The biggest developments to come from Wednesday’s memo, which was obtained by GOLF.com, surround negotiation on the framework agreement with the PIF, which Monahan said is “ongoing.”For the first time, the Tour provided players with a series of new details about the deal, including some of the key elements that could come to determine its eventual ratification by the PGA Tour’s player advisory board.In the memo, Monahan said the Tour was working to present a “Player Benefit Program” believed to be aimed at providing Tour loyalists with a “financially significant” system of repaying players for not defecting. Such a program has been a topic of particular intrigue among players, some of whom turned down eight-and-nine-figure offers from the PIF-backed LIV Golf last year to remain with the PGA Tour.“This program, should we reach a Definitive Agreement, will be financially significant in total and incremental to our planned compensation package,” Monahan said in the memo. “More details to come as we … determine how players from across the membership would benefit.”
I have been unable to confirm whether the memo actually used the salutation, "Dear Suckers", or whether that was merely implied....
This is the big honking payoff to those that remained loyal to the PGA Tour, and will now be paid off for that loyalty by those we were assured should never be allowed into the tent.
The next bit achieves a rare daily double, being simultaneously old news and pathetic:
Another significant piece of negotiations, as written by Monahan, is that the Tour has appointed a “task force” aimed at “developing potential pathways back to the PGA Tour for LIV players who wish to reapply in the future.” It remains to be seen if the task force will impose penalties upon those who do, or how those penalties will look if they are imposed. The task force is being led by PGA Tour’s chief tournaments and competitions officer Andy Pazder alongside newly minted “chief player officer” Jason Gore and EVP/vice counsel Neera Shetty.
Brave Sir Robin hiding behind a task force is so special.... I find that "It remains to be seen" especially rich, given that it could just as easily be applied to the entire term sheet, whose only specific provision was to ban the word "bonecitter". But here at least the cast does change in an intriguing fashion:
These groups will work in addition to a new “third-party special advisor” to players, Raine Group’s Colin Neville, who has been appointed in the wake of the framework agreement. Neville will help streamline communication between the Tour and players during a “complicated and time intensive” negotiation with the PIF, Monahan said.
Hmmmm....the Raine Group? Where have I heard that name before?
Sharp golf fans will recognize Neville’s name; he was one of the first people involved in the formation of a new rival golf league way back in 2020. In many ways, LIV is Neville’s brainchild — he helped to conceive of the idea for the “Premier Golf League” that was later coopted by the Saudis and used in the creation of LIV.
If by coopted you mean stolen.... One assumes that Mr. Neville, whose intellectual property was stolen by the Saudis might have a cautionary tale for our boys but, in our current through the looking glass moment, he'll be urging the lads to trust those genteel Wahabis.... Strange bedfellows is the phrase that comes to mind, though that might trigger images of camels or some such...
Obviously the path back to the PGA Tour will be such that Jay is already hiding behind the skirt of a task force, so I'm guessing those penalties will be of the order of magnitude of parking fines...
Even the writer is trotting out the B-word on this potentially most significant bit:
Buried further in the briefing, Monahan announced the PGA Tour would not be supporting the USGA and R&A’s joint golf ball rollback proposal. Monahan said the PGA Tour was “not able to support” the rollback after there was “significant belief” among the Tour membership that the proposed rule was “not warranted and not in the best interest of the game.” That development comes as a major blow to both governing bodies, which have proposed the rule in the hopes of reigning in the professional game’s increasing distance gains.
A major blow? Court-appointed stenographer James Colgan seems sufficiently credulous that I'd like to interest him in some swampland.... I mean, can you think of any reason to not treat Jay's pronouncements as the law? Any recent incidents where he's suddenly changed course spring to mind?
One other intriguing bit, mostly because of the involvement of that terrific penis:
Protocol dictates that if a non-player director leaves the Policy Board, the four remaining non-player directors suggest a replacement for approval by all board members. Monahan has instead appointed a four-person committee to source Stephenson’s successor and it includes two player directors: Webb Simpson and Patrick Cantlay. In private, Cantlay has been a vehement critic of the Tour’s leadership since the PIF deal was announced on June 6.
That's Eamon Lynch's voice, and we'll step back for his global taker, though calling Cantlay a vehement critic is both accurate but also somewhat misleading. This browser tab has been open for almost two months, but Patrick seems to be Patient Zero:
With the partnership of the PGA Tour and PIF, the Disease of More has officially afflicted all of golf. Is there an antidote?
When Pat Riley was coaching the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1980s, he came up with a term to explain why all dynasties eventually fall. Typically, they aren’t toppled from the outside. Most implode from within. He called it the Disease of More.Athletes, by nature, are addicted to achievement. It’s part of what separates them from mortals. If they win one championship, they’re briefly satisfied, but the feeling soon fades and they are desperate for more. If they earn a million dollars, they’re ecstatic, but before long, it seems insufficient. They are convinced they need more. More of everything, more commercials, more followers on social media, more houses, more influence, even more romantic partners. The same forces that inspire you to work hard to get everything you ever wanted eventually consume you. Your wants simply mushroom. Millionaires long to be billionaires. Billionaires long to be kings.Golf is currently afflicted with the Disease of More.
Upon further review, perhaps Phil is Patient Zero, but Patrick has the long version of this disease, believing apparently that the level of compensation on offer from the Saudis is insufficient for his level of wonderfulness.... Ironically, you'd think a guy out there in a Goldman Sachs hat might have picked up a nugget or two on demand-and-supply, but you'd be wrong...
Eamon puts Jay's memo in the logical context:
As always, framed imaginatively and amusingly:
The humorist Will Rogers described diplomacy as the art of saying ‘Nice doggie’ until you can find a rock, but not every act of statecraft comes with an option for going on the offensive. So it is with the memorandum Jay Monahan sent to PGA Tour players on July 26, which left an unmistakable impression that the commissioner has a pack of rabid hounds at his heels, and that he’s about all out of rocks.The reaction to Monahan’s letter focused on its parts rather than the whole. Like the creation of a task force to decide how LIV golfers might rejoin the Tour or his stiff-arming the governing bodies on rolling back the golf ball. The latter isn’t a pressing matter and its inclusion was intended to signal to players that he has their backs on any issue they feel strongly about. That Monahan felt the need to tip his hand on the proposed rollback before the official comment period concludes shows how eager he is to notch something, anything, in the win column. With good reason.
There's some fun pyrotechnics for sure, but I do think there's one major misperception in his rousing coda:
We are witnessing the end of an imperious era in Ponte Vedra, one that reached its apogee under Tim Finchem. There’s been a seismic power shift within the PGA Tour away from the commissioner’s office and toward members. It began with the rise of LIV, but the announcement of the Saudi agreement and the manner in which it was handled has seriously undermined the executive branch. “We have a ton of momentum heading into the final stretch of the season, and my priority is to reconnect with all of you,” Monahan signed off gamely. By reconnect he doesn’t mean catching-up after his absence, but re-establishing trust in his leadership and in the very governance of the Tour. For all of the concessions he has just made to that reality, a rancorous and divisive period lies ahead.
Eamon is correct that the Tour has lost touch with its membership, a phenomenon so common that it forms the underpinning of the third of Robert Conquest's Laws of Politics:
The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.
But Eamon's misstep is in overlooking the schism within the membership, to wit, power hasn't shifted back to the membership at large. Rather, power has been usurped by a cabal of elite players to the direct detriment of the vast majority of the rank and file.
I've seen one commentator describe the Tour's reaction to the USGA/R&A Model Local Rule as an opening of the negotiation, which is perhaps ceding too much credit to Jay, who likely can't see that far down the road. Geoff has some longer thoughts, but unless Fred Ridley is for turning, it's hard to see the endgame:
But at least the Tour’s comment-period stance is now known ahead of the August deadline. Assuming the USGA and R&A forge ahead with the already watered-down Model Local Rule to make elite players use equipment tested under tighter restrictions, Augusta National is expected to go along. That, combined with the USGA and R&A’s championships, means three majors will make players and whiny manufacturers have to decide if they want to participate. They might pass. Guess what? Without Tiger around and Phil morphing into a weird circus act, no one will miss any of the current players if they stay away over this rule change.With the PGA Tour unwilling to support the compromise-based Model Local Rule, Wednesday’s Monahan memo offers even more license to do what’s right for the game. This means rule-tightening on elite player equipment to reconsider addressing the driver face testing and, instead of backdoor bifurcation via a local rule, enact an overall change that can be carried out for the entire sport. If crafted to only impact elite clubhead speeds, this would not materially impact those lacking speed. Ultimately such a remedy is the cleaner and saner solution while working with the current rules in place. It’s a true “rollback” minus the local rule stuff and one the softened PGA Tour players would be forced to abide by no matter what the major championship math says.
We've all had our gripes over the years with the organizations that run those three majors, but with Jay's capitulation, who else do we have to rally behind?
Meanwhile, Phil is waiting for his apology:
“What a colossal waste of time. Not a single player on LIV wants to play PGA Tour,” the 53-year-old wrote in a tweet. “It would require a public apology and restitution to LIV players for paying millions to Clout media to disparage all of us.”
Dylan Dethier uses his Monday Finish columns for a full-frontal Fisking of Phil's comments, and it may be worth your time:
You won’t be surprised to hear that Phil Mickelson has an opinion on a development in the golf world. You might be mildly surprised to hear the specifics of this one, though. Mickelson took to Twitter (Now called X, I guess? Whatever.) in response to returning commissioner Jay Monahan‘s memo to PGA Tour players. Let’s break each of the four sentences in Mickelson’s tweet for proper comprehension.
Hmmm, I was just gonna respond, "Sod off, swampy!, but let's see what Dylan's got:
1. “What a colossal waste of time.”Yowza! Them’s fighting words. And they’re words that signal a sharp contrast to Mickelson’s feedback on the day the PGA Tour/Saudi PIF agreement was first announced, when he took to the same app to proclaim it an “awesome day” with a smiley face. Something’s changed!
Exactly! While I hate every single thing happening, Phil suddenly lashing out and dispensing with the smiley-faced emoji has me intrigued and sensing some positive news buried within. If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then Phil having a sad has me walking on air...
2. “Not a single player on LIV wants to play PGA Tour.”Also fighting words! And a fairly significant development. I’m not sure this is 100 percent true — Patrick Reed is among those who has recently expressed interest in playing Tour events — but it’s interesting perspective. Jon Rahm said something similar ahead of the Open, suggesting that LIV pros may not actually want to return. So what happens if a pathway back to the Tour opens up and no LIV guys want to take it?
Win-win, baby! It does beg the rather obvious question of where these guys will play, though we're pretty sure that Jay was lying about who controls the future of LIV. How do I know he was lying? yeah, the moving lips are a dead giveaway...
But do go on, Dylan:
3. “It would require a public apology and restitution to LIV players for paying millions to Clout media to disparage all of us.”This is where Mickelson loses me. Is he fair to call out the hypocrisy of the Tour condemning LIV’s Saudi funding only to strike a deal with the same funding source a year later? Absolutely! But I’m not sure what the “millions to clout media” refers to, exactly. There’s a sense of persecution from many of LIV’s top stars — they feel like they’ve been criticized too harshly for leaving — and that frustration tends to get redirected towards the media. I’m not sure who Mickelson is referring to here; perhaps his comment is aimed at the most vocal LIV critics in the media, folks like Eamon Lynch and Brandel Chamblee. But there’s nothing conspiratorial going on and those guys aren’t being paid millions to disparage LIV. They’re just saying and writing what they believe. I guess I’d like some more specifics from Mr. Mickelson here because this feels disingenuous.
Like Dylan, I have no clue what Clout media is either, but I see this as nothing short of an unhinged hissy fit. Again, the only silver lining I can identify is that Phil is spitting mad....
I agree that this is intriguing, in that there isn't going to be much time to figure out what 2024 might look like:
4. “A better topic is future sanctions for the many players who now come to LIV”Now we’re back to an interesting hypothetical. It’s still not clear if the PGA Tour and the PIF will reach the next stage of their agreement. But whether they find resolution or not, it feels increasingly likely with every passing day that LIV will at least continue into 2024. And because some LIV pros’ contracts end at this season’s conclusion, there will be spots available. Will PGA Tour pros be lining up to fill them? If so, who will they be?
The real question would be whether the Saudis are still offering those large contracts, which seems unlikely unless negotiations have broken down....
But the enduring mystery is why Phil has gone from that happy face to lashing out at any and all for his perceived mistreatment. This should be a moment of peak self-congratulation, no? I love his unhappiness for sure, I just don't quite understand it yet.
I'm going to leave you here and we'll cover the Ryder Cup implications later in the week.
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