Thursday, January 12, 2023

Thursday Threads

Crazy days here in Utah.  The snow keeps coming but, as I've bored you with repeatedly, it's snow of the wet, heavy kind.  Not the light, fluffy champagne powder we claim, but if you catch it as it comes down there's still lots of fun to be had.

Tuesday the mountain reported 13" (they report at 5:30 a.m., so often if it's still snowing it can be quite a bit more before lifts turn), though the skiing was disappointing, largely due to limited visibility on the socked in mountain.  There were soft turns to be found, but it was braille skiing for sure.

Yesterday I awoke to the mountain reporting a gaudy 18" of freshies, and the salivary glands were in the red zone (I know, those metaphors don't exactly jibe).  But the wind was howling, and that's always a caution flag here.  There are two lifts that move skiers up to the skiable terrain, a gondola and a bubble quad (the bubble is just what it sounds like, a plastic covering that protects the riders from the elements, even including heated seats).  The problem is that both of those types of transport are highly sensitive to the wind, the bubble actually functioning like a sail.  Often, when we know there's wind, we make sure those lifts are operating before heading up.  This was the snow stake at Deer Valley:

Sure enough, they didn't open yesterday and then we endured a comical few hours where one or the other would show briefly as open, but one of us would eagerly text the other, but by the time the recipient opened the app it had already gone back on wind hold.  Lee and I finally got our butts on a chair after 2:00 and headed to our favorite spot on the mountain.  The bad news is I only got in two real runs.  But the more optimistic take is that it was two epic runs down my favorite line on the mountain, a line that ends with a hard right turn and a couple of turns in untracked powder on a rich guy's front yard.  Somehow that makes it even more fun...

LIV Scat - One of these times it's going to be real:

According to The Telegraph, Mito Pereira, who fell short at the PGA Championship this past year after a wayward tee shot on the 72nd hole, is expected to join the LIV Golf League in 2023. Pereira will join his good friend and Chilean countryman, Joaquin Niemann.

LIV Golf has been quiet since its inaugural season ended with a team championship in Miami, although sometimes no news is bad news. It’s rumored several high-ranking members of the executive staff have recently left, including Chief Operating Officer Atul Khosla.

The surprise here is that, given the repeated rumors, that he hadn't already jumped.  The five or so weeks between now and that first LIV event in late February will be a nervous time, because there's no point in them announcing and foregoing those elevated PGA Tour purses until LIV's kick-off.

But, does Mito move the needle?  Not enough to matter, but watch this space for others.

Next, those waivers for the Asian Tour's Saudi event struck many of us as odd, though we were left in the dark as to the specific players involved.    That nagging sense of an undisclosed plotline will only be further fueled by one of the names involved:

The PGA Tour’s reigning Rookie of the Year and a winner last season are among the players
granted permission to compete at a controversial tournament in Saudi Arabia next month.

While the Tour has declined to reveal the exact number or the names of those who requested releases for the PIF Saudi International, multiple sources have told Golfweek that Cameron Young, Lucas Herbert and Cameron Champ are among the members who obtained waivers to compete in Saudi Arabia. Three Korn Ferry Tour players also received releases.

Young was named the PGA Tour’s Rookie of the Year after earning more than $6 million during a debut campaign in which he finished second five times, including at the Open Championship in St. Andrews. Herbert won the Butterfield Bermuda Championship in October 2021 and finished the season with more than $2.5 million in official prize money.

What's it all about, Alfie?  As you'll recall, Young seemed gone last year, but suddenly he and Hideki passed on jumping to LIV, and we saw at least one of the reasons when Jay bent his PIP rules and found $2 million large for each of those two.  Does this mean Cam might still jump?  Or is this an additional part of that Faustian bargain, an explicit agreement that Cam would be granted a waiver and allowed to grab an appearance fee.  Again, watch this space....

It's occurred to me that before this is over, we're likely to hate the guys that stay every bit as much as those that cashed the large checks from the bonecutters.

Well, upon further review, it's unlikely we'll hate them as much as the guys that bolted... Because, well, that's a rogues gallery of miscreants.  But have you caught the latest controversy?  I'm having trouble finding the original tweet, but apparently Sergio was miffed that the Euro Ryder Cup organization did not note his birthday.  Are you done laughing yet?  I certainly understand if you need a little more time....

Now, do you remember how gracefully Sergio handled his exit?  Yeah, that's not the Sergio that we know and love, here's just a small sample of peak Sergio:

So, he's upset that he didn't get sweet birthday wishes from a Tour he called s**t.  Yeah, I know, guys can be so sensitive....  And Poults is equally offended, confirming that they all deserve each other.

I very much liked this one as well:

Busted!

Seriously, grown men pouting about the absence of birthday greeting by folks they went out of their way to f**k.  Entitled much?  We can only hope that they choke on their thirty pieces of silver....

I had already moved on when this this Brendan Porath expose on Birthdaygate hit my screen, and he's got an extensive bullet pointed rant that is well worth your attention, assuming you can stand that much Sergio and Poulter in one sitting.  I just want to excerpt this one little bit that's really all you need to read:

While writing this, I explained to my inquiring wife that Ian Poulter was mad the Ryder Cup Europe Twitter account did not wish him a happy birthday. She doesn’t really know who that is but she promptly responded, “Is he turning 10?”

Emotionally, that just about right. 

Bob Harig has a quasi-interesting take on the state of the LIV:

The LIV Golf League is set to play its first event of 2023 in six weeks and right now it doesn’t have a full schedule announced, has not filled its 48-player roster or set its 12 four-man teams, is
still seeking Official World Golf Ranking points and is waiting to disclose some sort of TV deal.

It’s getting late early.

For all the scrambling LIV Golf did to launch in 2022, it had its full schedule announced more than two months prior to the first tournament. And that was considered crazy.

The first event is scheduled for Feb. 24-26 at Mayakoba in Mexico, but LIV Golf has not announced its full slate of tournaments, so far putting forth dates in Arizona, Australia, Singapore, Oklahoma, Spain and West Virginia.

No biggie, exhibitions can be arranged on short notice.  This would seem to be the issue of the day, far more relevat than on which channel no one will watch their events:

Perhaps more troubling is the lack of big-name defections from the PGA Tour. Although LIV Golf was more than pleased with the abundance of talent it signed last year, the addition of a top-five player such as Patrick Cantlay has been denied by the golfer himself and it appears that LIV Golf will sign far less notable players to fill out its roster.

Harig seems to go out of his way to make this sound, well, normal:

And then there is the TV deal that seems crucial to gaining momentum among sponsors for the team format. LIV executives have said they are confident a deal will be struck, and Sports Business Journal recently reported that the CW Network was a strong possibility for LIV’s landing spot.

While there will inevitably be jokes made about CW—a good deal of its afternoon scheduling is Court TV-type programming—the network is in more than 220 cities across the U.S., with many of them having their own local news programming. The network is common across most cable offerings, and it's fair to point out that early-round coverage of both the U.S. Open and British Open now lands on USA Network, which offers a good bit of the same type of programming.

Couldn't agree more that USA is an odd channel to cover golf, but has Bob cashed a check from the Saudis?  Because that's some world-class equivocation that has a whiff of being bought and sold, no?

You don't need me to tell you that the relevant comparison is to the PGA Tour, not the majors.  The audience will find the majors because of their importance, and, equally important, the weekend coverage is on the networks.  LIV will be buried on a channel nobody knows where to find,  and my prediction is that they will not even draw a recognizable audience from Nielsen.

I love when a plan comes together....

I Saw It On TV - Is Netflix TV?  In any event, it's on, as the official trailer has dropped:


Is this going to work?  I can't tell, except to note that they at least picked the most interesting year in golf history, and you'll see some faces that won't be in the second season, if you know what I mean.

And this seems to provide an airing date:


Thoughts from Geoff:

Three players seen in Wednesday’s trailer launch stood out: Rory McIlroy, Ian Poulter and Brooks Koepka.

McIlroy was not expected to participate, yet he’s seen ending the trailer by saying, “If I want the game that I love to be played by future generations, the game needs to be pushed forward.”

I knew he’d come around on bifurcation so that we don’t leave a totally unsustainable model for Gen Z!

Poulter and Koepka are generally the most interesting LIV defectors who are only appearing because no one in Cult Ponte Vedra had control over the show content. LIV defectors Joaquin Niemann and Dustin Johnson were also highlighted in the trailer rollout, but no one’s marking a calendar to hear what they have to say.

The filterless Poulter and Koepka should add significant color. Then again, Poulter’s enraged over the Ryder Cup Twitter account not wishing Sergio Garcia “happy birthday.” We now have incontrovertible evidence that Poulter’s several Titleist’s short of a dozen.

Also included in the rollout and press material is Mito Pereira, who led the PGA Championship until the 71st hole and appears to be defecting to LIV’s Team Torque based on an exclusive from The Telegraph’s James Corrigan.

The minute-long Netflix trailer released Wednesday suggests we’re in for many scenes of grown men in gym rat gear flying private and telling us how “hard” it is to win on the PGA Tour. But that fantastic locker room hissy fit offers something to look forward to!

I had the same reaction to the trailer, though Geoff seems to find Koepka a more interesting voice than certainly I do.... The question seems to be whether they can capture the intensity of the LIV threat and the resulting friction among the players.  Because, if it's all along the lines of that last 'graph, it'll draw lower viewership than LIV on the CW.

I'm going to leave you there.  Not sure about tomorrow, but when I arise perhaps I'll be compelled towards my keyboard.  Saturday I travel back to New York, so worst case we'll pick things up on Monday.

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