I had teased a couple of items yesterday, and we'll lede with Geoff's cri du cœur about his fellow ink-stained wretches.
Tree, Forest - I'm not saying he's all wrong, but self-inflicted for sure:
Acquisition overspending, rights fees, Twitter's troubles and less investment will threaten pro golf's legitimacy even as New Media makes huge strides.
OK, as an immediate hot take, I'll guess that Geoff might be a tad too close for much perspective, because this is pretty much a slow-motion train wreck. But, not only has this been unfolding over a time-frame measured in decades, and looks far better through those sepia-tinged lenses than it was at its peak.
None will begrudge him his ripped form the headlines lede:
Let’s get to the good news first.Professional golf is 100% free of major crypto sponsorships. Finally, the royal and ancient game is rewarded for being five years behind the rest of society!The closest golf will get to the crypto meltdown may be down in the Bahamas, where boy-genius-turned-exiled former savant Sam Bankman-Fried and roommates were watching their fortunes vanish from an Albany penthouse. Next month, Tiger Woods and friends will be playing the Hero World Challenge a short cart ride down Ernie’s Way. And we know there will be a penthouse condo available soon. Although based on Bankman-Fried’s adorable-until-it-wasn’t schlubbiness, a hotel might be wiser.
So, we're in better shape than the Miami Heat? Noted, but there's yet more good news:
More positive news: 2022 saw smaller outlets leaning heavily on Twitter and YouTube became the most engaging voices in the game. While corporate-owned outlets turned less interesting or into full pay-for-play operations, the “content creators” with a strong social media presence worked hard to cover a fascinating year on and off the course. Just look at the last couple of weeks where No Laying Up put out three high-quality travelogue pieces (here, here, here), The Fried Egg launched a series about a greenkeeping internship at Sand Hills, and Fire Pit Collective’s Ryan French broke a significant story about a fishy Q-School free-pass given to Alex Fitzpatrick.
Yeah, the three biggies, Golf.com, Golf Digest and Golfweek have veered dangerously close to infomercial territory, with only the latter maintaining any sense of independent thought (and that might be illusory due to the presence of Eamon Lynch's strong voice). Golf Magazine and Golf Digest are amusing their visitors by trying to steer them to paid subscriptions, which seems to have channeled all the excitement of, well, CNN+.
So, what's troubling you, Geoff?
The corporate golf media ecosystem has been ravaged by cuts. The fractured state of print and television means coverage is about to get thinner, less substantive, and more scattershot. In some cases the cuts are due to massive takeover debt or exorbitant rights fees to service. And increasingly at the expense of quality coverage or bells-and-whistles fans had grown accustomed to. Only CBS and its partner on majors, ESPN, has invested in new efforts to improve and deliver the best product they can. But even those outfits have cut back on storytelling features in favor of showing more shots. For a sport desperate to be less niche and staid but more popular, the quality culling will only accelerate the sense we’re watching an exhibition if scrutiny, storytelling and the occasional tough question is only handled by smaller operations.
About to? Next January this blog will celebrate its ninth blogiversary (yeah, I didn't make that up), and this has been a recurring theme at least since then.
But Geoff, do we really want to be criticizing CBS for showing golf shots? I couldn't begin to guess how many times we've criticized that very network for their treacly diversions away from showing actual golf action, and we've had the media watchers actually counting how few shots we're actually shown.
True to his SoCal roots, I'm sure the whole issue with golf media can be laid at the foot of Elon Musk:
Much of the print and digital side mess was set in motion long ago when Facebook and Google grabbed stories, made them their own, and siphoned advertising away. Then Twitter became a place for news and analysis without much revenue generated, but it did at least provide a communal element for fans that has a massive impact on viewership and engagement. Authentic voices hang out there and send fans to the increasingly outstanding work replacing the depleted corporate-owned operations. Major organizations increasingly make announcements on Twitter first. But the future there looks grim if Musk remains unhinged and unsure how to generate the necessary revenue. Consider the other media news late last week and the pro game ramifications.
Oh yeah, nothing wrong with Twitter until Elon showed up....
More clouds on the horizon, apparently:
GolfTV (And Golf Digest?) - International subscribers of GolfTV learned on Friday that the streaming service will be shuttered by Warner Bros. Discovery. The hoped-for “golf Netflix” was started in 2019 and will continue to pay the PGA Tour for eight more years as part of a 12-year, $2 billion deal to stream coverage in non-U.S. markets. A discombobulated approach on Discovery+, soon to be renamed and merged with HBO Max, looms. It’s hard to imagine much in the way of significant savings for WBD in laying off a few people while making an annual rights fee payment of $167 million. Still unclear is the status of Golf Digest, purchased by Discovery to complement GolfTV. One thing we can probably surmise with the cuts: increased spending hardly seems likely now that Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has bigger self-inflicted problems to deal with. But don’t worry about his plight. He’s hideously overpaid.
OK, but what does "Golf Netflix" mean? Is Zaslav Saudi? Because he seems to have over-looked a key factor, to wit, nobody watches golf. But, Geoff, Zaslav might be hideously overpaid, but he's still a piker in that regard compared to our Phil....
Comcast And Golf Channel - The corporation just took an $8 billion write down on its Sky acquisition and has already been starving profitable businesses like Golf Channel, all to pay off debt and push viewers to a wildly unprofitable streaming model that is showing no sign of catching linear television in ease-of-use or eyeballs reached. They’re already warning of a brutal fourth quarter. We learned last week from Golfweek’s Adam Woodward that NBC is laying off announcers Roger Maltbie and Gary Koch, two stalwarts who’ve been there since 1992 and 1997 respectively. Their professionalism was noted by Executive Producer Molly Solomon. And both men were careful not to say anything too revealing about their non-renewals to SI. But I will! This was either a cost-cutting or age-inspired move. Or some combination of both. This had nothing to do with improving the quality of NBC’s coverage or doing right by viewers and “partners.” Cutting Koch and Maltbie’s salaries will never compensate for expensive acquisitions or fend off competitors offering lower-priced fixed wireless access. The NBC golf audience will not get younger, nor will the product or corporate karma improve when the company is pushing out two veterans of major championship coverage. (Subscribers to The Quad overwhelmingly did not approve of the move in the first “Chat” sent out.) Given how Augusta National and The Masters set such a strong broadcasting standard, it’s fair to ask what NBC’s partners at the USGA, R&A, PGA Tour, LPGA Tour are thinking as these cuts increasingly weaken coverage of their championships? They’ve remained quiet publicly, though Mike Whan did promise to look into NBC’s excessive commercial inventory during a rough U.S. Open.
Did any of that actually stick to the wall? Was he this unhinged when Peter Kostis and Gary McCord were put out to pasture? I say that actually agreeing on his point, but a little overwrought methinks.
I think it's likely that NBC is stupidly chasing that younger demo, and we've seen this movie fail repeatedly, but I for one get far more upset over the USGA changing the language of our game than over NBC talking heads.
As for streaming, am I the only one that's noticed how badly it sucks. I couldn't even watch a baseball or football gam eon Amazon, I hated the jumpy picture quality so much. And what, exactly, is wrong with linear TV for golf? Especially since the kids can get it on their phones...
Geoff's got one last broadside at Elon:
Twitter - The social media site may collapse if engineers are not there to stop the inevitable onslaught of bugs, hacks and other back-end boondoggles caused by Elon Musk’s irrational takeover. If a meltdown does not crash the site, the financials will. Musk has quickly taken a former $5 billion business to almost nothing in a week, while needing to pay off a $1 billion annually in debt. All major sports now rely heavily on Twitter to remind us that a game is in progress or to see a highlight posted. Golf’s older audience is especially better at handling Tweets than Toks. A recent SBJ story looking at LIV’s prospects noted its overall social media following across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram climbed “from 144,000 in June to over 740,000 in November, according to Zoomph.” The same story said the PGA Tour’s following climbed from “9.1 million to nearly 9.4 million.” Media and major organizations have a lot to lose if these once-idolized innovators continue to unravel.
There's a lot that I don't understand about Musk's purchase of Twitter, not least that he seems to be the first buyer in recorded history to do a deal without a due diligence contingency. With Jack Dorsey?
But, according to Geoff, there was nothing fishy about Twitter before the acquisition.... and yeah, nothing that TikTok can't solve. Seriously, half the golf world wants to run into the arms of the Saudis and Geoff wants to do the same with the ChiComs.
Got you rose-colored glasses on?
George Plimpton’s adage about sportswriting improving as the ball gets smaller? That came at a time when the late Bernard Darwin, Charles Price, Henry Longhurst, Peter Dobereiner and Pat Ward-Thomas were still known to fans and players. Herbert Warren Wind had been writing for The New Yorker and Dan Jenkins was banging out bestsellers while giving a fresh voice to the craft of golf writing. Newspapers had full-time golf writers and were the main source for seeing scores. Golf World was a fantastic weekly featuring player profiles that often dictated how players were perceived. Golf Digest offered a massive monthly full of great stuff to read, a far cry from today’s country club leaflet-sized almost-monthly that is still desperate to reach a generation uninterested in magazine subscriptions.
Have you seen the New Yorker lately? And, by the way, those millennials you're chasing wouldn't make it two 'graphs into a Herbert Warren Wind article, nor would they get Dan Jenkins.
But, wow, does this project ever look different than when it was first announced:
Maybe the Netflix docudrama and the pro-bono participation of several top players will restore some of the fan engagement destroyed by media and Twitter implosions. But network partners who paying lavish rights fees—the same money going straight to player pockets—still can’t get the white-belt world to wear a microphone or do a walk-and-talk mid-round on a Thursday. Such innovations are needed in a world with less in-depth coverage of players or to keep up with a surging sport like F1, where warts-and-all audio (plus all sorts of wonky stuff about tire choices) has been key to luring fans for what’s otherwise an exercise in watching billboards go very fast.
Current PGA TOUR player commitments include (alphabetically): Abraham Ancer, Daniel Berger, Cameron Champ, Joel Dahmen, Tony Finau, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Tommy Fleetwood, Rickie Fowler, Sergio Garcia, Harry Higgs, Max Homa, Viktor Hovland, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Collin Morikawa, Kevin Na, Mito Pereira, Ian Poulter, Xander Schauffele, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, and Bubba Watson. Additionally, the world’s #1-ranked amateur golfer, Keita Nakajima, will participate as he plays in the first major championships of his career.
Wow, they got Sergio.... What? Yeah, that'll be a little awkward....
One of my bolder predictions is that all footage of DJ, Brooks, Na, Poults and Bubba will be left in the cutting room floor, but has anyone thought through what might be left? It seems to this observer that the only interesting interplay would relate to you-know-what, and with the ongoing litigation and DOJ investigation that any footage shown will require legal approval. Gonna be epic...
The larger issue is that we've seen these guys up close and personal on the LIV matter, and it's been rather ugly, a major understatement. Obviously the guys that have refused the Saudi silver come off better, though they haven't acquitted themselves all that much better in my humble opinion. The elite players remaining are ensuring that they get theirs, can you say elevated events, and everything else is quite clearly secondary.
It's not that Geoff is wrong, it's just that his whining about media outlets is the ultimate hill of beans compared to our fractured professional game, nor does he recognize how compromised said golf media always has been (Wind and Jenkins were wonderful exceptions) A bit self absorbed perhaps, but he leaves us with a great tease:
As more money goes to purses, appearance fees or servicing debt, the surrounding media ecosystem is always first to get cut. We then see less advertising or sponsorship of the little stuff that gets people to watch. But this often-tedious sport needs all the ancillary coverage it can get. And maybe some combination of Netflix’s docudrama and the next-generation media outlets will be able to overcome the media bubble burst. But it sure feels like the professional game is facing a future where fans have a harder time finding reasons to get invested. Except when they play majors at grand venues. Or when Pat Perez finally tells all.
Don't forget Shipnuck, as well. Something to live for...
I Saw It On TV - I'm going to segue to this Sean Zak item that is tangentially related, mostly because it lays a marker for the next period in our game.
The next 6 months will teach us how popular pro golf really is
Spoiler Alert: Not. Very.
Lots of golf coming:
Let’s imagine it’s April 2023. You’re on the comedown from yet another thrilling Masters tournament. You streamed it all day Thursday and Friday and and why wouldn’t you? It’s the pinnacle of the sport. Golf’s Super Bowl, many will tell you, and everyone who matters was involved. That was a nice change of pace, because it hasn’t been the case in eight months.You’ve actually been watching a good amount of golf for the last month or so, because now there’s more golf than you can keep up with. There was the Players Championship in March and the WGC-Match Play and sprinkled in among those a handful of LIV Golf events. But now in late April, LIV Golf is in Australia. Or maybe Singapore. The PGA Tour is in New Orleans during the day and on your television at night are those LIV golfers who used to play on the PGA Tour. There’s also the NBA playoffs and the NHL playoffs and baseball’s spring start. How many will watch the golf? Will you?
As long as you're having this fever dream, you might have shared who won that thrilling Masters. Because, if it's Cam Smith, that's a whole different problem... While he didn't share that result, he did have this on the U.S. Open:
Let’s imagine it’s June 2023. Dustin Johnson, the world beater that he is, triumphs in Los Angeles at the 2023 U.S. Open. He’s the first LIV golfer to win a major championship, the third of his career. That DJ, what a golfer. Perhaps the best of his generation. But does his win at LA Country Club get you to tune in to the following LIV event, this one at Trump National in Virginia, as Johnson looks to double down on his success? If not then, when are you tuning in for the DJ show?
Yeah, not bloody likely....
It’s always been a tricky question for golf as a sport. How many will watch. The query is often carried with an extreme dose of pessimism, and you might even detect some of that here. The reason for it is that more is not always better. And we’re getting more than we’ve ever had these next six months. We’re about to find out just how popular pro golf can be. Not all of it can stick.
More is not always better? Who's going to break that to Nurse Ratched, because it deserves to be on the tombstone for the late, unlamented wraparound season.
Now Sean sees the world a little differently than your humble blogger:
Great news, now! It’s February and you’ve fallen even more in love with Joel Dahmen. How’d you fall for Joel? By watching the Netflix documentary series on the 2022 season in pro golf, which has been out for a few weeks. Vox Media Studios had unfettered access to Dahmen and a number of pros all year long, and Dahmen’s ability to shoot 67 and chase it with Miller Lites appeals to you.
No issue there, though if you liked Joel Dahmen and tuned into the Netflix documentary, I suspect that you were already watching him chug Miller Lites. I just find it hard to believe that this thing will create golf fans, but it can't hurt:
But here's where we part ways:
The Netflix show also did a lot of humanizing for Brooks Koepka, whose opinions are just a lot easier to understand when he shares them on the couch of his intracoastal home than on the podium of one of his curtly press conferences. You like Koepka quite a bit more than you did a season ago, and since he’s three back at LIV’s first 2023 event, you tune in on Sunday afternoon, now that you can actually find LIV on your TV guide. Better have that remote handy if Dahmen is in contention.
Will the LIVsters be in the final cut? Well, color me skeptical (as above), though the Wayback Machine does yield this:
“We do not have editorial control,” a Tour spokesperson said. “We will be involved to the extent that Netflix and the producers have the access they need to film at our events. We want them to make a great show, and we all agree the documentary needs to be as authentic as possible.”The enthusiasm of Tour commissioner Jay Monahan has been crucial in getting to this point. People familiar with the process were impressed with his open-mindedness and that he became a crucial voice in bringing the project to market.
OK, be that as it may, the Tour (in conjunction with the organizations running the four majors) are providing the scarcest resource known to mankind, access. If there's going to be more than the one season, Netflix will need to release a product that includes an invitation for the following season, and what do we think that might entail?
It is really quite the conundrum for Netflix, because the only thing that could get folks to watch a golf documentary is a food fight. The good news? We have an ongoing food fight.... The bad news? I'm not sure that anything that might actually be interesting will see the light of day. But, that might actually be a reason to tune in.
Ripped From The Headlines - This has bene in the works for a while:
On Monday a new proposal was approved by the PGA Tour’s Policy Board that, effective immediately, will now allow for college golfers to earn direct access to the PGA Tour via twodifferent pathways.
First, the No. 1 player in the final PGA Tour University Velocity Global Ranking will become a PGA Tour member and be eligible for all open, full-field events following the conclusion of the NCAA Championship in May. Before the start of the 2022-23 season in August, PGA Tour University increased its number of graduates from 15 to 20. The top-five players were set to earn Korn Ferry Tour membership, while Nos. 6-10 earn conditional Korn Ferry Tour status and Nos. 11-20 receive PGA Tour Canada and Latinoamérica status. Aside from the top player now earning PGA Tour membership, the rest of the exemptions remain the same. The Tour estimates that the No. 1 player will be eligible for 14 events in 2023, beginning with the 2023 RBC Canadian Open, June 8-11.
Second, underclassmen can earn PGA Tour membership through a new program, PGA Tour University Accelerated, where players earn points based off achievements in college, amateur and professional tournaments.
We'll call this the Chacarra rule, probably a necessity in the current environment. But, it might help if we administered such programs in a more even-handed manner, no?
This is a story about a dispute over PGA Tour U rankings. It is also the story of the brother of the reigning U.S. Open champion, legal threats, the fear of LIV’s poaching, Tour ass-covering and ultimately the first special exemption into the final stage of Korn Ferry Tour Q school in PGA Tour history.
The unfortunate aspect of the LIV saga is that it inevitably forces us to support the PGA Tour, though they have long proven themselves unworthy of such support. And the more we learn about what's gone on the more there is to cringe at.
The main protagonist in this story is Alex Fitzpatrick, who played at Wake Forest, was a memberof the GB&I Walker and International Palmer Cup teams, and is the brother of U.S. Open champion Matthew Fitzpatrick. He finished sixth in the PGA Tour U rankings.When the field was announced for the final stage of Korn Ferry Tour Q school, Fitzpatrick was inexplicably in it. This was puzzling because Fitzpatrick had not competed at second stage. (Based on his PGA Tour U finish, he would have been exempt.) According to two sources, Fitzpatrick didn’t even sign up for Q school. In response, the PGA Tour released a one-sentence statement: “Alex Fitzpatrick is competing in the Final Stage of KFT Qualifying Tournament after receiving a special exemption via the PGA Tour U category.”This raised eyebrows among players, agents, caddies and many others. As far as I know, this is the only special exemption awarded in the history of Q school. One player who went through qualifying said sarcastically, “I am going to ask for a refund. Had I known I could get an exemption, I would have skipped paying the $6,500 and written a letter to the committee.”
So, here's the underlying issue, though you'll likely be rolling your eyes:
At the heart of the issue is a college event held in October 2020. The event, at Maridoe Golf Club outside Dallas, was played at a time when many golf programs had suspended their seasons due to the pandemic. Wake Forest was among them. Teams in active conferences were invited. Players, however, were allowed to compete unattached from their schools, and Wake Forest let Fitzpatrick and a few other individuals to play. Documentation sent from the tournament committee ahead of the event stated that the teams and unattached individuals would be treated as separate events, and scores would be submitted to WAGR to reflect such. According to Ryan Frazer, who runs the college golf recruiting website Agora Golf, when the rankings came out in the summer of 2021, points had been awarded to the unattached individuals who competed in the Maridoe event. Their scores were combined with the teams cumulatively as if everyone had played one event.Those who played in the team and individual tournaments disputed this. The conditions of the individual’s morning wave, including freezing temperatures, were drastically different from that of the teams’ afternoon wave, resulting in higher scores.
As I understand these things, individual and team events are medal play events, so why would the unaffiliated players be treated as a separate event? otherwise, it sounds like getting the bad side of a draw at an Open Championship, though clearly the PGA folks have made quite the hash of it.
But young Fitzpatrick has obviously paid attention the the larger world:
Several coaches of the unattached players complained to PGA Tour U officials, but their protests fell on deaf ears. Fitzpatrick approached PGA Tour U officials, according to sources, before ultimately seeking the help of lawyers. It is easier for a college kid to throw his weight around when he has a famous brother represented by a powerful management company.
College golfers know their Warren Zevon and show up with lawyers, guns and money...
How does the story end? Fitzpatrick didn't pay off his preferential treatment at final stage, yet there was a substantial benefit embedded in that exemption:
Fitzpatrick finished T-95 at the final stage of Q school, shooting rounds of 71-70-74-71 and failing to get his Korn Ferry Tour card by five shots. Still, the conditional status he earned just by being there has one huge advantage: Had Fitzpatrick missed at second stage, where the sixth-place PGA Tour U finisher would normally start, he would have no status.
So, we're left to wonder why this specific player received his unprecedented exemption. Was it done to correct an injustice? I guess we can't rule that out entirely, though other injustices weren't treated with such kid gloves.
Or, and I do so hate to give in to cynicism, is the key to be found in that photo above. Perhaps the good folks at PGA Tour U decided that, having lost one of 2022's major champions to LIV, let's not give s second a reason to bolt?
I'd like to support the good guys, I'm just having difficulty identifying any....
That's it for today. Blogging will be on an as-needed basis, which really means as-motivated. Check back early and often...
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