Friday, October 13, 2023

Late-Week Lamentations - Wrath Of God Edition

So, a week in which real world events overtake our little sports bubble.  Not to worry, most of this post will serve as the escapism we need and deserve, though the biggest issue overhanging our game is inseparable from the current news cycle.

But Alan Shipnuck is back with his new book on the LIVolution, and posted this for comment:

I'd love to know how Alan is taking all this, because at times I'm convinced he must have gone to Harvard, with his elite-level whataboutism.... famously dismissing concerns about the murder and dismemberment of Jamal Kashoggi because of, checking notes, Abu Ghraib.  Alan is such a reliable leftie that I wouldn't want to venture a guess where he stands on the broader issue.

The MBS statement aside, the geopolitical waters run deep, and our little LIV v. PGA Tour conflagration might at times seem a bit silly in that context.  I think my anti-Saudi credentials speak for themselves but, unlike out childish leaders, I'm forced to live in the real world.  The point I'm making is that Joe Biden calling Saudi Arabia a pariah state was empty virtue signaling, but has seriously complicated the U.S. relationship with the Kingdom, which is rather important right now.

But as much as we all might hate that statement from MBS, guess who hates it even more:

Iran wanted Saudi Arabia to drop Israel — but failed miserably

The Saudi prince, known as MBS, wants peace with Israel and his country’s full integration into the world economy, an agenda that puts him fundamentally at odds with Tehran’s drive to destroy Israel and dominate the Middle East through a network of clients and proxies.

According to the Saudi readout of Thursday’s call, MBS “reaffirmed the kingdom’s unshakable position in championing the Palestinian cause and in supporting efforts to bring comprehensive and just peace, which guarantees the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.”

For Tehran, the Saudi reference to peace is intolerable because Israel’s existence is intolerable.

Hamas’ charter likewise states the group’s goal is to “liberate Palestine, from River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean in the west.”

Despite restoring diplomatic ties with the Saudis in April, Iran may have instigated Hamas to launch its Oct. 7 attack on Israel because it feared the progress of Saudi-Israeli normalization talks.

This take is pretty good, although that lead sentence has a rather large omission.  To wit, that notwithstanding their recent phone call, the Saudis view Iran as an existential threat, and Trump's Abraham Accords represent a substantive realignment of Middle East alliances to the benefit of Israel.  My understanding is that the Saudis were interested in such a deal, but held off out of concern for the outcome of our 2020 elections and the constancy of U.S. support.  They kind of nailed it, eh?

Hamas might be the frontline aggressor, but the issue is and always has been Iran.  The tool to combat the threat is an alliance of Sunni states against the Iranians, and this is for those that need a little optimism this morning:

Saudi Arabia was well into normalization talks with Israel, thus prompting Iran, per a Wall Street Journal report the White House disputes, to instruct Hamas to turn the table and start war, which so far seems to have put Arab-Israeli peace efforts on hold but without killing them — at least this is how America and European powers understand the situation.

Saudi Arabia has yet to join anti-Western coalitions, even if Riyadh acts nice around them.

Similarly, Saudi Arabia might seem on the same page with Iran and Hamas, but in reality, the kingdom is still on the Western side and seeking a military treaty with America and normalization of relations with Israel.

When Israel beats Hamas and the dust settles, Saudi-Israeli talks will likely resume.

I certainly hope that's true, though the author ignores the fact that the Biden administration seems desperate to resurrect the despicable Obama treaty with Iran, and to shovel money to a regime whose principal business is the killing of Americans and Jews (and who has likely taken additional American hostages in Israel).  You've no doubt seen the accounts of that $6 billion, though number under Biden is closer to $50 billion, though I don't know if any of it actually came on pallets.

We're done with optimism, now here's a bite for those of you that just need a laugh:

It's the Babylon Bee so it's in theory satire.... But is it really?

Back to our silly golf stuff....

No OWGR Pints For You -  You've heard the news, but let's just make sure you've seen the reasoning:

According to GGP, the OWGR cited two broad areas for its decision: The 54-hole, no-cut format of 48-player fields, and both the limited access for players to join LIV and limited relegation for
players who underperform.

“The important point is, this is not about the players. LIV players are self-evidently good enough to be ranked; there is no doubt about that,” Peter Dawson, chairman of the OWGR board, told GGP. “This is about, should a tour whose formats are so different and whose qualification criteria are so different, can they be ranked equitably with other tours who conform to the OWGR norm and have more competition to them than perhaps the closed shop that is LIV?”

There was also a concern about the team competition affecting individual play, what we'll dub the Sebastian Munoz issue.

I think this the correct decision, though perhaps justifiable would be a better word.  As Dawson makes clear, LIV doesn't fit into the world golf ecosystem easily, though I certainly would have been harsher on the field size/54 hole issues.  But Dawson makes clear that this isn't a final decision, it just lays out what needs to be fixed to reexamine at a later date.

But the decision comes as a surprise for two obvious reasons.  First, it comes after Mr. Waterman made the rounds of Fife in the Dunhill Links Championship, where he was paired with Martin Slumbers and palled around with Dawson himself, as per the photo above.  It sure seemed he was welcome in polite society, so perhaps they really do have convictions?  Yeah, we'll reserve judgment on that...  Geoff has a fun take on that pseudonym bit:

The ranking news comes as a surprise given last week’s very public and upbeat appearance by Public Investment Fund head Andrew Waterman Yasir Al Rumayyan at the Alfred Dunhill Links. According to The Scotsman’s Martin Dempster, the PIF controller of hundreds of billions was initially entered last minute under the Waterman pseudonym, then was identified as the equally “H.E.” on standard bearer signage. (That’s “His Excellency” for those forgot how, at least for a brief time, golf leadership pathetically referred to the PIF head by his preferred moniker.)

 Can we just shoot all these people?  

The second reason for surprise is the existence of that Framework Agreement promising Peace in our Time, which specifically included language requiring the parties to cooperate to arrange OWGR points for the LIVsters.  This might be ironic, because the LIV folks were adamant that Jay Monahan and Keith Pelley recuse themselves, whereas they were the two signatories to the Framework Agreement with a vote.

The other bit of delicious schadenfreude is to enjoy how clueless the Saudis and their enablers can be.  They had their thick McKinsey report, but somehow all Talor Gooch needed to cash that check was Greg Norman's assurances that they wouldn't be suspended and would still get OWGR points.  How are those Greg Norman guarantees playing out, Talor?

More from Geoff o the state of play:

Dawson’s letter suggests this tussle over access, more than the shorter format of LIV events, caused the application to fall apart.

“With contracts and team captains, there are many ways to stay on the LIV tour even if you are not playing well.

“If LIV could find a way to come up with a more open competition style and relegation, we would certainly consider that. There should be many more vacancies than perhaps there are. I don’t think it’s fair to the other 24 eligible tours and the thousands of players trying to get a start each week.”


“Well, if sportswashing is going to increase my GDP by way of 1%, I will continue doing sportswashing,” bin Salman said during the interview with Fox News.

Even more amusing, perhaps, is to consider that, according to Jay Monahan, the continued existence of LIV will be a decision of....wait for it, Jay Monahan.  Yeah, we didn't ever believe that, but he actually said it...

I'll excerpt this in full, because who doesn't love a good whine:

OWGR’s sole objective is to rank the best players across the globe. Today’s communication makes clear that it can no longer deliver on that objective.

Players have historically remained subject to a single world ranking to qualify for Major Championships, the biggest events, and for corporate sponsor contract value. A ranking which fails to fairly represent all participants, irrespective of where in the world they play golf, robs fans, players and all of golf’s stakeholders of the objective basis underpinning any accurate recognition of the world’s best player performances. It also robs some traditional tournaments of the best fields possible.

Professional golf is now without a true or global scoring and ranking system. There is no benefit for fans or players from the lack of trust or clarity as long as the best player performances are not recognized.

LIV will continue to strive to level set the market so fans, broadcasters, and sponsors have the assurance of an independent and objective ranking system and the pure enjoyment of watching the best golf in the world.

Sponsors?  What sponsors?

Good points, but it still strikes me as something you might have wanted to think about before committing that $2 billion.... Just sayin'.

But as we sit here in mid-October, one can't help but ask, what the hell is going on?  I'm trying to figure out whether this deal gets done, or even if it was ever intended to get done. not to mention what it might actually look like.  

I'll leave you with a link to to this Mickelson exchange with CBS' Kyle Porter.  I have almost no interest in anything that comes out Phil's mouth, except to point out the abject hypocrisy:

“Trevor, LIV was NEVER going to get points,” Mickelson wrote. “Why? 1) it’s a monopoly run by all the governing bodies. 2) the PGA Tour tv contract is based on OWGR criteria for them to get all their money. 3) they would lose leverage in negotiations if LIV got points.”

So, Phil objects to others getting their money?  Interesting, though he's seems OK with getting that money himself....  But apparently leverage for me but not thee, eh?  Because let's take a trip down memory lane, back to where this all started:

Mickelson told me he had enlisted three other “top players” he declined to name and that they paid for attorneys to write the SGL’s operating agreement, codifying that the players would have control of all the details. He didn’t pretend to be excited about hitching his fortunes to Saudi Arabia, admitting the SGL was nothing more than what he called “sportswashing” by a brutally repressive regime. “They’re scary motherfuckers to get involved with,” he said. “We know they killed [Washington Post reporter and U.S. resident Jamal] Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates. They’ve been able to get by with manipulative, coercive, strong-arm tactics because we, the players, had no recourse. As nice a guy as [PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan] comes across as, unless you have leverage, he won’t do what’s right. And the Saudi money has finally given us that leverage. I’m not sure I even want [the SGL] to succeed, but just the idea of it is allowing us to get things done with the [PGA] Tour.”

What a dick!  he presumed the right to burn down the house.  And now we face the prospect of him being invited back into said house, so your humble blogger is not amused.

Venue News - This is of the Open Championship ilk, where change seems to be in the air.

First, a little while back we had Rory speculating about an Open at Portmarnock, the Dublin-based links.  It seemed a stretch at that time, but now it seems the R&A is actually considering it:

Only a year after R&A CEO Martin Slumbers said Portmarnock faced too many infrastructure obstacles to receive Open Championship consideration, the organization is now amenable to the possibility. And in an unusal break from tradition confirmed so publicly.

“Portmarnock is undoubtedly one of the world's outstanding links courses,” said an R&A representative. “We believe there is the potential to host our major championships there but it is essential that a full evaluation is carried out to assess whether it is feasible and what would be required to make it happen.”

The R&A confirmation came after news of the club seeking government support and feasibility input to conduct majors just outside Dublin. The 7,466-yard links sits on a County Dublin peninsula accessible by just one road. And while capable of hosting R&A amateur events, seeking The Open and AIG Women’s Open has long seemed ambitious as tournament footprints grew and Portmarnock’s peninsula accessibility issues did not change.

The biggest impediment can be found in the photo below:


Getting the world to the site will be a logistical challenge, although the last few decades offer plenty of comparable challenges, such as Shinnecock and Kiawah.  I can't imagine it as a deal breaker, and expanding to the Republic of Ireland seems a home run, especially after the recent return to Northern Ireland.

But this made me laugh.... Because we still love the place, but really?

But with the R&A, the Minister for Sport and Golf Ireland quickly following up with statements
of support, Donegal venue Ballyliffin does not want to believe in a fait accomplis.

“Good luck to them, but they’re not the only show in town,” Ballyliffin’s general manager John Farren said. “There’s a bit of bandwagoning going on there with Golf Ireland jumping on board and the government jumping on board.

“But it’s yet to be seen if Portmarnock can do it or will do it and yet to be seen if that’s the venue the R&A chooses.”

He added: “I’m not interested in jumping on the coat-tails of Portmarnock just because they’ve decided to make a splash. But if the R&A chooses to put The Open on in the Republic of Ireland, I am interested that it’s not pigeon-holed as something that has to go to Portmarnock because they’re first out of the traps and they’ve done all their housekeeping in terms of equality. That doesn’t necessarily qualify them to be the choice venue.”

My blogging career started at Ballyliffin, and they held an Irish Open successfully.  That's not even a good photo of the place, which is spectacularly beautiful and their Glashedy links could well prove a worthy venue.

The problem is that the town of Ballyliffen is so remote as for this to be inconceivable.  there is only one small hotel and the worry prior to 2019 was that Portrush would be too small to host an Open.  Well, Portrush is at least 90 minutes and a ferry ride away from Ballyliffen, and there's nothing else closer of any size.

That said, I wasn't aware of this:

Ballyliffin to host The Amateur Championship in 2024

Even better, that piece includes a far better photo that does the place justice:

It's just a perfect property for golf, as the dunes and rolling terrain are perfectly proportioned.  But the property gently slopes down towards Pollan Bay and Glashedy Rock:


We miss the place, but is just so remote...

The other interesting Open venue news, concerns Royal Birkdale:

Continuing the recent shift away from Open venues playing as we’ve come to know them, Royal Birkdale approved several major changes ahead of the 2026 championship recently awarded there.

Announced on September 22nd after mixed reviews for a newly installed par 3 at nearby Royal Liverpool, the club has approved a Mackenzie & Ebert plan to make several changes. The two-phase project begins this fall and concludes in spring 2024.

Phase two of the project will commence in autumn 2024 and conclude in spring 2025.

  • New par 3 15th hole between the current 15th and 16th tee. “This is designed to offer more variation to our current par 3s and have our iconic clubhouse as the backdrop.”
  • Redesigned par 5 15th. This will become the 14th to accommodate the new hole. The old par 3 14th will be converted to a short game area and sets up a significant walk from the 13th green to the new 14th tee, offset by the reduced walk created at the new 15th/16th.
  • Modified par 3 7th. Fewer bunkers will surround a more raised green playing to a shorter yardage.
  • 5th Hole: This par 4 is set to be completely redesigned in hopes of bringing the rightside hazard into play and will now feature significant fairway bunkering. It’s not clear from the announcement what happens to the right side dunes creating a blind tee shot. but they appear doomed from the illustration made public:

We've played Birkdale just the once, back in 2010, so I'll not pretend to remember the routing sufficiently well to appreciate these changes.  In fact, I don't even remember that hazard, which is quite out of character with these courses.

As Geoff notes, we're just not accustomed to this much change on our classic links.  And it comes on the heels of that new Par-3 at Hoylake this year, which I believe I read somewhere is already being reversed yet again.  Stay tuned....

You Go, Girl - Letting Lexi play with the boys diminished the PGA Tour's product, as turning your events into clown shows will do.  But this N.Y. Post piece shows how all the right people so want her to succeed, even to comical effect.  Let's stat with the header:

OK, she's the seventh woman to play in a PGA Tour event, so it's historic how?

But we're touting a big drive?  I'm more interested in what she posts, but since you mentioned it, how big was it?

She had her best drive of the day on the fourth hole when she sent the ball screaming 316 feet off the tee.

You make the call, what's funnier, the use of "feet" or the word "screaming"?  Or, now that I think of, it's got to be the combination, because they're trying so hard yet are so clueless....

How is she doing?  

Lexi Thompson seemed to quiet anybody questioning if she should be playing at the Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas with her performance on Thursday, shooting 1-over par through 16 holes before play was suspended due to darkness.

That puts her T76 for now, though she has a 20-footer for par on No. 17....  Really not bad, especially when you consider she's barely holding on to her LPGA card these days.

Beth Ann Nichols reports extensively on the women's game, and had this change of mind about the circus coming to town:

Nichols: Here's why I changed my mind about Lexi Thompson competing on the PGA Tour

OK, we're all ears...

I’ve since concluded that the reward for Thompson and golf is greater than the risk.

For starters, this is nothing like Annika Sorenstam’s appearance at The Colonial 20 years ago. At that time, Sorenstam was the best player in the women’s game. She wanted to test herself and
push herself beyond anything she’d ever experienced. And while that was her personal goal, Sorenstam carried the weight of the tour and women’s golf on her shoulders. The sports world literally stopped to see how she fared.

There was great risk in Sorenstam’s decision to play, and even though she didn’t make the cut, it paid off handsomely. The Swede left Texas an even bigger force in women’s sport.

Thompson is far from a dominant figure on the LPGA, but she is the most well-known and most popular U.S. player, as much for her triumphs as her crushing defeats. If Thompson doesn’t play up to her standards at the Shriners, the LPGA won’t take a hit.

What she's saying is that Lexi is so bad that no one will expect anything from her this week, which sounds about right.  But talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations...

But while I can agree that there's little risk to the ladies, that doesn't explain why the PGA Tour wants to beclown itself.  

I hope that the above has served as a respite from the horrible news of the week.  Have great weekend and we'll check in on Monday to see if the world has survived.

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