americans.  They might have a pint, although they seem to ignore the weakened state of the Euro Tour in their calculations.  Any thoughts as to what happens to the Ryder Cup under such a scenario?

More realistically (although I don't consider that farfetched in the slightest), what if Keith Pelley is permanently enjoined from suspending the LIV defectors?  Doesn't that mean that they can qualify for the Euro Ryder Cup team?  Stay tuned.

Today On Planet Phil - The Tour Confidential panel had some thoughts on Phil's Saudi bloviations and, while they're late and not especially profound, it makes for low-impact blogging:

Phil Mickelson, for the first time in what seemed like a very long time, riffed on a variety of
topics during his pre-tournament presser at LIV Golf’s Jeddah event, including his decision to join LIV. “I see LIV Golf trending upwards, I see the PGA Tour trending downwards, and I love the side that I’m on,” Mickelson said. Mickelson, of course, is biased, but is there any truth to his answer?

Zephyr Melton: Is LIV trending up? Yes. With each successful tournament and big-name star they sign, they gain even more momentum. But is the Tour trending down? Hardly. With the improvements they’re making to the schedule, I’d argue it’s on the upswing, too.

Josh Berhow: LIV can’t really begin to attract more fans until it gets a TV deal, and there’s obviously still confusion regarding when that’s going to happen. YouTube streams aren’t going to cut it. I don’t think the PGA Tour is in a bad place, though. They lost some big names but how many of them were playing at a high level lately? Just a few. It will be interesting to see how the Tour’s elevated events shake out in 2023. Will they feel bigger to the average fan?

Sean Zak: It’s campaign season folks! Mickelson is doing his best modern politicking — explaining things away quickly and simply when the truth is just far more complex. The PGA Tour is not trending downwards. Sorry, Phil.

I'm curious as to why Zephyr thinks LIV is trending up although perhaps that's a function of your start date.  I would say that since the Cam Smith/Joaquin Niemann signings it's been a rough go for the radicals, as no one seems to have much cared for their Bangkok and Saudi events.

More importantly, they still seem nowhere as far as a U.S. TV contract is concerned:

Only five?  Sounds low by a lot....

1. The ratings are down vs. earlier LIV events.

Ratings prognostication is a problem typically reserved for those with advertisers they’re scared of underwhelming, but for LIV Golf, it’s actually bigger than that. Ratings for the upstart tour have sagged significantly since relatively stronger performances at LIV Boston, Chicago and Bedminster.

After landing audiences of greater than 600,000 viewers for the final rounds of those three events, both of LIV’s international events (in Bangkok and Jeddah) struggled to reach 300,000 viewers, seeing declines of more than 50 percent off the summer’s high watermark. At LIV Bangkok, things were worse in terms of average audience, which was one-third the size of LIV Chicago and one-fifth the size of LIV Boston.

Of course, it should be noted that LIV Bangkok was contested in the middle of the night for many Americans, while LIV Jeddah was played in the early morning. Still, these dropoffs suggest that YouTube viewers — many of them likely Americans — aren’t following the league as it shifts to different timezones; a concern for broadcast partners who will find themselves at the mercy of LIV’s tournament schedule.

There is that, though there's a bigger issue left on the cutting room floor.   just like the actual tourneys sounded so much better on paper, the same applies to their broadcasts.  Nobody will tune in, because golf kinda sucks, boys.

Even if they got Masters-level ratings for every broadcast, they'd still lay a huge egg.

Last week was also the first time Mickelson’s been in Saudi Arabia since controversial comments he made last year led to him taking a leave of absence. There was a lot to unpack about Mickelson’s few minutes from the media, but what was your biggest takeaway from the most candid version of Phil we’ve seen for quite some time?

Melton: His claim that he “never did an interview with Alan Shipnuck” was a curious one considering he issued an apology after the fact back in the spring. I’d wager his attempt at revisionist history is likely a strategy we’ll see from many LIVers in the future.

Berhow: It sounds like his comments about speaking with Alan (or not speaking with him) were more related to it not being an “interview” since Phil still claims it was off the record. (Shipnuck says otherwise.) That said the guy was in a tricky spot, back in Saudi Arabia and having to touch on that topic. But I digress. I think the Phil we saw in that pre-tournament presser proved he’s settling in a little bit. He had to keep a low profile after his comments from February made worldwide news but now he’s getting a little more comfortable and letting it fly. How much of it is truthful and how much of it is a spin? That’s up to interpretation.

Zak: My biggest takeaway is I’d like Mickelson to step forward with some facts, context and nuance next time he wants to go deep. His public discussion of media rights in January? Littered with half-truths, as reported by GOLF.com’s James Colgan. His “I never did an interview with Alan Shipnuck” line this week reeked of Aaron Rodgers’ deceitful immunized/vaccinated storyline from last fall. For years, the treasure of Mickelson in front of a mic was not knowing what he’s going to say. Now he feels predictable and deceptive. It’s not a great look.

How do you know Phil is lying?  Relitigating that Shipnuck conversation while on Saudi soil just seems like an unforced error, but he's the FIGJAM and we're not.

But, did someone mention Alan Shipnuck?  because I've been trying to sort through my mixed feelings about him, mostly thinking that he's gone awfully easy on both Phil and LIV.  We've got two bits from Alan to mull, the second being a bit of a bombshell I think.

First, there's an Ask Alan that I ignored and is now mostly dated, though this Q&A is worth a moment:

If rumored LIV changes — 72 holes, a cut, a qualifier, etc. — come to fruition, is this another Monahan mistake? He’s forcing their hand but may end up giving them more legitimacy long-term with a widely accepted format that’s more difficult to ridicule. Thoughts? @kylelabat

We can blame Jay Monahan for a lot of things, but this is a bridge too far. LIV has said from the beginning that this year is a beta test and things will evolve. With the OWGR declining to bend the knee, it has become obvious that LIV will have to try harder to meet the established criteria. Going to 72 holes, having a cut and a more attainable qualifying system are the keys, and that template was established by the World Ranking bylaws, not Monahan.

Excuse me, is there a rumor of LIV changing to 72 holes?  Because that would be quite the admission against interest, no?  Not to mention the amusement to be ha at their name....

Jay is reaping the whirlwind of some bad decisions for sure, most notably awarding OWGR points to Tiger's hit-and-giggle event.  The strongest argument against the LIV events receiving OWGR points is the field size, not that there aren't other issues in their structure.  To me, a bigger issue that hasn't been focused on is that they'll be language in some of those contracts guaranteeing the player a spot in the field, thereby limiting the ability of other players to qualify in.  We'll likely find that Lee Westwood is guaranteed his spot until 2028, or some such nonsense.

Lastly, and it would be hard to come up with a better item on which to exit, than this thunderbolt from Shipnuck:

And so you're offering fools like myself who purchased your book a refund?

Seriously, what the f**k does this mean?  If he knows it to be true, why is not n his biography of the man?  And why is telling us this? Is it not an admission of malpractice?  

Does he think he can say that out loud and not come across with the goods?

I don't think you'll see me tomorrow, but we'll catch up on it all on Friday.

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