Thursday Themes - His Excellency Edition

Another day of light, low-impact blogging.... Just a few odd notes on LIV and a shout-out over an inspired venue choice.

LIV Your Best Life - Still amused that the reveal of the Framework Agreement is being classified as a leak.  The significance is that a leak is presumably something they don't want us to see, whereas this falls into that other category, that which they want us to see but faux-begrudgingly..... 

Sean Zak had this helpful primer, though he comes across as quite credulous:

7 things we learned from leaked PGA Tour-Saudi PIF agreement

Not least with his summary of key details:

1. One through-line of the document, as previously reported by GOLF.com, are clauses that ensure power for the PGA Tour. The PIF is making an investment and bringing its golf assets to the table — one of which is LIV — but the PGA Tour will maintain voting control of the NewCo board. Additional investment from the PIF — and/or actions under its right of refusal on new capital raised — will not increase its presence beyond a non-controlling voting interest.

Through-line?  Isn't it cute when golf writers apply golf terminology to other contexts and, well, four-putt?

There's no question that they have a document that says those things, though Sean seems to have missed that the entire document is non-binding.... Mostly, though, he seems to buy the premise that, because there are certain words in a document, that those arrangements are sacrosanct.  

Then they hide behind...checking notes, science:

2. LIV Golf’s future, as well as that of team golf, is unclear. It’s not dead, but it’s certainly not guaranteed to survive, either. When PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan repeatedly mentioned an “empirical evaluation” would take place on the prospects of LIV Golf, he was simply quoting the agreement:

“NewCo will be provided access to all information requested to facilitate this evaluation and assessment … so that the NewCo Board, with recommendation of its [CEO] Jay Monahan, will determine the ongoing plan and strategy regarding all NewCo operations…”

My sense is that folks are over-invested in this detail, though the parties are likely buying themselves some time before committing on this one.  But to me one just needs to understand that DJ and Brooksie will have a place to play in 2024, and that will either be LIV or back on the PGA Tour.  The latter might sound like a bridge too far, though all it requires is that the Saudis write a check for the benefit of all those lads that stayed behind....Then all those principled objections will dissipate just as quickly as Jay's concerns about the source of the money....

There was a certain confab Tuesday in Detroit:

PGA Tour holds marathon 5-hour player meeting over PIF-Saudi deal

Sports Illustrated reports a “person familiar with the discussion” revealed that the entire 10-person PGA Tour Policy Board met in person in Detroit to discuss details of the deal, including McIlroy and fellow players Patrick Cantlay, Webb Simpson, Charley Hoffman and Peter Malnati. Jay Monahan was not present, but in his place were “Chief of Operations Tyler Dennis and Chief Operating Officer Ron Price, who are leading the Tour in Monahan’s absence.”

That header is a bit of a howler, given that the meeting was just of the Policy Board.  But that's more than a minor quibble, because people keep talking about player approval, misunderstand that all Jay needs is Policy Board approval.

One assumes that those five outsiders are all loyalists, though I don't know whether he needs any kind of supermajority.  Look at those five players and consider where they sit on the Tour food chain.... The first two listed easily fit into that terrific penis mode, clearly they are among the elite that executed that coup back in Delaware.  Rory will have his defenders, though he seems to me well along the road to welcoming his new Wahabi masters.

The next two names are more interesting, both featuring diminishing performance that should, in theory, render them sympathetic to the needs of the Rabbit Class, but with longstanding ties to the elite players and Tour management.  Hard to know how they'll react, but Malnati is the only guy on that five-person list that is any kind of outsider, but it looks to me like he'll be shouted down pretty easily.

Following the meeting, the PGA Tour released a statement saying the focus of Tuesday’s meeting was to begin “a new phase of negotiations to determine if the Tour can reach a definitive agreement that is in the best of interests of our players, fans, sponsors, partners, and the game overall.”

“If future negotiations lead to a proposed agreement, it would need approval by the Tour’s Policy Board, which includes Player Directors. In the meantime, we are all committed to the safeguards in the Framework Agreement that ensure the PGA Tour would lead and maintain control of this potential new commercial entity. We are confident that the Tour’s mission will continue to focus on showcasing the game of golf while serving local communities.”

This Golf Digest piece goes even further on the note:

he PGA Tour’s policy board issued a statement Tuesday night following a players meeting in Detroit regarding the proposed deal between the tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, signaling a “new phase” of negotiations have begun while indicating the deal may ultimately not come to fruition.

That seems a significant change of tone.  I assume the key bit is above, that they're doubling down on the assurances that the Tour will maintain control regardless of future Saudi funding.....  I keep waiting for them to offer to sell me some swampland as part of this great deal....

Geoff had some reactions over at The Quad, though I think he buries the lede here:

The funny-if-it-weren’t-so-absurd “framework” agreement between the PGA Tour and Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia made its way to multiple media outlets, with The Athletic first revealing the May 30th agreement.

Besides the horrifying signatures and the repeated use of His Excellency to describe Yasir Al Rumayyan—new chairman of non-major championship professional golf—two elements stood out.

 

Hey, at least we know that Jay was healthy enough to sign his name as of May 30th.....

On another issue:

“The Parties will cooperate in good faith and use best efforts to secure OWGR recognition for LIV events and players under OWGR's criteria for considering LIV's pending application.”

For a framework light on details, they still found time to include specific language about the world rankings. Notably missing was boilerplate stuff about working with the governing bodies or the major championship organizers or, don’t laugh, within the Rules of Golf for those perhaps looking to detect competition-squelching tendencies. Instead, there was a “best efforts” priority to get LIV players earning those points ASAP.

Perhaps the language was designed to quiet LIV defector anxiety about their future, but the rankings issue ultimately speaks to the greater importance of the majors over the week-to-week “product” these two sides will put together.

That actually makes sense to me.  At best they have some profound timing uncertainty, especially as relates to the Justice Department antitrust review of the final agreement.  Given that the final agreement isn't close to existing (not sure the impact of the PGA Commish being on walkabout), one assumes that this matter can't be resolved this year, which leads back to my point above.  DJ will be playing in 2024, I just think they've got too many moving parts currently to know where.

Phil actually gave an interview in conjunction with the LIV event at Valderrama, in which he had quite the amusing appeal to authority:

Still, the tour essentially now controls LIV’s future, raising the question if there is a future for

LIV. But in Mickelson’s estimation, those writing LIV’s obituary are premature, pointing to similar criticisms at LIV over the past two years.

"Everything over the last couple of years that we've been told by Greg and everybody on LIV has come to fruition, so we have a lot of confidence in what they have been saying to us," Mickelson said. "We don't really feel the need to publicly posture our position. There's really no need for us to talk about things publicly but to just let it play out."

Except that I'm old enough to remember when Greg told you that the PGA Tour couldn't suspend the players.....  As good a howler as that is, Joel Beall might have outdone him with that first sentence, given that, in the absence of a signed agreement, the tour certainly can't assert control of LIV.  After an agreement is signed?  Well, then they can assert that they have control, though we're not required to believe them.

Phil, like other LIVsters, is being coy on this issue:

So when it comes to going back to the tour, Mickelson wanted no part of the question.

"Rather than saying yes or no, I know that from a player experience, all of the difficulties and challenges and things that take a lot of excessive energy and output throughout the week have been fixed at LIV," Mickelson said. "So the player experience here is incredible. I just can't envision a better scenario for me as a player than playing out here on LIV."

Of course, Grayson Murray will be livid when he sees that this guy gets parachuted into those big money events:

Mickelson, 53, enters this week ranked 39th in LIV’s individual standings.

That's out of 48..... 

Matt Stoller is not previously known to your humble blogger, but has some expertise in antitrust matters.  You'll want to read this post for sure:

The Saudi-PGA Tour Golf Deal Isn't Going to Happen

The merger or alliance between the PGA Tour and the Saudi's LIV Golf is comically illegal, and it will not happen in its current form. Something about this deal smells off.

Not just illegal, but comically so..... 

There's a lot here to mull, not least this:

If you read the antitrust complaint filed against the PGA Tour last year, it seems pretty clear that the PGA Tour has been a problematic organizer of golf. “Members of the Tour receive a substantially lower percentage of the Tour’s revenues than professional athletes in other major sports,” players argued. When LIV began challenging the PGA Tour, it “threatened lifetime bans on players who play in even a single LIV Golf event” and “threatened sponsors, vendors, and agents to coerce players to abandon opportunities to play in LIV Golf events.” As Ted Tatos wrote, this is consistent with the history of competition in sports leagues, where rivalry pushes up compensation for players, and consolidation does the opposite.

Much of that is quite obviously true, although courts both in the U.S. have upheld the Tours' right to enforce its rules against its members.  It's hard to see where, absent those rules and remedies, you'd have much of a tour at all....

But this NY Times excerpt is a good reminder for us all:

The Saudis think they're winning.....  Shouldn't that give us pause?

This is an interesting premise, but misses an important point:

But I’m just baffled. There is no way this merger happens in its current form, as it’s obviously creating an illegal monopoly. There is a lot of grey area in antitrust law, but when two companies want to merge to a monopoly, and announce it as such, that’s a violation of black letter law. In fact, this deal is so wildly and comically against the law that I actually don’t think it is intended to close. If I had to guess, I would say it’s a desperate move by the Saudis to keep their dirty laundry out of an American courtroom in a separate but related case. Indeed, the more I look into it, the more baffled I become.

Yeah, they have reason to avoid discovery, but all that requires them to do is to abandon that antitrust case....

I agree with him here, although I think he's overstating the importance:

For that, I’ll go to the head of the PGA Tour, Jay Monahan, who said that this merger is good for his organization because it allows them to “take the competitor off the board.” When a corporate leader publicly says the point of a merger is to monopolize a market, I can only imagine what’s in the private emails. Antitrust scholar Herb Hovenkamp, who is generally monopoly friendly, said this merger would be problematic in at least three markets: (1) live attendance, (2) TV broadcast rights and advertising, and (3) golfer compensation and terms. Given that LIV Golf and the PGA Tour have been bidding aggressively for the services of golfers, it seems pretty obvious that this deal will monopolize at least one of those markets.

On the one hand, a stupid thing to say... But, on the other hand, what else was he going to say?

This is an amusing tangent:

Former White House competition chief Tim Wu, for instance, tweeted that “While many facts missing, more I look more I doubt the proposed PGA Tour - LIV merger will survive serious antitrust scrutiny, not to mention potential CFIUS review.” Libertarian antitrust lawyer Josh Wright mocked the combination, saying, “Friends don’t let friends merge or contract, combine, or conspire with rivals without antitrust counsel.” He also pointed out that “there is a lot here that is unusual.”

And Kostya Medvedovsky, who coined the term ‘hipster antitrust,’ was in disbelief. “I am a bit confused how they could have plausibly done this without antitrust counsel, given they're currently in antitrust dispute/investigation? Feels a bit too incredible.” Senator Richard Blumenthal has already asked for the DOJ to intervene.

Katie Van Dyck, an antitrust lawyer and colleague at my organization, made a couple of relevant points, noting that “this deal is one of the most brazen mergers to monopoly in recent history.” Van Dyck also pointed out that it’s not just the Department of Justice with jurisdiction, but the U.K. and European Union enforcers. Unless Congress grants an antitrust exemption, as it did for the merger of the AFL and NFL football leagues in 1966, this deal is just crazy.

But only a tangent....

The bigger problem with Stollers post is his rousing coda:

By ending the antitrust fight between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, Saudi PIF emails will remain private. It’s true that there will be a merger challenge, so bad emails could come out if they bring this merger to a trial. But a more likely path is that the DOJ investigates the PGA Tour-LIV deal, the Saudis drop their merger attempt before a trial, and LIV Golf shuts down. There could be some sort of Saudi investment in the PGA Tour later. Meanwhile, everyone gets the headlines now, which obscures the reality that the Saudis don’t want emails made public, and they can blame the Antitrust Division for the collapse of LIV Golf.

There's much to ponder and I agree that the antitrust review is a potential serious hurdle, but the premise in the 'graph above is just not credible.  Look again at that Times header above, they think this is a win (and I agree with them) and will do everything to get it done.

I think Stoller misses a couple of key bits.  First, and this is a place I'm on less solid ground, but sports and antitrust is quite the awkward fit, as Stoller implicitly demonstrates with his references to the NFL-AFL merger (and funny that the USFL antitrust action doesn't come up).  Sports leagues are and almost have to be monopolies, and perhaps a reminder that monopolies themselves aren't illegal in and of themselves, it's only the use of such monopoly power to drive out a competitor.

An associated issue is the involvement of the Saudis....  Not only are they a highly unsympathetic party, but the underpinnings of antitrust law are the allocation of monopoly profits among the parties.  The application of that in the context of sportswashing is just a bewildering concept, whereby the entire ecosystem is flooded with money to burnish a human rights record might be something we've not seen before.

Lastly, Stoller hints at this in his penultimate 'graph, but this deal will hit in the middle of an election cycle in the U.S., and there it could get quite interesting.  I'll remind that the Justice Department decided last year to open an antitrust investigation of the PGA Tour, the only explanation for which I can see is Biden's appeal to the Kingdom to pump more oil.  Why that investigation continued after MBS told Sleepy Joe to pound sand doesn't fit into that very well, but is it so hard to imagine that a sitting President would be sensitive to gas prices as part of his reelection campaign?  Can we imagine Merrick Garland's Justice Department doing what Joe needs done?  Yeah, that was a rhetorical question....

Many interesting days ahead....

Venue News - The venues selected for team competitions is Dickensian, presenting us with the best of times, as well as the worst.  The Ryder Cup might be the worst offender, with the Euros selling it to the highest bidder (Hello, Marco Simone).  The best of the bunch has been the Walker Cup, which was last seen at Seminole and whose next two installments will be at the Old Course and Cypress Point.  Lest you think the former is same old-same old, I'll remind you that you've likely never seen a match play event on the old girl, and that there is not a golf course on the planet better designed for match play than that one.

The Presidents Cup has a mixed record.... For every Royal Melbourne they force us to endure a liberty National.  But this we like:

Royal Melbourne has enjoyed the honor three times.

Now, a famous neighbor will get its turn.

The PGA Tour announced Monday that the 2028 Presidents Cup will be held at Kingston Heath, a celebrated course, less than 20 miles south of Royal Melbourne, in the golf-rich Australian Sandbelt.

Ranked 22nd on GOLF Magazine’s list of Top 100 Courses in the World, Kingston Heath is no stranger to headline competitions. A seven-time host of the Australian Open, it has also staged the Australian Masters and the Women’s Australian Open. In 2016, it welcomed the World Cup of Golf. Gary Player, Greg Norman, Tiger Woods, Karrie Webb and Adam Scott are among the notable champions who have won on the course.

“The Sandbelt region is home to some of the game’s most iconic venues, and Kingston Heath has proven to be a world-class host for a number of golf’s biggest tournaments,” Matt Rapp, PGA Tour senior vice president of championship management said in a statement, noting that the Presidents Cup would “further cement the history and future of this event in the great city of Melbourne.”

It's not one of his designs, though the Good Doctor did make one house call:

Built in 1925, Kingston Heath was designed by Des Soutar but also bears the imprint of Royal Melbourne architect Alister MacKenzie, who reworked the bunkering as part of his effort, a few years after the course first opened for play. Among its many strengths, Kingston Heath is regarded as a masterpiece of routing, and is revered for the artistry its designers teased from a relatively small and flat site.

Given the era, you'll understand that MacKenzie only made it to Australia the one time, but this will prove a great venue.  Of course, we have to survive a return visit to Medinah in the interim, so perhaps plan to be out of the country for that one.

Proposed Penalties - Just a giggle before we go, as The Loop staff at Golf Digest try to amuse us with proposed penalties for the LIVsters returning to the fold.  Comedy is hard, especially when we all know by now that there won't be any penalties, just boatloads of cash to make the guys that stayed feel respected.

But this one reminds of the guy that must not be mentioned:

+ LIV lockers decorated with framed photos of Greg Norman's ESPN Body Issue shoot. These will be bolted down to prevent removal.

Hey Ladies! The first photos are out from Greg Norman's ESPN 'Body Issue' shoot and here they are.
photo credit Robert Lusetich pic.twitter.com/vGeekPsdAF

— Mr Topes Golf (@MrTopesGolf) June 23, 2018

Hey, we haven't featured the Shitless Shark for quite some time.  More importantly, has anyone seen Norman since June 6th?  I keep checking my milk cartons....

That's it for this installment.  Tomorrow smells like a day of leisure, but who knows what might propel your humble blogger to the keyboard....

Tuesday Tidbits - Ryder Cup Preview Edition

As noted yesterday, with three of the four majors in the can, perhaps it's a felicitous time to take a look at those projected Ryder Cup rosters....

Team USA - Analyzing the U.S. roster is a relatively straight-forward undertaking:

It doesn't take a genius to see that the U.S. Ryder Cup squad will be loaded, at least loaded with guys that are good at the medal play variant of our game.

Surprises?  I certainly didn't expect Xander to be sitting quite so pretty, and the same about Max Homa, based on their recent form.  But I'm most surprised to see JT even hanging in the top twelve, given that I expected to see him next on a milk carton.

In terms of guys that can still claw their way into consideration, Rickie (currently No. 16), Tony Finau (18) and Sahith Theegala (20) come to mind, though that last one I can't imagine having an available chair when the music stops.

For those viewing this through a LIV-infused prism, the options there are to be found lodged in the 32nd and 33rd place, Phil and DJ, respectively.  The former will be the star witness at the Truth and Reconciliation hearings, but won't be a factor in these discussions unless he does something miraculous at Hoylake.  DJ is an interesting case and his 2021 record will be cited, but odds are quite lengthy at this point and the Open Championship is setting up as his last best chance.

Perhaps the most interesting name on that list to me is Denny McCarthy.  He's not a guy that's been in a lot of Ryder Cup discussions and isn't up to the standards of those he'll be vying with for a Captain's pick, and yet....  History says that Captain Donald will set the course up the negate the American length advantage, and Denny is simply the best putter on Tour..... A useful skill I would think.  Further down the list is Brian Harmon who offers a similar skill set, though there's exactly a zero probability that Zach Johnson would be able to opt for both of those guys.

The roster will be loaded, as it almost always is.  But it's easy enough to see that those top guys aren't exactly bullet proof.  Scottie is putting like one of Jerry's kids and Xander and Max had pretty dreadful weeks in L.A. so I'd eschew the cockiness.

Team Euro Trash - Always a more complicated process because of its binary nature, but one begins with the Euro points list:

Kind of a dramatic fall-off in talent after that second guy, though it means very little in reality.  They now only take three from the Euro points list, and I would assume that by the time it matters that Yannick Paul will have regressed to his mean.  We used to get a couple of weak links from their utilization of the Euro points list, but that's unlikely to be the case this year.

That Euro team comes into clearer focus from the World points list:

I meant to take that down to 15th place, but my cropping skills have failed me.  There you'll find names like Alex Noren and Thomas Detry that could well play their way into a pick, and do not sell Adrian Meronk short.

It's not a roster tat will scare anyone, strong at the top, although only perhaps until you look at Rory's recent Ryder Cup results.  The key will probably be that middle tier of veterans not exactly killing it, names like Hatton, Rose and Lowry.  Feels like a movie we've seen before, where Justin Rose putts like Bobby Locke and the rest of us sit and wonder, "Who are these guys?".

Obviously, given how things played out in Europe, there's not a LIVster to be found, though it's equally unclear whether any of those octogenarians would be helpful.   We'll certainly revisit this after te Open Championship.

Today In Happy Talk - I guess we know more, although the specific language doesn't seem to add anything to our understanding of the Kabuki theater presentation ahead.  But it's amusing to see how this is played in the press.  For instance, this is the header at Golfweek:

Framework agreement leaks for PGA Tour partnership with DP World Tour, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund

Hmmmm, they've kept this pretty close to their chest, so who would do such a nasty to our heroes?  ESPN explains:

The five-page agreement signed by PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, DP World Tour CEO Keith Pelley and Public Investment Fund governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan to form a new entity that will align men's professional golf gives the PGA Tour "full decision-making authority with respect to all strategic and operational matters related to competition."

The "framework agreement" was signed May 30 and sent, along with other documents, to a Senate subcommittee looking into the alliance Monday ahead of a July 11 hearing in Washington.

OK, that's a little different....  They quite obviously want us to see this at this juncture, and here's the bit that they want repeated ad nauseum:

Under terms of the framework agreement, the PGA Tour will control the majority interest in the new entity, regardless of the size of PIF's investment. PIF will make an initial investment into NewCo and have the right of first refusal to make additional ones.

"The PGA Tour will at all times maintain a controlling voting interest, not withstanding any incremental investment by PIF or exercise of its rights of first refusal," the agreement says. "The PGA Tour parent organization will retain its current level of regulatory oversight of the game of golf with respect to the assets contributed by the PGA Tour where applicable (e.g., sanctioning of events, setting of competition rules and managing inside the ropes) but will conduct its commercial businesses through NewCo. PIF and the PGA Tour will cooperate in good faith and agree on the economics, valuation and governance terms for NewCo and PIF's investment in NewCo."

What could go wrong?  After all, we're dealing with stand-up people that settle their disputes in traditional ways, though said traditions date back to at least 1263....  the reference to good faith is, well, ironic, given that it's their faith that led fifteen of their citizens to book a one-way trip to the World Trade Center.

Care for some opaque leagalese?

PIF will contribute their golf-related investments and assets, including LIV, to NewCo along with a cash investment, in exchange for the issuance to PIF of an equity ownership interest in NewCo at a fair value mutually agreed by the parties. Following the contribution of assets into NewCo, NewCo shall assume all of the liabilities and obligations of the contributed assets, provided that each Party’s contributed businesses will be valued in their totality, taking into account all liabilities, commitments, contributions and obligations made or incurred by the respective prior owners, including in respect of player contracts and other working capital and operating expenses. In addition, the PIF will make a cash investment in NewCo for an incremental ownership in order to fund the growth of NewCo which will include a right of first refusal on capital raised by NewCo, provided that, for the avoidance of doubt, the PGA Tour will at all times maintain a controlling voting interest in NewCo and PIF will continue to hold a non-controlling voting interest, notwithstanding any incremental investment by PIF or exercise of its right of first refusal.

And what exactly compels Saudi Arabia to keep funding without additional equity?  Oh, Gee, I guess we'll just have to rely on that good faith....

They're being quite disingenuous on these related subjects:

LIV Golf’s future will be decided by the new entity’s board that will be controlled by a Tour majority.

Players will be returning to the various Tours, but it’s still unclear what must happen before they are once again eligible.

They may genuinely not know the answer to this, but it's also a red herring.  The first question you have to ask yourself is this.  Do we think the parties will ensure that DJ and Brooks have a place to play in 2024?  Given a DOJ antitrust review of the deal (and remember that the deal doesn't even yet exist, so no review can commence), I can't imagine anything happening this year, meaning that there's two alternatives for 2024:

1. LIV operates a full schedule of events, or;
2. The LIV defectors are welcomed back to the PGA Tour before a deal is finalized and approved by the Justice Department.

Do we care which?  Rory has told us that there will have to be penalties to the guys that left, though you might have noticed that Rory hasn't exactly had his finder on the pulse of these negotiations, so I suspect he'll cash a large Saudi check and shut the eff up.

 

If it weren't so depressing it would be pretty comical, presenting a "negotiated" deal and ignoring the quite obvious leverage being handed to the Saudis.  There is simply no way to ensure the continued flow of Saudi cash, and making themselves wholly dependent upon it almost ensures that these arrangements will be restructured down the road, presumably as Jay retires to sandy roads.

So, one last bit from yesterday's Tour Confidential, in which the writers contemplate Where's Waldo?

3. In an open letter that clocked in at more than 1,000 words, eight-time major winner Tom Watson had harsh words for the PGA Tour-Saudi merger. Watson is among a few legends of the game who have chimed in on golf’s mega-merger, so it begs the question: Why hasn’t Tiger Woods done so yet? Should he feel compelled to do so?

Zak: At first, I wondered the same thing. But now, no one looks smarter than Tiger for not talking. It’s mostly conjecture at this point. Even Jimmy Dunne looks a bit frantic for talking compared to, say, Ed Herlihy, who hasn’t muttered a word on the record. Tiger’s voice will come with plenty of weight when he does speak, but why speak when there’s still so much to be decided?

Sean, you ignorant slut!  Everything that matters has already been decided, apparently in Tiger's absence (we're at least left to presume that).  Whether that's because he was irrelevant or because he would have opposed it is just a silly guessing game.....

Sens: True that it’s too early for him to comment on the details of the merger, but not too early for him to ask pointed questions about it, or offer suggestions as to how he’d like to see it go. Also not too early for him to criticize the backroom nature of the negotiations. But his silence so far is also entirely on-brand. When it comes to weighing in on polemical issues, Woods has always been more of a follower than a bold-voiced leader. His voice carries weight when he does speak, but it’s rarely the first voice we hear.

Dethier: To Sens’ point, I don’t think Woods has ever really done much to suggest he’d speak out publicly on this issue from home right now. I know we’ve been eager to make sense of his role in the game once his playing career officially winds down, but he has never really said he wants to be involved in any public-facing day-to-day leadership of the PGA Tour. I have no doubt that he’d like the PGA Tour to survive, to strengthen, to remain the preeminent golf tour in the world. But until he sees clear value in speaking out I doubt he’ll feel any obligation to do so. Woods answers questions at press conferences when he’s playing or hosting golf tournaments. Outside of that, it’ll be interesting to see where he uses his voice going forward.

Like Rory, at this point the best spin you can put on Tiger's involvement is that he's a useful idiot, not some moral authority whe speaks from on high.  His contributions seem limited to selling out the Tour's rank-and-file and cashing large PIP checks, so we've got that going for us... Tiger takes care of Tiger, anything else is others projecting their beliefs onto him.

The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of - Typically attributed to Bogey in the Maltese Falcon, the origin is actually Shakespeare, which predates The Lido by centuries.  But the Keisers have recreated The Lido, and there's a fascinating interview up with Peter Flory, a man with quite the interesting hobby:

One of the most anticipated courses openings of recent years didn’t start with a golf architect’s vision or a developer’s financial plan. This project started with a video game created by a Chicago-based financial consultant and eager golf historian who dabbles at length in no-longer-existing golf courses as a hobby.

Peter Flory (@nle_golf on Twitter, with the handle standing for no-longer-existing courses) has never built a golf course, but he’s played plenty – his list of courses played is enough to send even a golf travel writer into fits of envy.

More importantly, he dreams of playing historically significant courses that have been lost over the decades, plowed under for redevelopment or, occasionally, simply abandoned. Flory is also one of the best hickory golfers in the country, collecting and often utilizing a vast store of antique clubs so that he can appreciate how classic courses played in the era in which they were built.

The 12th (foreground) and 4th greens.

There's many interesting lost courses, though likely none that were considered the best course in the world by credible sources such as Bernard Darwin. but that it started as a video game is just a priceless detail....

If this kind of thing is of interest, then you'll want to read the full interview.  As we've discussed previously, Mike Keiser the Elder had considered doing the recreation on what became Old Macdonald, but was talked out of it by Tom Doak because that sire actually offered enough interesting landforms, a decision with which I completely agree.  As much as we revere naturalism, The Lido was an entirely acritical construct, as an enormous amount of sand was moved in its construction.

This to me is the interesting stuff, though your mileage may vary:

How did you conduct your historical research?

This was primarily an old-fashioned research project, but it couldn’t have happened before the internet age. When I began the process, I decided to post my progress online on golfclubatlas.com (a forum for golf architecture). Doing so led to a lot of great discussion and critique on what I was doing, but it also triggered a barrage of inbound information from dozens of people who had unpublished photos, diagrams and other information on the original Lido.

I carefully mined every digitized golf periodical from 1914 to 1942, every newspaper article, and put in inquiries with historical societies and other archives. There were only a handful of publicly available images when I began, but by the end I had over 100 photos of the course including aerials, oblique aerials and ground-level photographs.

One of the most important developments was when Craig Disher (a golf and military photo historian) sent me something called an anaglyph, which is a stereoscopic image that can be viewed with traditional 3D glasses. He went to the National Archives and took high-resolution scans of overlapping aerial photographs of the Lido from a 1940 survey flight. By combining the images and color coding them, the resulting image allowed me to see the original course as if I were hovering 100 feet above it.

So, back to the importance of those video games:

What other technology was involved?

Aside from the research, the other key to this project was having a tool to translate the research into a model. I not only needed something that would allow me to accurately lay the course out in 2D using aerials, but that would also let me sculpt the contours of the golf course and add the visual elements – grasses, sand, pins, buildings, et cetera.

Strangely, the most effective program for doing this was a video game that contained a golf design component. The real benefit to building a digital 3D model was that I could perform calculations and triangulate features. It even allowed me to identify several ground-level photographs of the course by aligning background landmarks, like the giant LIDO sign that was next to the property. The final stage of the digital modeling process was to match the digital course to every known photograph by panning to the same angle and tweaking each contour until the model looked identical.

 

Once the digital model was complete, there was an additional technical challenge, and more technology that proved useful. The digital model looked good, but it was trapped in a program that wasn’t designed to output grading plans. Brian Zager, a local tech ninja and golf nut, figured out a way to extract the data from the program by automating the measurement tool in the game to take a measurement every few inches and record the height. That process produced the grading plans that Tom Doak and his team needed to get started.

That same data was also used to program GPS bulldozers, which essentially 3D-printed a rough draft of the golf course onto the ground at the site before the finer shaping was conducted. Brian Zager proved so useful in the process that he is now working for Tom Doak.

 

The Par-3 8th is in the foreground.

The biggest remaining question is when your humble blogger gets his butt out there.

I'll see you later in the week.

Weekend Wrap - Dog Days Edition

A strange weekend of weather....  Saturday featured a Scottish-like soft rain, good training I though for our forthcoming trip, until a friend reminded me it would like be 20-25 degrees coder there.  Sunday we got our first hot and humid day, which took its toll.

I'll not dwell on that trip, though departure is two weeks from today.  But that's not important today....

The Legend of Baltus Roll - There's no crying in golf, except for Lexi, but there's always been murder around our game:

Baltus Roll farmed the land on which the club now sits, in the shadow of the Baltusrol (First) mountain, which is really just a big hill. His family had immigrated to the United States and had

maintained the farm with oxen over the years, leading some in the area to believe the Roll family was wealthy. Convinced of this, two men, identified as Peter B. Davis and Lycidias Baldwin, went to Roll's home on the Baltusrol mountain on Feb. 22, 1831, to try to get him to share the location of his fortune. Roll, 62 at the time, was tied up by the criminals and beaten after refusing to cooperate. His wife escaped, but when she returned with help, the men had left and Roll was dead in an icy pool of water.

“We were awaken [sic] at about midnight by a loud pounding on the door, and then the door burst open and two men came in and dragged my husband out of bed, punched and beat him, and took him out of the house," Roll's wife testified at the time. "They seemed to ignore me, but I could see the face of the larger man - a full face with large whiskers and light blue eyes. I watched them tie my husband and choke him and throw him on the ground, and not knowing what to do, I hid myself in the woods and wandered about until daylight. Then I went for help to a neighbor's house."

No one was ever convicted of the crime. Baldwin went to a tavern in Morristown and apparently overdosed on a narcotic. Davis was tried but not convicted because a number of pieces of circumstantial evidence were declared inadmissible. Davis eventually went to prison on a forgery charge and died in Trenton State Prison.

One can see why the Saudis feel such a kinship with our ancient game, though 1830's bonesaw technology was far more primitive.

The ladies held one of their fourteen majors (we kid because we love) at Baltusrol's iconic Lower Course, a week that demonstrated everything good about the LPGA, but also highlighted its ongoing challenges.

While attention was duly focused one one 20-year old, another grabbed the hardware:

All week at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship players spoke about patience. Waiting for

opportunities, not forcing them. Ruoning Yin, however, was testing the limits of that mindset at Baltusrol Golf Club. She had gone 71 holes seemingly without a putt of significance dropping. Then, on her 72nd hole, when she watched her ball topple over the front edge of the cup, she raised her fist and let out a sigh of relief.

It was all worth the wait.

With a 10-footer for birdie on the par-5 home hole of the famed Lower Course, the 20-year-old from China closed out a final-round 67 to post an eight-under 276 total, one stroke clear of 2021 U.S. Women’s Open champion Yuka Saso. In turn, Yin had claimed her second career LPGA title and her first major championship victory, joining Shanshan Feng (2012 Wegmans LPGA Championship).

The course had played tough for the ladies all week, though Sunday got a bit schizo as per this:

Just after 4 p.m. local time, the KPMG leaderboard was more crowded than a New York City subway at rush hour.

Eleven players were within two shots of the lead. Baltusrol, normally nasty, had been softened by a band of thunderstorms earlier in the afternoon and was ripe for scoring. Birdie roars echoed from all corners of the property. Volunteers manning the old-school manual scoreboards could hardly keep up. With back-to-back par-5s to finish, fans assumed more fireworks would be in store as the final few groups finished their rounds.

But what actually happened was quite the opposite. With a major title in the balance, the birdie well dried up.

At least two 64's in those a little ahead off the leaders, though that last group was heading in the wrong direction.  Made it a challenge to have any sense of what score might be required, although Carlotta Ciganda guessed the correct number after finishing off her 64.

The problem for the ladies is blindingly obvious.  This young lady played her heart out, that final birdie after having missed the fairway was nails.  Problem is that nobody knows her in the slightest, nor do they/we (don't panic, those aren't my pronouns) know the other contenders..... I really didn't know Ruoning  Yin, but Xiyu Lin (ironically, Yin's landlord), Jenny Shin or Ayaka Furue much better.

The good news is that the Asian talent pool is so deep.... but the bad news is that the Asian talent pool is so damn deep.  At least it's a marketing challenge....

Let's see what the nice folks at the Tour Confidential panel thought of it all:

1. Ruoning Yin won the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship on Sunday at Baltusrol,

holding off Yuka Saso and a charging Rose Zhang to win the women’s second major of the season. What most impressed you about Yin’s victory, and what were your thoughts on Baltusrol — which caught at least some criticism for its green edges — as a host venue?

Sean Zak: Look no further than the way she finished. Methodically working through missing the 18th fairway. Forced to lay up. Then absolutely attacking that back pin on 18 to set up her winning birdie putt. That was how Baltusrol played on Sunday. You had to take what it gave you and pick spots to attack. I think the course held up well as a host venue. It may not be the sexiest place to watch golf, but it’s still a bit of a beast. Tackling it for four straight days is a feat.

Josh Sens: Funny game, golf. She rode her ball striking all day, with only the putter holding her back. But when everything was on the line, she had a rare miss with the driver and summoned a clutch putt. That showed a lot of steel. And she did when pretty much everyone else but Saso was stumbling toward the finish. As for the venue, the more we get to see the women at championship venues known for hosting the men, the better. Green edges? Pfft. Baltusrol was a good test, and its unusual back-to-back par 5 close left a lot of doors open to the very end.

Dylan Dethier: What impressed me was that we were focused on another 20-year-old on the leaderboard, Rose Zhang, but it was 20-year-old Yin who walked away with the title. I loved her fire down the stretch and the enjoyment she took from coming out on top of a jam-packed leaderboard. It was a great golf week to have two TV screens available, that’s for sure.

Yes, but I had to laugh the couple of times they were pimping the Solheim Cup, ignoring that that otherwise fine team event excludes the deepest well of talent in the game.

That "green edge" issue is something I picked up on, though it's not just the greens, but rather the absence of any step cuts, attributed to Gil Hanse.  With greens and fairways crowned, it means balls will inevitably feed down towards the longer rough, the worst of it being when they come to rest against the collar.  I've seen this at Quaker Ridge as well, and no doubt it reflects the original design parameters, given that step cuts weren't a thing until the 60's.  That said, those balls that come to rest against the collar seem impossible to play and, while none of us want to be a fairness Nazi, i just don't love it, the more so for member play.

We're acutely aware of hw cruel our game is, but this Golf.com piece is gonna leave a mark on one of the LPGA's brightest stars.  It involves a Thursday-Friday pairing at this event:

The past, present and future of women’s golf played together. Here’s how it went

See if you think one of these gal's time has passed:

Mind you, I don't think the premise is wrong.  It's just that she's been the poster child for American women's golf for so long that I'm just surprised to hear it said out loud:

Thompson represents one end of the spectrum, a star with her best days (seemingly) behind her. Although she’s just 28, her mileage inside the ropes rivals just about any other active player’s. She turned pro in 2010 — at 14! — and has been in the spotlight ever since. With 11 wins and a major title, Thompson has put together an excellent career, but as one of the brand names in the women’s game, there’s always been a yearning for more.

Golf can be a cruel game, of which Thompson’s career has been a steady reminder. After winning a major at 19, she’s been stuck in neutral trying to do it again. There have been close calls — all ending in heartbreak — but that next major title has never come. This season, a breakthrough doesn’t appear imminent. In four LPGA starts, Thompson has made just one cut; her best finish: T31.

Round 2 at the Women’s PGA was more of the same. Dropped clubs were common; so too were bewildered looks after missed putts. Thompson rallied late in the day with a quartet of birdies to sneak inside the cut line, raising her spirits considerably, but she still sits a distant eight shots behind the leaders.

That Friday push to make the cut was impressive and the kind of thing we often see from the game's studs, but she didn't make anything of it over the weekend, finishing T47.  More importantly, she hasn't won since the Carter Administration and when she's been near the lead one sees the toll it takes.

She'll probably end up on the U.S. Solheim team regardless, but that tells us more about the state of  American women's professional golf.  But if it came down to a choice between Lexi and Rose for the last captain's pick, that shouldn't be a hard decision, no?

Traveling Blues - I didn't watch even a minute of it, though you can't help but appreciate this guy's return from the dead:

When Keegan Bradley first came out on the PGA Tour, his mind didn’t immediately jump to playing in golf’s biggest tournaments like the majors or Players Championship.

He thought about getting to play in the Travelers Championship, the closest thing the Woodstock, Vt., native had to a hometown Tour event.

Beginning the day with a one-shot lead, Bradley birdied three of the first six holes to pull away from and open up a six-shot advantage. Despite an up-and-down back nine, Bradley recovered and closed out the Travelers by three shots, with a 23-under total.

“This is for all the kids that grew up in New England. Got to sit through the winters and watch other people play golf,” Bradley said. “I just am so proud to win this tournament.”

It’s Bradley’s sixth-career PGA Tour title and second already this season after he was victorious at the Zozo Championship in Japan last October. The only other time Bradley won twice in a season was his rookie year when he captured the PGA Championship and HP Byron Nelson Championship.

Whatever you might think about the anchored putting ban, and I remain glad for its banishment, there's little doubt of how unfair it was to those that had made their way in the game with their putters lodged against their torsos.  Bradley has long been a premiere striker of the balls, so glad to see him find another way to make it work.

The TC panel gives a thought to Ryder Cup implications:

2. Keegan Bradley shot a final-round 68 to win a low-scoring Travelers Championship on Sunday. With two wins already this season, what’s been the key to Bradley’s resurgence this year and will be in Rome for the Ryder Cup?

Zak: There’s an oft-mentioned recipe to success on the PGA Tour: be one of the best ball-strikers and stay patient for the week when your putter gets hot. Well, Keegan is one of the best ball-strikers on the planet and, yes, his putter got hot. Bradley finished first in Strokes Gained: Approach and first in Strokes Gained: Putting. That’ll do it basically every single week. It’s exactly why he’s playing his way onto the Ryder Cup team at the moment.

Sens: Bradley answered this question for us by bowing repeatedly to his putter. He made everything, except for that rough patch down the stretch. I hope he’s on the team for the emotional fire he brings. But the potential roster is so deep— Bradley is one of a large handful of guys who could swap in or out and the team wouldn’t be losing or gaining enough for anyone to complain

Dethier: I sure hope so. The Ryder Cup is at its best when its rosters are composed of golfers who desperately want to be there, and Bradley certainly fits that description. But with Clark booking his ticket to Rome at last week’s U.S. Open and Bradley making a strong case this week, the selection process just got a whole lot spicier.

Might be time for a look at those Ryder Cup rosters, as recent events have certainly changed to outlook there.  Bradley and Clark, for sure, but also the PGA-LIV rapprochement bringing Koepka, DJ and maybe others into the mix.  I'll pencil that in for later this week...

We've barely touched on the status of the proposed ball roll-back, but ponder these thoughts from Mr. McIlroy:

Following his final round, Rory McIlroy was asked if the course is now too gettable for today’s players, and he replied in the affirmative.

“I don't particularly like when a tournament is like this. Unfortunately, technology has passed this

course by, right?” McIlroy said after a Sunday 64, good enough for a T-7 finish. “It sort of has made it obsolete, especially as soft as it has been with a little bit of rain that we had. So, again, like the conversations going back to, you know, limiting the golf ball and stuff like that, when we come to courses like this they just don't present the challenge that they used to.”

McIlroy’s stance is not necessarily a surprise; he has made similar remarks regarding easy set-ups on the DP World Tour in Europe. Moreover, McIlroy has been one of the few players to be in favor of the golf ball rollback proposed by the USGA and R&A.

Whatever rollback may come, however, won’t be instituted for years. With that in mind, McIlroy was asked what else courses can do to toughen their set-ups in the short run. He responded by saying it’s not a matter of simply growing out the rough.

“That bunches everyone together,” McIlroy explained. “The blueprint is something like LACC where you have wide targets, but if you miss it's penal. This isn't that sort of golf course. It's not that sort of layout. It doesn't have the land to do that. So, you know, unfortunately when you get soft conditions like this and you've got the best players in the world, this is what's going to happen.”

OMG, we've rendered TPC River Highlands an anachronism...  I mean, many of us have been worried more about places like the Old Course, but we'll take the warning wherever we get it.

The solution might e to make it play firmer and faster, but you can't trely on that in the Northeast in June.  On to Detroit (yawn).

LIV Scat - Kind of a substance-free interregnum, though a couple of interesting bits.  First, beginning with Jimmy Dunne's comments, the push is on to convince us that the good guys have our back:

How the new PGA Tour-Saudi PIF deal ensures Tour will maintain control

 This is their premise:

As for the allocation of power in the proposed new golf world, various safeguards have been put in place to protect and maintain the Tour’s control, regardless of additional investment from PIF, according to a source in possession of the agreement. Within the agreement, the partnership is defined as a “commercial relationship,” wherein the PIF makes a sizable cash investment to grow the new company and bring its own assets to the table. That’s what LIV Golf and its subsidiaries are considered here: PIF-owned assets.

One of the first questions Watson included in his open letter is about the investment and what power it will promise the PIF. As it happens, that is one of the major stipulations repeated throughout the agreement. The agreement states that the Tour will maintain controlling voting interest at all times and the PIF will hold a non-controlling voting interest.

Voting interest is dictated by board representation, which means the Tour will be expected to maintain a majority representation on the board. At the moment, only four figures have been appointed to it: Al-Rumayyan, Monahan and the two independent directors from the Tour Policy board, Ed Herlihy and Jimmy Dunne.

Well, that certainly speaks authoritatively to matters and resolves any and all of my outstanding concerns.... yanno, as long as I ignore reality.

And here's further reassurances:

Those four figures were all heavily involved in the initial agreement and will make up the initial executive committee of the NewCo board, with other additions to the board requiring approval from both the PIF and the Tour. It is unclear how many board members there will be but it is expected that the DP World Tour will be represented. According to the source, it is spelled out within the agreement that increased investment from the PIF — in addition to its first right of refusal on outside investment — will not give it a controlling voting interest. In other words, the PIF cannot buy greater control of the Tour. Future operations of NewCo will be dictated by the board, with recommendation from Monahan.

Wow, these guys have thought of everything..... although, for some reason, they bring Orwell to mind:

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

― George Orwell, 1984

So, why don't I believe them?  Yeah, their lips moving was a dead giveaway.... But perhaps the bigger question is what they themselves really believe.

To me, it's blindingly obvious the course this will take.  Oh, I'm sure there will be all kinds of language for Jay and his acolytes to cite, and I'm pretty sure the Saudis will agree to any of it right now.  The problem is that reality is a harsh mistress....

Jay and his cabal are deliberately organizing the Tour's ecosystem at a level unsupportable by the economics of professional golf, ostensibly because the guys won't play for what he can offer them.  They will willingly agreeing to become dhimmis:

dhimmis or dhimmi also zimmis or zimmi

: a person living in a region overrun by Muslim conquest who was accorded a protected status and allowed to retain his or her original faith

Understand that to which they are agreeing....  They will make themselves dependent upon Saudi cash, and there will quite obviously be no other available source of such financing, because there's no return on investment possible.  But we are to believe that the Saudi's are so overjoyed just to be allowed at the table, that they won't ask for anything for their billions of dollars.... Because Jay and company are so anxious to tell us what a great deal they negotiated, that they hope we won't realize that it's all subject to renegotiation.

Eamon Lynch has a provocative piece up, one that mentions the unmentionable:

Lynch: Jay Monahan's retreat at least spares him the spectacle of Patrick Cantlay’s artless coup

Do tell...

It’s impossible to not empathize some with Jay Monahan, who stepped away as PGA Tour commissioner last week to address an undisclosed medical situation. After all, who among us didn’t feel stricken upon hearing that Chesson Hadley expects to be rewarded for his loyalty in not leaving for LIV? That declaration proves how myopic entitlement has spread from the Tour’s penthouse all the way to its basement.

Monahan’s predicament is unenviable, even without the attending health issues. He’s been cast as the face of a rapprochement with the Saudi Arabian government, an ill-defined but ignominious deal that promises a future in which the Tour will have to rationalize its proximity to regime atrocities. When he announced the agreement on June 6, Monahan knew he’d be widely pilloried, including by his own blindsided members and by the families of 9/11 victims, who were left feeling like useful props in a commercial dispute. The fallout, he would have calculated, could be career-ending.

In case you missed it, the great Chesson Hadley think he's due a king's ransom for his loyalty to the PGA Tour, which is a pretty good proxy for the depth of the entitlement rot.

Although to me Eamon is using a very passive formulation, because it was Jay that created that unsustainable model that forced  capitulation, despite repeated assurance that Tour finances were good for several years.

But I thought the coup happened in Delaware, if not earlier, but Eamon has more on that:

Issues with the membership run deeper than the practicalities of selling the product. Several prominent players didn’t fire a shot in defense of their Tour over the last three years but instead

held it to ransom by threatening to bolt for LIV unless their demands were met. Those demands resulted in a compensation model that is, by Monahan’s admission, unsustainable without outside investment. In short, PGA Tour players offered an example of what happens when a professional sport consumes itself with naked greed. And it isn’t over yet.

Patrick Cantlay, who carries himself with the assurance of a man convinced he’d be a partner at Goldman Sachs if he wasn’t merely sporting its logo on his cap, has been trying to rally players against the deal with the Saudis, and against members of the Tour’s policy board who architected or support it. It hardly needs to be stated that his objections aren’t based on the morality of dealing with human rights abusers. Existing PGA Tour incentives won’t much benefit Cantlay. He won’t get rich from the Player Impact Program that bonuses stars on fan engagement since the only needle he moves is the gas gauge on his car. So the logic of Cantlay’s coup d’etat is that if LIV disappears as a threat — a likely occurrence under the deal — then players like him have no options, no leverage over the Tour, and no prospects for the lucrative payday to which they feel entitled.

Multiple sources say Cantlay has romanced LIV for some time, including while being a sitting member of the Tour’s policy board, all while maintaining a gymnast’s balance as a fence-sitter in public.

He is our terrific penis, after all....

But it's a weird argument to think that they could simply blow up the negotiated deal and still have the leverage of the LIV threat....  Pretty sure that's off the table, though the aggressive self-interest is all the rage.

This is true enough, although it seems that Eamon elides the split among the elite players and the great unwashed masses:

The policy board meets Tuesday afternoon in Detroit, and it could turn fractious if Cantlay’s coup ambitions move into the open. Thus far, his gripes have gained little traction among players for three reasons: firstly, Cantlay’s interests are not aligned with those of the broader membership, who have maximized any benefit they’ll see from a market competitor in bigger purses; secondly, his fellow players are upset about process, not policy (it’s not taking Saudi money, it’s not being in the loop on the decision); thirdly, no details have been draped upon the framework agreement that was announced, so there’s nothing specific which players might find unpalatable.

I think that's exactly why it was rolled out in this fashion....

But Eamon goes where no one else has gone:

It’s unclear whether Monahan will return to the PGA Tour. It would be understandable if he opted out. Because what is the appeal of a job that’s been reduced to scavenging in order to meet the grotesquely inflated price tags his players put on their charisma? A value that a rational market has shown no sign of supporting.

This is what the absence of eldership looks like.  I first noticed this with Jay back at that 2020 Players Championship, where his leadership team simply couldn't make a decision.  He created something he couldn't sustain, and now will be eating crow sandwiches for the immediate future.  If he bailed at this juncture he'd be a Hall of Fame crapweasel, but I for one wouldn't miss him.

That prediction last year that we'll end up hating each and every one of these guys is looking pretty good, I just never dreamed that Chesson Hadley would be the poster child.

That's it for today, but we'll have more as the week progresses.

Thursday Theses - Back To The Future Edition

Actually, we'll test every tense of verb that you know, with a little past (LACC), present (Baltusrol) and future, well, you'll not need a parenthetical there.

Open Leftovers - Geoff has his typical post-mortem, filed under the awkward "Champions, Cut-Makers and Point-Missers" rubric, but who wants to tell him that there's no points in golf (unless, yanno, you're using a Stableford).

He did remind of one of the more interesting aspects of the winner:

Wyndham Clark. He arrived early, convinced himself the course fit his emerging game, didn’t whine about blind shots or 65 yard wide fairways that were easily holdable, and best of all, exuded a

look of determination no other player seemed to have. Aggressive and bullish can often turn fatal in a U.S. Open but a couple of miraculous up-and-downs Sunday made up for any reckless plays. The 29-year-old used all facets of the game to finish -10 and does not feel like a one-and-done type after offloading the big agency and name instructors to find his swing in the dirt. Maybe that’s why his onions never morphed into shallots down the stretch. And look at the stat line for the week: 19 birdies, 41 pars, 11 bogeys, NO doubles, 2 three-putts. Clark played the difficult par 4’s -4 and the par 5’s -8 to McIlroy’s -5 on the three-shotters. A stunning performance and earned victory.

In an era when his competitors can't get three words deep into an Amanda Renner interview without saluting their "team", Clark figures out that ne needs to do it on his own....  That steely individualism is refreshingly welcome to this observer.   Am I the only one that thinks that might explain why his game held up in the cauldron, whereas other, more pampered souls, lost theirs....  Rory, that was for you.

Perhaps Geoff could use an Intro to Statistics tutorial?

Rory McIlroy. Gracious in yet another painful defeat where he played so well over a course he had not seen before Monday, McIlroy’s Sunday was eerily similar to St Andrews last year where the solid, smart and seemingly wise play seemed like what a veteran trying to win another major should do over less experienced competition. Once again, someone else somehow played a touch more aggressively, somehow got up and down from a few impossible spots and seemed weirdly unencumbered in contrast to McIlroy, who knows how hard these are to win. “Wyndham was pretty much rock solid all day, and that was a great two-putt at the last,” the runner-up said Sunday after leading the field in Strokes Gained Off The Tee and Putts per Green In Regulation, usually a pretty deadly combination. Ultimately, a three putt off the fringe at 8 and an understandably aggressive third at the 14th were his undoing. The margins in this stupid came can be so cruel sometimes.

When bad breaks keep happening to good people, you might want to ponder whether they're actually breaks at all.... Correlation may well not imply causation, but it's a good place to start.

 Lots of thoughts to be had on that 6th hole, including these from Geoff:

6th Hole. Things could have gone a lot of ways with this one: blind tee shot, slim green surrounded by dense fescue, and decisions all around. That tends to add up to trouble in a modern game where players label something broken if there is not one clear way to attack. Though the green held better than expected from well back—and players did lay shockingly far back in the fairway more than expected—the scatter chart is pretty dreamy in terms of giving players width and a hole that’s only a 275 yard straight shot holding its own. The dispersion is beautiful, though also perplexing players did not ever try to nudge one down to the very far end for a better angle of attack.

Having had to abandon his scatter-charts for Riviera No. 10, Geoff is due....  But the thing is, that scatter-chart is pretty dreamy, given three actually viable options off the tee.

The Golf.com writers purged their notebooks, with James Colgan penning this homage to No. 6:

The perfect golf hole?

By James Colgan

If you find yourself in a certain cross-section of the golf community — under 40, overly active on Twitter, with any sort of opinion on the number of commercials shown during a golf telecast — it’s likely you also find yourself a fan of the drivable par-4.

The hole template has found itself in the main vein of golf architecture in the 21st century; a beloved choice among those building (and caring about) golf courses. And though LACC was around long before course-design Twitter, the 300-yard 6th hole at the North Course gives those who gush over the short 4 reason to fully swoon.

It took me nearly all of tournament week to get out to the 6th, but I finally plopped down atop its massively raised fairway as the leaders strolled through on Sunday afternoon. What I found was what I believe to be the perfect golf hole: a true, do-or-die challenge with any number of potentially fatal options.

Those who attempted to carry the trees and drive the postage-stamp green were faced with two options: make it have a good shot at eagle, or miss and scramble hard for par. Those who laid up were faced with a difficult shot from the bottom of the bend in the fairway, with only five yards of margin for error on either side of a baked-out green.

On Sunday, I watched the final two pairings come through. Scottie Scheffler and Rickie Fowler laid up but couldn’t wedge it close enough to make birdie. Rory McIlroy missed too far right and couldn’t get up and down for a 3. Wyndham Clark had the best shot of the bunch, landing it just short of the green in the heavy rough. He was lucky enough to escape from it and made birdie.

That, to me, is a perfect strategic hole: easy to make bogey, hard to make birdie, and lucky to make par. Too bad it didn’t come closer to the closing stretch.

 

The TV folks don't get much love from us, but I agree with Geoff here:

NBC’s portrayal of the 6th. From the early round explanations by on course reporters helping viewers understand the options, to camera angles from all perspectives, the little drivable gem got the rock star coverage from NBC. This graphic on tee shot lines was fun:

He's got this as a Cut-Maker, which seems about right:

15th Hole. The little 80, 81 or whatever yardage it was Saturday did not produce the same drama as it did during the 2017 Walker Cup. But stroke play is a different beast than match play. The players showed wisdom and restraint in not going at the hole which played beautifully to all hole locations. But given the Saturday cautiousness, perhaps it would have made a better Sunday hole location to wring a little more risk-taking out of the field.

This will provide a segue into those ratings, but maybe the biggest issue here was just the TV schedule, because the leaders got to this hole on Saturday long after your humble blogger was sawing logs.

I'm not going to belabor it, but the word boffo has been employed:

Compared to:

Bigger numbers are better, but the broadcast window was hardly comparable.... Not sure they should be dancing a jig over the delta.

So, when do we see LACC again?  It's complicated:

The 2023 U.S. Open just wrapped up in Los Angeles, but the United States Golf Association quickly made plans to return to Southern California.

Riviera Country Club, site of the PGA Tour’s Genesis Invitational in Pacific Palisades, California, will host the 2031 U.S. Open. It will be the second time Riviera has hosted the U.S. Open after the famed club became the first in Los Angeles to host the championship in 1948, when Ben Hogan won the first of his four U.S. Open titles.

 

One can understand the USGA's interest in LA, although taking 75 years to return there beggars explanation.  One can also appreciate the USGA's love of West Coast venues and that prime time TV windows, but do all their venues have to also hold PGA Tour events (Pebble, Torrey and The Riv)?

Apparently LACC is now slotted back in for 2039, so mark your calendars accordingly.  I look forward to blogging that return at age.....quickly doing math, 86.

Distaff Doings - If golf is to be watched this weekend, it will be this event:

Major championship golf is back yet again this week. After a thrilling tournament out in Los Angeles for the men, the women take center stage this week in New Jersey for the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship.

For the first time since 1985, Baltusrol Golf Club will host the top ladies in the game for a major championship. Balty’s Lower Course — home of 2005 and 2016 PGA Championship — will be on display as the likes of Nelly Korda, Rose Zhang, Lydia Ko and others compete for the crown.

You don't have to look hard for the biggest stories:

Rose Zhang tries to keep the momentum rolling

Rose Zhang took the golf world by storm earlier this month when she won the Mizuho Americas

Open in her professional debut. This week, the 20-year-old budding superstar returns to pro golf looking to keep the momentum rolling.

This won’t be the first time Zhang has played in a major. As an amateur, she made nine starts in majors, including winning low amateur honors at the Chevron Championship and AIG Women’s Open. However, this will be the first time the 20-year-old has teed it up in one of golf’s biggest events as a pro.

So far in her pro career, Zhang has a 1.000 winning percentage, and she enters this week as one of the favorites. If she can replicate her success from Liberty National, it will take her stardom to a whole new level.

And this young lady that's had some setbacks:

Nelly Korda returns

Nelly Korda’s health has been a big story for the last several years, and for all the wrong reasons. She withdrew from the Women’s PGA in 2020 and missed more than two months dealing with

the ailment. Last season, she had surgery to remove a blood clot in her arm that also forced her out of action for several months. And, just four weeks ago, Korda was forced to miss the Mizuho Americas Open with another back ailment.

She returns to action this week for the first time since the latest injury, and even hinted that the time off may have been a good thing. But without the competitive reps heading into the year’s second major, it’s impossible to say how she’ll respond. She’s got six top 10s in eight starts so far this season, but she’s yet to secure a victory. Will this be the week she returns to the top of the golf world?

You'd think this would be a tough track on which to make one's return.

I have terribly mixed feelings about this bit of conventional wisdom:

What makes playing majors at Baltusrol and Pebble Beach so meaningful according to an LPGA major winner

The opportunity to compete on these venues is something Stacy Lewis, a two-time major winner and the U.S. Solheim Cup team captain, has been longing for since joining the LPGA Tour in 2009. Since KPMG and the PGA of America came on board to help run the former LPGA Championship nine years ago, the venues have become more high profile: Hazeltine National, Aronimink, Atlanta Athletic Club, Congressional and now Baltusrol.

Ya got that?  The future for these ladies is dependent upon Hazeltine and Atlanta Athletics Club, venues most of us hope to never suffer through again.

Look, they crave respect, so I don't want to sound too harsh, but this strikes mne as profoundly silly:

For the LPGA to compete on these stellar courses provides a unique opportunity to showcase the women’s game. Casual golf fans may be more apt to tune into the coverage to see how the women will fare on courses they’ve seen the men play previously. The curiosity factor is bound to attract more viewers.

What is this elusive "casual golf fan" and have we actually found one in the wild?  A casual golf fan is a guy watching baseball or basketball....

It's not that I have any interest in excluding the ladies from these venues, it's just that they seem to be in a little bit of denial.  Strike that, it's a far more serious case of denial, because they seem not to know what they're selling.  The problem is simple, to wit, they fare incredibly poorly in that comparison to the men, which they can't acknowledge.

Success for the ladies has to come from other factors, appealing and approachable players, a better fan experience and the like.  They also need to develop their own venues and play in smaller markets, the sadness being that they had a perfect exemplar of this in Mission Hills.  I know that was abandoned due to outside influences, thank you very much Augusta National, but that's a far more viable model than expecting Hazeltine to draw viewers.

LIV In The Time of Cholera - It's been a while, so shall we catch up?

I'm not even sure I ever blogged Jay's disappearance, which even I have to admit was a PR masterstroke.  last seen, Jay was taking "ownership" of his hypocrisy in that wonderfully post-modern manner in which ownership has been de-coupled from consequences.   but the vanishing act was quite the mic drop, no?  I'm sure we'll get a complete accounting of that, right?

If you'll indulge a short browser tab closing moment, I've had this open for far too long.  It amuses me simply because these aggressively-entitles players seem to have found the perfect commissioner, based upon tis reaction to potential Congressional hearings:

Jay Monahan fires back at Congress, says government inaction led PGA Tour to fend for itself against Saudi Arabia

You might want to have a strategically-positioned hankie for this tale of woe:

“Over the past two years, the PGA Tour has fought an intense and highly publicized battle as the

Saudi Arabian PIF-backed LIV golf league attempted to ‘buy’ PGA Tour players and take over the game of golf in the United States and beyond, creating a fractured golf ecosystem and fomenting a heated divisiveness into the game,” Monahan wrote. “We believe that we did everything we could possibly do to defend what we stand for, including spending tens of millions of dollars to defend ourselves from litigation instigated by LIV Golf – significant funds diverted away from our core mission to benefit our players and generate charity. As part of the litigation, we were successful in securing a court ruling that the PIF was not protected under sovereign immunity with respect to litigation discovery and potentially liability, something which had never been done before in the United States.

“During this intense battle, we met with several Members of Congress and policy experts to discuss the PIF’s attempt to take over the game of golf in the United States, and suggested ways that Congress could support us in these efforts. While we are grateful for the written declarations of support we received from certain members, we were largely left on our own to fend off the attacks, ostensibly due to the United States’ complex geopolitical alliance with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This left the very real prospect of another decade of expensive and distracting litigation and the PGA Tour’s long-term existence under threat."

Hmmm....a bit curious, no?  because if your members and you wanted to hold off this Saudi threat, all they had to do was turn down the offers.....  Yeah, hard to see why Congress didn't act on that.

Congressional hearings will be the usual performance art, though that ongoing Justice Department antitrust investigation could be an issue, not least because of the political undercurrents of a presidential election year.  he elephant in the corner is that they were investigating the PGA Tour as a monopoly before the merger, yet...

PGA Tour, LIV Golf merger creates even bigger 'monopoly,' but at what price?

Of course, the best argument against the PGA Tour as monopoly is that LIV got off the ground, but after the deal closes?

Of course, that makes the rookie mistake of applying logic.... what an incumbent administration will do in the midst of an election cycle,. especially if oil prices tick up, remains speculative, though fortunately we're blessed with a Justice Department that is completely unaffected by politics....  Yeah, I know.

No doubt you've heard the pushback from Jimmy Dunne and others, to wit, that Jay will be in charge so there's nothing to see here.  They seem immune to irony, in that putting full faith and credit in a man that:

1. Just betrayed his membership, and;
2. Just disappeared with a mystery "medical issue".

They're also citing control of Board seats at that Newco as comfort, and somehow trying to sell us on the fact that the right-first-refusal for financing is some kind of one-off.  Because we're supposed to accept the Wahabis as passive investors that are just happy to have a seat at the table... Do we think Jay is familiar with the term Jizya?

You've no doubt seen the speculation about the path forward.  Will LIV continue to operate, hw will those that stayed be compensated and what will the path back to the PGA Tour look like for the LIVsters.  Of course, I take at face value the assurances that there have been no negotiations on these subjects, and that it's all TBD.  Because they wouldn't lie to us, would they?  I mean, Jay has always been above reproach, right?

So, perhaps we might want to think through the implications of this trial balloon:

Report: Loyal PGA Tour Players To Be Compensated For Rejecting LIV Golf

The Times reports that the Saudi investors in the game will financially compensate the PGA Tour players who turned down LIV Golf

However, according to The Times, players who rejected the overtures of LIV Golf will receive a payment under the plan so they "level up" with LIV Golf players, who will keep the money they were paid to join LIV Golf even if they return to the PGA Tour.

The report also states that no agreement has been reached on the amount of money players will receive, while they remain in the dark on how the new partnership will work. Players including Tiger Woods, Jon Rahm, Hideki Matsuyama and Will Zalatoris reportedly rejected huge amounts of money to stay put.

Rory, who has allegedly been fighting for Truth, Justice and the American Way told us in the aftermath of the deal announcement that there has to be consequences for the LIV defectors, but that argument will hold up about as well as his wedge game on a Sunday.

But Rory seems well on the way to accommodating this new reality:

Before last week’s RBC Canadian Open, Rory McIlroy was asked if loyal PGA Tour players should be made whole financially, and he replied: “I mean, the simple answer is yes. The complex answer is how does that happen, right. And that's all, that's all a gray area and up in the air at the minute. But, yeah, there is, it's hard to, it's hard for me to not sit up here and feel somewhat like a sacrificial lamb and feeling like I've put myself out there and this is what happens.”

Later, he reiterated the point to Sky Sports, saying: “There has to be something for those guys,” before adding that they probably felt that they were now “questioning that decision” to turn down LIV Golf.

Asked whether he was referring to some form of financial compensation, he added: “Yeah, I think so. Ultimately I think that’s what we’re talking about, yeah.”

Well, all righty then.... This apparently is supposed to make feel better about the sell-out?

During the interview, McIlroy also confirmed he was not one of the players in question as he “was never offered anything from LIV.”

Brave Sir Rory!  He's got his PIP money and he'll make serious bank in those limited-player fields next year, ignoring the source of funding for those purses, but I think more empty virtue signaling is just the ticket.

So, what does this data point tell us?  First, what might the price tag be?  Starting with Hideki, who turned down $300 million large, it has to be a nine-digit number at the very least, no?  And, set aside that funding of Newco, this is the funding of the Tour, or at least its remaining members.  

In addition to this funding, we've also been told that PIF will become the major commercial sponsor of the Tour, and we've simultaneously been told that sponsors are balking at funding these enhanced purses.  On a combined basis, it sure sounds like we get to a number beginning with a "B" pretty damned quickly, no?  This is funding the Tour, not the for-profit Newco, and I'm left with this nagging sense that the Saudis might want something for their riches..... 

No doubt you've heard of Tom Watson's open letter to Jay, the incendiary bits including this:

I still await Saudi acknowledgement of their role in the attacks of 9/11, which resulted in the loss of the innocent lives of 3000 of my fellow American citizens. I support 9/11 Families United and

their efforts to release supporting exculpatory U.S. Government documents (See9/11FamiliesUnited.org/KeyDocuments). That day, forever among the darkest in our nation’s history, is sadly not alone among the human rights violations we have seen employed by Saudi Arabia. I ask the Tour, how is a non-negotiable point for us one day one we negotiate around the next?

My loyalty to golf and this country live in the same place and have held equal and significant weight with me over my lifetime. Please educate me and others in a way that allows loyalty to both and in a way that makes it easy to look 9/11 families in the eye and ourselves in the mirror.

Tom, I think you've lost connection to the current zeitgeist.  You're still living in a Never Forget world, whereas these crazy kids have moved on to this:

'Nobody's perfect': Bryson DeChambeau defends Saudi Arabia in spirited CNN interview

Translated into English, that means that, because no one is perfect, we'll not have any standards at all....Noted.

To, me this is the bigger issue:

My overarching questions remain. Is the PIF the only viable rescue from the Tour’s financial problems? Was/is there a plan B? And again, what exactly is the exchange? We need clarity and deserve full disclosure as to the financial health of the PGA Tour and the details of this proposed partnership.

Yes, when you rule out the layers taking less..... But why exactly did we rule that out, when many seem willing to do so?

While Jay is likening Tom Watson to a meddlesome priest, one of the usual suspects has stepped up to defend Jay's sinecure, though the header is spit-take funny:

Outspoken LIV Golf critic writes open letter preaching ‘patience’ over Saudi partnership

Really?  Who is this brave soul willing to put his good name on the line?

One of the more vocal critics of LIV Golf has made an about-face after the PGA Tour-PIF deal was announced two weeks ago.

Just last summer, Davis Love III said that a “nuclear option” could be required and that tour pros might need to boycott events if LIV Golf players were able to challenge their indefinite bans. That’s certainly no longer the case as the World Golf Hall of Fame member is now asking for “patience” in a new open letter addressed to PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, players, sponsors and tour 

staff.

“Our three commissioners have one critical, common trait: the unwavering goal of basing all decisions on what’s best for the players, sponsors, loyal fans and the game, as well as generating millions of dollars for charity,’’ Love wrote. “This growth has only been possible because our commissioners and the Independent Board Directors have always guided us to sound business decisions, and player input has been central to those decisions, as the Player Directors have an equal voice and votes, to approve or deny our path forward.’’

Love, a five-time PGA Tour Policy Board member, went on to write that “if we are patient and work together we will achieve the best result for our Tour, and our partners and fans.”

Wow, that's some kind of journalism you guys practice at Golf Digest.  Let me see if a review of the videotape helps elucidate what just happened here:

• From early 2022 through June 6, 2023 Jay Monahan and all right-minded folks decried the moral turpitude of the Saudis.
• Jay does an about face that has his members screaming betrayal;
• Tom Watson, a man with actual gravitas, writes an open letter highlighting that obvious betrayal, and;
• A serious critic of the Saudis is so swayed by jay's logic that he has a genuine change of heart.

Sure, it could be like that.....  Or yanno, it could just be that Davis Love has his nose so far up Jay's arse that he'll say whatever Jay needs in the moment.  Just spitballin' here, but I'm betting some of that filthy Saudi lucre might end up in Davis purse, no?

Remember what that wise man told us.... It was never about the source of the money, but rather it was always about where that money goes.

That's it for today, with blogging tomorrow to be on a need to rant basis.... If not, have a great weekend.