Weekend Wrap - Minimalist Edition

It's going to be a period of light blogging, driven in equal parts by the calendar and my own need to stave off that dreaded condition known as Blogger Burnout.  Plus, every time I blog LIV I need to immediately go shower....

ZoZo Rising - This lachrymose lad just got things back on track:

Before Sunday’s trophy celebration at the Zozo Championship, Morikawa had gone more than two years without tasting a victory on the PGA Tour. He’d battled through swing changes and strange

misses and a balky putter. He’d watched his World Ranking dip and his status fall off.

And so as he addressed the crowds in Japan, where he claims half of his cultural heritage, he started to cry. The weight of the moment had finally set in, and it meant more than almost anyone knew.

Once upon a time, Morikawa had raced onto the scene in pro golf, collecting five wins and two majors in two abbreviated years to start his career. He was an overnight prodigy, a superstar in the making. His game earned fast comparisons to legends of the sport, including his idol, Tiger Woods.

Yeah, that last bit says more about us than about him....

For a while, it seemed Morikawa was this way, too: confident and self-assured, unflappable in the face of controversy. His certainty with a 6-iron seemed to radiate into the other folds of his life, presenting the image of a modern, squeaky-clean superstar.

But then something interesting happened: Morikawa came back to earth. His putter left him first. Then his driver. Then his shot-shape. Each time it seemed he’d figured one thing out, something else fell into disarray.

His consistency, once the calling card of his professional skillset, evaporated. He vacillated wildly between top-5 finishes and missed cuts. He struggled in clutch moments. In one particularly difficult memory, he blew a six-stroke lead on Sunday at the Sentry Tournament of Champions to Jon Rahm, losing the tournament without even forcing a playoff.

The Tour Confidential panel takes it from here:

4. Collin Morikawa won the Zozo Championship in Japan, ending a winless drought that

dated back to the 2021 Open Championship. What had been holding him back the past couple of years? And now, as he jumps from 20th to 13th in the World Ranking with the win, do you expect him to crack the top 10 in 2024? Top five?

Sens: The stats tell a pretty clear story. Heading into the week, he was second on Tour in Strokes Gained: Approach and 112th in Strokes Gained: Putting. Golfing his ball well but rolling it poorly. This week, he rolled it great. Putting is streaky. The good news for Morikawa is that his ball-striking isn’t likely going anywhere. And I’d wager on him having enough good weeks on the green to crack the top 10.

Barath: For Collin, it has always been about his putting, and it seems like his newest gear change has been a big help to that part of his game. If he is able to maintain a steady level, even if it’s not like it was this week, he will continue to show up on leaderboards in 2024 and beyond. (And here’s the story on his putter!)

Hirsh: Morikawa just needs to have average PGA Tour performances around the greens to win. We really saw how much his short game holds him back when he blew a six-shot lead at the Sentry. And his putting was just never what it needed to be. We didn’t get strokes gained data from the Zozo, but judging from his 26 putts in round four, I bet he’d at least rank among the top 20 in the field in putting. That’s scary for a guy who is nearly guaranteed to hit 13 to 16 greens a round. Plus, he was 17th in the field in scrambling for the week, with five of his seven missed up-and-downs coming in Friday’s 73. The work he’s doing with Stephen Sweeney and Parker McLachlin is clearly paying off.

There's just a million of these guys, the good ball-strikers who need to achieve mere mediocrity with the putter to have good weeks out there.  Now he won bi six, which is perhaps better than just a merely good week, although against a highly suspect field.

LIVing On Riyadh Time - You'll forgive the absence of extensive blogging of the Crushers dramatic win yesterday?   There's an old saying in politics, to wit, that if you're explaining, you're losing.  I assume the same applies here:

Explaining the format: $50 million 2023 LIV Golf Team Championship moves to stroke play for final round

Yeah, except that exactly no one read past that $50 million citation....There's exactly zero news of the PGA Tour-PIF negotiations, except that the absence of news is kind of newsworthy on its own.... And we're left to interpret the actions and comments of those who may be more in the loop, which are emitting quite the weird vibe these days.  Here's a quick take from Geoff:

As genuinely awful a “product” as LIV is—I swear it was on for 15 hours Sunday—I could never last more than five minutes between the announcing and incessant C-list DJ’ing in the background.

Yet signs of a fraying “framework agreement” have the Saudi lapdogs talking a big game going into the holiday season. If even half the Cleeks and Majesticks’ bullishness bears out, what a wild winter men’s golf’s in for.

The Telegraph’s James Corrigan summed up the key moments nicely here (paywall), noting Phil Mickelson’s doubling down on his life as Jerry Maguire fielding calls from PGA Tour players desiring of a move backed by PIF cash.

Geoff is actually in his early 50's, not quite as young as his cherubic features imply, but I'm relieved to have a somewhat younger man opine as to how genuinely awful the LIV product is.  If you wanted to kill off the game of golf, what would you do differently?

But I'm guessing it's that "fraying" bit that got your attention, not the first time Geoff has so indicated.  But what an odd and unprecedented juncture we find ourselves in, though one that should be a target0rich environment for a wiseass blogger....

So, what might a world in which the PGA Tour-PIF negotiations go, don't hate me, pffff, look like?  My first thought is of those investment banks lining up at the door to fund the Tour's For-Profit entity, because I can't imagine any of them putting capital at risk with PIF continuing to burn money to power wash their human rights record.... On the other hnad, Phil, Sergio and PReed being forced to continue to play their golf within that Cone of Silence seems, well, win-win, baby!

So, wither LIV in the absence of a deal?  Well, there are some trial balloons, including a rare Shark sighting.  This guy tries to untangle it all:

Is LIV Golf's future as robust as they say, or as bleak as reported after deal with PGA Tour?

Except for there being no deal yet with the PGA... He goes through the recent nonsense from Phil and Bubba, among others, then this bravado:

For a league that many believed was on life support four months ago and PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan was ready to pull the plug, the optimism and confidence within LIV’s headquarters is brimming.

“The main conversation from our side is business as usual,” Davidson said. “The focus is on LIV, it’s on what next year and beyond looks like.”

The storylines that came out of the framework agreement between the PIF (LIV’s financial backers), PGA Tour and DP World Tour painted a bleak picture for LIV. If it passes the U.S. Justice Department sniff test, the deal will combine commercial businesses and rights into a new for-profit company majority-owned by the PGA Tour, and Monahan making the decisions.

 Sorry to quibble, but LIV has always been on life support from the PIF...

Team and league sponsorships are being signed at a steady pace. The league is finalizing its 2024 schedule. Norman, Davidson and several players continue to insist the league is in a position of strength and will be expanding.

“Everywhere we go, we grow value, we grow value, we grow in value,” said Norman, who lives in Palm Beach Gardens. “The business model works. If anybody wants to sit down and understand that business model and actually see it for what it truly is, then you’ll see the reason why we are in the position we are in today.”

They have sponsors?  Who knew?  But before we accept that at face value, how are those CW ratings?

The piece originated in the Palm Beach Post, and they seem awfully willing to regurgitate LIV's talking points uncritically, no?   They're not quite up to the standards of the New York Times admitted, and I'll just gratuitously excerpt this amusing bit from the Babylon Bee:

New York Times Patiently Awaiting Zoom Call From Hamas To See What They Should Print Today

I wouldn't want to be writing satire these days, as reality overtakes facts on the ground too quickly.

But this was quite the slam, just couldn't tell if it was intentional:

LIV needs more star players to move the needle

LIV can talk about finding more U.S. sponsors and its upcoming transfer window and a promotion event in seven weeks in Abu Dhabi, all interesting and important to the future of the league. But the one subject that moves the needle is adding players to a field that still lacks the firepower when compared to, not only the PGA Tour, but now the TGL, the virtual golf league backed by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy to be staged in Palm Beach Gardens.

Heh!  You could add Korn Ferry as well...

Geoff picks up on Brandel's recent comments, which are both spot on but why now?

Chamblee later recognised that it is “inevitable others will join” but insisted that “very few stars that truly make a difference”. However, he also conceded that “[Jon] Rahm worries me a bit”.

Yeah, you heard it here first, after "Fealtygate."   Rahm is quite the conundrum, because he simultaneously makes the most trenchant arguments for the PGA and against LIV,  then goes to dinner with Phil.

I'm already looking a the clock and want to get to one more story, so let me leave you with a marker.  I'm trying to sort through in my mind whether LIV looks appealing to a Jon Rahm (or any of the terrific peni) if the negotiations break down.  To me it's a clearly failed product, but to these guys?  hard to tell, the dispositive factor likely being the number of zeros on the check.

Roman Holiday - I thought Xander's defense of his father's comments especially lame.  I think this bit about blaming the media goes back to Cato the Elder, but I also didn't think I explained my reaction all that well.  here's Geoff's take:

Stefan Schauffele talked to anyone who would listen about the horrible plight of his son having to play the Ryder Cup for free.

From No Laying Up to multiple outlets including The Times and Golf.com, the elder Schauffele left no doubt about where he and his manbun stand by saying that his son and Patrick Cantlay were in strong agreement about the gross effort of for-profit entities reaping money off the Ryder Cup play of his (1-3 in 2023) son.

Naturally, son Xander said in his ZOZO pre-tournament presser that the media twisted dad’s relentless, aggressive on-the-record cray-cray.

“I had to look back at what he said specifically, and he specifically said that if the tournament's for-profit, then players should get paid. He also said that if it's charitable – it should be a charitable event most likely and that everything should get donated.

“I don't know, when I look back on what he said, I think the headlines sort of skewed obviously what he was trying to say, but I don't think he ever really spoke directly to what you're referring to in terms of playing getting paid. He just said it should be either or, not really as confusing as it is.”

Total crap.

Just to recap, papa revealed that his son was essentially off the Ryder Cup team for a bit after demanding an agreement while demanding pay from Netflix, and probably skipped a team practice trip in protest while calling for the books to be opened up with a range of solutions offered that wildly contradicted his gripes about the PGA of America profiting off his son.

No headline skewed papa Stefan’s remarks.

Just a reminder, when they tell you it isn't about the money.... The ironic it being that Stefan was not only shooting his mouth off the anyone with a spiral notebook, but he was remarkably clear in his thoughts.  No clarification needed...

But this from Lucas Glover is the better catch.  It's pretty clear that those reports of the rift in the team room were accurate, despite certain apologists trying to cover for the hatless wonder:

Just when the fire crews were packing up and no embers were emanating from Rome’s Waldorf Astoria, we’ve got all available engines reporting to a Team USA flair-up after the spurned Lucas Glover went on Radio Sawgrass.

“It broke my heart the week after to hear about how splintered the room was and things about money and different things. That's not at all what the Ryder Cup stands for. And I'm not just going on what I've read and been told, I've talked to some people who were there in the fight, and it breaks my heart to hear that because that's not what it's about, that's not what it stands for and it's not why I want to play on that team.”

Lucas, you poor ignorant slut.  You just don't understand that we simply can't grow our game without putting millions more in Cantlay's pocket....

I'll leave you here.  This will be  alight blogging week, though I'm not exactly sure how light.  We're also traveling next weekend, so there will be no Wrappage next Monday.  Have  agreat week.