Monday, October 3, 2022

Weekend Wrap

Yeah, we'll wrap it in the most desultory of fashion, as no golf was played and little was watched.  I might have liked to catch more of that dreadful weather day at the Dunhill on Friday, but otherwise not much was on offer.

Weekend Notes - Just a few thoughts, mostly from Geoff's newsletter, including this on the long-hitting Kiwi that won at the Dunhill, including his ties to Kiwi sports:

  • No one saw this coming. Ranked 47th in the world, Fox’s last three events were awful: MC, WD, MC. Earlier this summer, the New Zealander posted 2nd’s in the Irish and Dutch Opens and 3rd in the BMW International to go with a February win in the Ras Al Khaimah Classic. 

Rugby and cricket don't move the needle here, but in the vestiges of the British Empire, they're yuuuge.

Not only was Fox a mildly surprising snub at Quail Hollow, but so was another of yesterday's winners:

He used a Presidents Cup snub as motivation. Even though Fox was ranked higher than all but one of Trevor Immelman’s selections and plays a power game ideal for bloated Quail Hollow, Fox was passed over for Taylor Pendrith. (Another bypassed player, Canada’s Mackenzie Hughes, won Sunday’s PGA Tour’s Sanderson Farms.)

Neither rises to the level of obvious mistake, especially since Pendrith played so well, but it also speaks to the depth among the International team, even after the LIV defections.

And since this is how we count nowadays...

LIVsters Failed To Collect Many OWGR Points. There were T10’s by Peter Uihlein and Louis Oosthuizen along with a T56 by Richard Bland. The six other LIV defectors all remained in their 54-hole comfort zone and were (kindly) dismissed prior to the Dunhill’s final round. With his finish, Uihlein should climb back into the world top 350 while the LIV cut-missers could get to Bangkok early and enjoy the glorious weather.

 Hope they can cover their travel expenses...

Geoff has this from Kyle Porter, and I'll confess to being quite unclear as to what point he thinks he's making:

Like at this year's Masters, Rory played well on Sunday and grabbed one of those backdoor top tens that have become his signature move.  But, as ever with Rosy since 2014, he seems to only play well on those Sundays when it's too late.  But on that Sunday when he awoke with a share of the 54-hole lead?  Yeah, you know the rest...

That pretty much guts me as far as pretending to care about the weekend events, so shall we catch up on some LIV nonsense?

I Saw It On (Cable) TV - The world according to Greg Norman:

Just two weeks ago, the CEO of LIV, Greg Norman, said he was fielding intense interest from media companies eager to broadcast LIV tournaments.

“We’re talking to four different networks, and live conversations where offers are being put on the table,” he told ESPN. “They can see what we’re delivering.”

He's being truthful for once, at least in that bit about seeing what's being delivered.  But, alas, reality gets time for a rebuttal:

A well-placed industry executive says LIV struck out with approaches to multiple broadcasters,
including NBC, CBS, Disney, Apple and Amazon, and that Fox Sports got involved only at the behest of Lachlan Murdoch, the executive chairman and CEO of Fox Corp. Last month, Sports Business Journal reported that Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of Donald Trump, had been calling broadcasters trying to generate interest in a LIV television package. In 2021, Kushner’s private equity firm, Affinity Partners, secured $2 billion in funding from the Saudi Public Investment Fund.

“There were people at Fox who wanted nothing to do with this,” the source said. “They were forced to do it.”

LIV requested a rights fee for year two of any deal and a guaranteed time slot on network television but both proposals were rejected by Fox, according to a source familiar with the specifics of the conversations. It is believed Fox has offered to re-evaluate network placement at a later date. LIV will also be responsible for the production of its tournament broadcasts and for selling commercial sponsorships during its time slots, two tasks that would usually fall to a broadcast partner.

“Any advertiser who touches this will get blasted,” a longtime sports TV executive said. “It’s a weak product but it’s a tainted product on top of that.”

This is an Eamon Lynch piece, whish he ledes by noting that this is the basis on which the LPGA secures many of its own broadcasts, but being all-square with those behind the hijab isn't exactly what MBS had in mind when he committed $2 billion large.

And, just to be clear, this is Fox Sports cable channel, not the flagship Fox network, and they are merely selling LIV the time.  But this bit will perhaps confirm the prescience of those shotgun starts:

Again, a time buy is basically just that, an organization buying a block of time on a network, say two or three hours. The organization then has the right to fill that block of time – within reason of course – with its own programming. The organization generally makes its money back by selling advertising during the period. A time buy gets a golf event on the air, but it also causes some problems if the golf goes beyond the time bought. That’s why you often see LPGA events cut off when there is still golf being played.

Does it rain on LIV events?  Not hard to see the issues coming, no?

That last bit comes from this Golfweek thumbsucker:

 More accessible?  Sure, that's a low enough bar for them to shimmy over....  More acceptable?  They're still bonecutters, so I'll go with "No" here.  Will anyone watch?  barely anyone watches the PGA Tour, so seems a silly thought, no?

The Tour Confidential Panel devotes a question to this subject, but not sure why they bothered:

2. According to a report from Golfweek, LIV Golf is nearing an unconventional deal to pay Fox Sports to air its tournaments on FS1. LIV Golf, however, refuted the report, saying it was “incomplete and inaccurate” and added that LIV is actually ahead of schedule in its quest to lock-in broadcast rights. Considering everything, what are the chances golf fans see LIV Golf outside of YouTube for its 2023 schedule?

Sens: My goldfish could land a TV deal for 2023 if it had enough money to toss around. I’d be willing to wager heavily that LIV gets one. The question is what kind of deal. It would be
interesting to know more about the back-room calculus involved — if you land a deal, but it’s a bottom-of-the-barrel kind of deal that has a whiff of desperation to it, is that worse than not getting a deal at all?

Colgan: The chances are 100 percent. But if LIV can’t find someone willing to pay for their TV rights in *this* market, it should be a tremendous warning sign about their long-term prospects. Networks/streamers have spent some $50 billion (with a B!) on sports rights in the past five years. If LIV can’t get ANYTHING, how can they earnestly expect to be breathing in five years?

Zak: James has been covering this beat well for GOLF.com. I can’t add any expertise beyond his!

Forgive me, but I can't get the image of Greg Norman negotiating with Fox out of my mind, given their rich history together.  Even with the political influence brought to bear, seem sit was pretty much always going to be, "Greg, this time you write us the check."

Alan Shipnuck had this take on it all:

They're not lining up at the door to pay to broadcast Talor Gooch and Pat Perez?  I mean, really, who could have seen that coming?

The Team Stuff - OK, I guess I finally have to read this:

Some match play, some stroke play and a $50M purse: LIV Golf announces format for upcoming Team Championship in Miami

OK, so now that I've read it, it sounds really weird, and it's a bit unclear where the match-play comes in:

Friday, October 28 –

  • QuarterfinalsTeams seeded one-four will receive a bye.
  • Teams seeded five-12 will compete in head-to-head match-play competitions.
  • Highest-ranked teams select their opponents.
  • All 32 players amongst the eight teams will compete in a shotgun start.
  • For each head-to-head team match-up, three matches will take place: two singles matches and one alternate-shot (foursomes) match.

I assume those matches in the last bullet are the extent of the match-play, although aren't these four-man teams?

To this observer the only bit that I really like is the higher ranked teams selecting their opponent, which could prove amusing and/or confrontational.

But, just to avoid any risk of this actually being interesting, they dispense with the interesting formats early in the week, and Sunday is just more mind0numbing stroke play:

Sunday, October 30 – Team Championship

  • The four winning teams will compete in a shotgun-start round of stroke play.
  • All 16 players will compete in twosomes with team captains playing together.
  • All four scores count towards the team’s score.
  • At the end of Sunday’s round, the squad with the lowest team score is the LIV Golf Invitational Series Team champion.

Not even smart enough to use a team match-play format once they're down to four teams.  Back to the TC gang:

1. LIV Golf finally revealed its team championship format, with a mix of stroke play, match play and alternate shot, for a share of $50 million. What are your thoughts on the format, and will it be enough to help bring attention to the start-up league?

Josh Sens: Match play and, especially, alt-shot are great breaks from the same old, and LIV is
smart to adopt them. But ultimately, the league is up against the same challenge faced by all of professional golf — there’s a relatively small number of players who really move the needle. If those players aren’t in the mix and the event itself has no real weight of its own, the competitors could be playing blindfolded while doing handstands and the viewing public is mostly going to respond with a collective shrug. That’s my way of saying that Pat Perez and Charles Howell playing alternate shot is more interesting than Pat Perez and Charles Howell playing stroke play. But it’s still not THAT interesting. As for the big purses, I think thatas;ldakfsj … sorry. Nodded off at the keyboard.

James Colgan: LOL, Sens. I think it was a smart, great move by LIV to adopt some of golf’s criminally underused team-play traditions. I don’t, however, think those team-play traditions will make me (or anyone, really) care about a competition in which the only thing at stake is a boatload of cash. The outlying political implications of the event would only seem to depress broad interest further.

Sean Zak: I think the competition will be a ton of fun. At least that is until it’s Charl Schwartzel and Branden Grace going against Cameron Tringale and Bernd Wiesberger for the decisive match. That doesn’t do much of anything for me. Could we get DJ’s 4 Aces against Cam Smith and Marc Leishman? Perhaps! I’d tune in for it.

At least he knows the name of DJ's team, though he's quite obviously unwilling to even do the work of Googling the Aussie's team name....  But when you say, "Tune in", how exactly does one do that?

LG&M, Continued -  The TC gang had this on the legal maneuvering:

3. Perhaps the biggest lawsuit in the history of the PGA Tour will wage on without Phil Mickelson’s involvement. Mickelson and three others asked to be dismissed as plaintiffs in LIV Golf’s lawsuit against the PGA Tour. What does it say or mean that Mickelson is no longer a part of it?

Sens: Like my former law school classmate, Saul Goodman from the University of American Samoa, I do not specialize in this area of jurisprudence. But credible attorneys I’ve talked to tell me this will shield Mickelson from quite a bit of discovery. He could still be deposed, but the scrutiny wouldn’t be as intense — if there are skeletons in that closet, they’d be less likely to be exposed. But I also take this as a measure of Mickelson’s confidence in the case itself. How does a guy who got paid so many millions to join LIV argue that he has suffered ‘irreparable harm’ — the legal standard that the plaintiffs will have to meet? It’s a tough case to make. Not great PR for him to be part of this, either.

Colgan: I think the crumbling lawsuit — along with Phil’s why-can’t-we-be-friends rhetoric — shows LIV’s lawyers have serious doubts about their case against the PGA Tour. If those suspensions stand, it makes the case for LIV all that much more difficult.

Zak: I found the sequence particularly interesting. The week where both sides are hammering out the details of discovery, Mickelson (who no doubt has the most to lose) bails. Was he simply an honorary plaintiff for name’s sake? I think so. What remains is bizarre. Bryson’s team refused to respond to my question on if he intends to remain. I could see it becoming strictly LIV Golf as the remaining plaintiff, which is sort of how this whole thing has been moving toward this entire time.

I'll get to the rhetoric in a bit, but this lawsuit has always been a hail Mary, resembling nothing so much as the USFL v. the NFL.  The good news for Mr. Norman, et. al., is that the USFL won.... 

But the fact that dumb golf writers understand Phil's need to avoid placing his hand on a bible tells us most of what we need to know.  If he's no longer a party to the lawsuit, there's a logic in assuming that his testimony might be limited....But the Tour's counter-suit for tortious interference in its business will have Phil hogging the spotlight yet again, so I'm thinking that we'll still have some fun ahead of us and that our opinion of Phil will not improve the more we see.

Kids Say The Darndest Things - Folks are talking, and some of them really should know better.  But most notable was this from the Commish:

In the ESPN interview — which you can and should read in full here — Monahan was asked this:

“Some players have said that the Tour and LIV need to come together. What is your opinion?”

“Well, I think words and actions are important,” Monahan said in the interview. “I think it’s impractical when you look at the fact that certain players have sued the PGA Tour, their employer has sued the PGA Tour. It’s not in the cards. It hasn’t been in the cards, and it’s not in the cards. I think we’ve been pretty consistent on that front.”

ESPN’s Mark Schlabach then asked: Can the PGA Tour and LIV Golf coexist?

“I’d provide the same answer,” Monahan said in the interview. “The answer to that is they’ve gone down their path and I think we have been pretty consistent that we’re going down ours, and I don’t see that happening. Haven’t, and I don’t.”

In the immortal words of Dan Hicks, "Expect anything different?"

This is basically the question your humble blogger gets most often, to which I typically respond, "What kind of do you see happening?"  because the Saudis (and, to some extent the Brits before them, created this kind of moment:


The Saudis came and told Jay that they were going to grab the tope 48 player sin the world and compel them to play in 14-15 events around the world, to which Jay is to respond how?  He is not going to allow Greg to drink his milkshake, and it's a bit surprising that his reaction seems to take Norman by surprise.

Given the current state of play, why should he be open to a deal?  Oh sure, there's been extensive damage to the PGA Tour's ecosystem, and the defensive measures taken will likely only make the Tour a drearier place going forward.  But, most importantly, what has LIV built?  Nothing that is remotely sustainable in your humble blogger's opinion.  Nobody will tune in to watch that group of players, so unless we're thinking that Rahm, Cantlay and others are about to bolt, isn't it true that Jay ultimately wins this stalemate.

I at least understand Phil's desire to sue for peace:

"The PGA Tour, for the last 20 or 30 years have had all the best players in the world. That will never be the case again. LIV Golf is here to stay," Mickelson said after carding 2-under 70 in the opening round of the LIV event in Chicago on Friday.

"The best solution is for us to come together. I think that the world of professional golf has a need for the old historical 'history of the game' product that the PGA Tour provides. I think that LIV provides a really cool, updated feel that is attracting a lot of younger crowds.

What do you mean by "a lot"?  

What puzzles me terribly are the mixed signals coming from Rory:

“I’ve always said I think there is a time and a place where everyone that’s involved here should sit down and try to work together,” McIlroy said Wednesday at the DP World Tour’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. “It’s very hard for that to happen right now when there’s two lawsuits going on.”

“But look, I don’t want a fractured game. I never have. You look at some other sports and what’s happened and the game of golf is ripping itself apart right now and that’s no good for anyone,” McIlroy continued. “It’s no good for the guys on, you know, this side or the sort of traditional system and it’s no good for the guys on the other side, either. It’s no good for anyone. There is a time and a place for it. I just think right now, with where everything is, it’s probably not the right time.”

“But saying that, I don’t think we can let it go too much longer,” he added. “So I’m all for everyone sitting around the table and trying to figure something out for sure.”

I would have expected Jay and Rory to be reading from the same script at this point.  I know Rory craves a kumbaya moment, but what deal does he think can be struck?

I can't help but believe that this will be looked back on as a major over-reach by the Saudis.  I can only compare it to the business plan for CNN Plus, wherein a network struggling to get one million people to tune into their free content convinced itself that fifteen million viewers would pay for that which they wouldn't watch for free.

In this case, the Saudis seem to have believed that they could buy the top forty-eight players in the world, without a reaction from the PGA or Euro Tours.  I don't think they've gotten much for their $2 billion, except of  course to put the Jamal Kashoggi murder on an endless loop on Golf Channel.  They can continue to write checks to Pat Perez and Talor Gooch for as long as they want, but that slate of fifteen 2023 tourneys looks set to be the equivalent of the proverbial tree falling in the forest.

I've got some more varied items teed up for tomorrow, but I'll leave you here for now.

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