Thursday, January 4, 2024

Midweek Musings - Back To Kapalua Edition

OK, I typically save that header for Wednesday posts, but in my defense I did actually begin this post on a Wednesday, so I've got you on a technicality....  But you'll have live golf with Pacific Ocean eye candy available this evening, so light a fire and see if the Tour still holds any interest for you. 

Wither LIV/PIF - Another fine mess that Ollie has gotten us into, but we'll lede with this from Jay Monahan's memo to his players late last week:

A memo sent to the membership on Sunday from PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan covered three primary points as the Tour continues to negotiate with both parties. From the Tour:

    •  First, Monahan noted that “we have made meaningful progress” in negotiations with SSG and are currently working toward finalization of terms and drafting necessary documents.
    • Secondly, with just hours until the Dec. 31 expiration date for the Framework Agreement with the PIF and DP World Tour, the memo spoke to an effort to extend the deadline into the new year based on the progress made to date. Monahan categorized the PIF and DP World Tour discussions as “active and productive.”
    • Finally, the memo restated the Tour’s goal relative to all negotiations, which is to bring SSG, PIF and the DP World Tour on board as minority co-investors in PGA Tour Enterprises in 2024. Monahan said, “These partnerships will allow us to unify, innovate and invest in the game for the benefit of the players, fans and sponsors.”
The word that should jump out at us is the M-word.  In their D-Day announcement, Saudi Arabia was expected to become the PGA Tour's major commercial sponsor, whereas they seem currently to be relegated to minority-investor status, which perhaps isn't what Al-Rumayyan thinks he negotiated.  

With talks bleeding into 2024, Adam Woodward has this on how the parties might be affected:

Though he ends at the start with this, which only shows Woodward's misunderstanding of that Framework Agreement:

Should we even take the framework agreement seriously anymore?

It’s been surprising to see how quiet LIV and the PIF have been with regard to the framework agreement over the last few months given the interest from outside investors. The Tour has controlled the messaging with its updates to players and has been upfront by making more information public to fans, which shouldn’t come as a shock given the fallout from the surprise announcement of the agreement and the backroom dealings that took place to produce it.

But at this point, it’d be naïve to view the framework agreement as gospel given the material change in negotiations with the inclusion of outside investors. It was initially vague for a reason, and while that might help the powers that be, it’s causing headaches for those of us who just want to watch the best golfers in the world compete against each other.

We should take it as seriously as we took it on June 6th.  Even in the shock of that day a couple of things were obvious, first that their term sheet was almost completely devoid of actual terms, rendering any attempt to understand their agreement fruitless.  Interestingly, there were only two binding provisions, the withdrawal of the antitrust lawsuit and the non-disparagement clause.

So, how seriously should we have taken a non-binding term sheet?  Plenty seriously as far as intent was concerned, but the absence of detail seemed almost intentional.

This to me is where the rubber meets the road:

The role of outside investors

But if the PIF is so rich with its billions of dollars, why bring more cooks into the kitchen?

For a few reasons. First, follow the money. Rich people often enjoy doing business with other rich people because it usually means they’re going to make more money. What’s better than $3
billion? $7 billion, which is how much money could be involved according to ESPN.

An optimist could argue that bringing in outside investors is a way to make the deal more palatable given the U.S. government’s various questions. On the flip side, a pessimist could view the move as a way for the Tour to have its cake and eat it, too, by pushing the Saudis out after ending the litigation. The former seems more realistic and would be a step towards reuniting the game, while the latter would be another pivot from the Tour that would only lead to more battles with LIV.

There's also speculation that diluting the Saudi's investment helps with antitrust approval, all good as long as Yasir and Jay are on the same page.  Which seems to be the case, unless you think about that Jon Rahm signing...

While there's not much here, Woodward is the first I've seen to even pose this rather obvious query:

What will PGA Tour Enterprises even look like?

This is the multi-billion-dollar question. Integrating the LIV and Tour schedules as is won’t be
easy, and concessions will need to be made on both sides. In the memo sent to players on New Year’s Eve, Monahan said, “These partnerships will allow us to unify, innovate and invest in the game for the benefit of the players, fans and sponsors.”

That all sounds great. But how will that be achieved?

Given LIV’s struggles to run a smooth operation and the Tour’s inability to manage its interests between top players and rank-and-file members, should we have confidence that the two sides can work together to create something the fans want to watch? Some parts of LIV have been good, but the concept hasn’t caught on as quickly as organizers would’ve hoped. The TGL was supposed to be a big step for the Tour, but it ended up as a faceplant.

Missing the Dec. 31 deadline could have a significant impact on when PGA Tour Enterprises gets off the ground, as well. Let’s say an agreement had been reached, that would have given LIV another full year to prove its worth and the powers that be plenty of time to iron out what the future of the tours and PGA Tour Enterprises would look like. The longer the negotiations take, the worse off we all will be. A divided game overshadowed by uncertainty isn’t good for anyone.

At the time of the announcement, the Tour indicated that it would continue to operate as a not-for-profit, leading me to initially conclude that the actual tournaments would not be part of the for-profit entity.  Woodward clearly assumes otherwise, though that is a level of complexity above my pay grade.

TGL is an asset one expects to be in the for-profit entity, and no doubt they can convince themselves to value it exuberantly, but that doesn't sniff at justifying the $3-7 billion of fresh capital contemplated.

Wither The Tour - Not diving too deep into the predictions for the coming season, but Sean Zak did lay down some markers of interest, and also accrues valuable bonus points for sharing last year's projections, which did include a LIV player winning a major.  So, 2024?

1. PGA Tour-Saudi PIF deal makes us all yearn for 2025

It’s not particularly exciting to begin a 2024 predictions post with an immediate look to 2025, but that’s what the initial takeaway will be when the two sides ultimately strike a deal. Golf things are just easier when they work on a calendar that begins in January, and the PGA Tour-PIF pact will be no different. Jon Rahm will be allowed to defend his AmEx title in January 2025 as the first LIV golfer to return to play in PGA Tour events. Until then, we’ll be treating 2024 as a bit of a gap year. It’ll make golf fans a bit antsy as a result, especially without a Ryder Cup in the fall. How much patience do we have?

Yeah, that seems a stretch, though certainly those four majors look pretty fine....

Now it seems he's just trying to piss me off:

2. Patrick Cantlay, Masters champion

At one point in recent memory, Cantlay was beloved by a sizable group of PGA Tour fans, christened “Patty Ice” when he out-putted Bryson DeChambeau at the 2021 BMW Championship. That feels like decades ago in Tour Politics Years, now that Cantlay has become a bit of a lightning rod for pace-of-play, pay-for-play and Tour governance issues. In 2024, he’ll earn plenty of fans back with a stone-cold, four-shot victory at Augusta National. Why? Well, he’s slowly crept toward contention at the Masters, and was quietly just five shots off the lead entering the final round in 2023. Also, this’ll be his first Masters with Joe LaCava on the bag. That can only help at ANGC, where LaCava has looped for multiple green-jacket winners.

And just when I was getting excited about those majors.....

6. Your favorite event will be the Women’s Open

Forget all those major championship winners discussed above. The major we’ll care about the most will come in August: the Women’s Open at the Old Course. In a year where the men’s major championship courses leave a bit to be desired on the excitement scale, thank goodness for the women taking on St. Andrews. One thing we might learn: In its current form, the Old Course might be a better tournament site for the women than for the men. And given the Open will take place the same week as the men’s BMW Championship, it’s the perfect starter to a full day of golf-couch lounging.

Yeah, you'd be hard-pressed to design a drearier set of major venues for the guys.  The positives are Pinehurst and that, being forced to go back to Louisville, that it's May instead of August.  But who thought that when we returned to Troon that both protagonists from the last visit would be in the witness protection program?

The Tour Confidential panel had a couple of forward-looking bits that we might as well grab:

What’s your 2024 storyline to watch that no one is talking about. (Yes, this excludes the potential of the aforementioned merger, which everyone is talking about.)

Colgan: Who the hell is going to be in the booth for NBC at the U.S. Open?! It’s been close to 40 years since the peacock entered a PGA Tour season with an element of uncertainty about who was going to be in the lead analyst chair for its biggest events. The fact the network is sticking to an apparent “tryout” for the job represents one of the weirdest subplots of the early Tour season.

This actually seems to bother some folks, whereas I take comfort that we're not stuck with whatever bozo is abusing my eardrums.

Berhow: The Olympics are back! But will golfers care this time? In Brazil in 2016 there was the Zika virus, and in Tokyo in 2020 there was Covid. And if those things didn’t scare professional golfers away, their own general indifference to Olympic competition did. Will they care in Paris this summer?

When does the issue of LIVsters in the Olympics rear its ugly head?   I'd send Patrick Reed and Phil, just to give them one last chance to find a fairway at Le Golf National.

Zak: It’s high time that some of the biggest names in the game win a major or another major. HIGH time. Nelly Korda should have more than one. Lexi Thompson should have more than one. Xander Schauffele should have one. Rory McIlroy, damn it, it’s high time! When a year passes with breakout victories like Wyndham Clark, Brian Harman or Lilia Vu, it’s great. But I’m looking for some legacy-building stuff and we got that from Rahm and Koepka, but I’m growing impatient at not seeing it from some others.

Lexi?  Heh, that's a good one!  Nelly is an interesting case, for sure, but I'll take the under on those other guys.

And the major-less player to nab their first in 2024 is…?

Colgan: Viktor Hovland! And he’s going to do it in Augusta.

Berhow: Hard to bet against Viktor with how he played the last few months. Another option: Patrick Cantlay. A dark horse: Ludvig Aberg.

Zak: Xander Schauffele and Linn Grant. It’s time.

Linn Grant is getting a lot of good press, though I view Cantlay and X-Man as being very much on the clock.  It's actually a little shocking how little those two have done in the majors.  And while I don't quibble about Aberg's talent, a major still seems a big ask, if only so soon.   

The Caddie Shuffle - I don't know what to make of this, but in the last year we saw longstanding caddie relationships ended so that experienced loopers could pick up the bags of young studs such as Tom Kim (Rickie Fowler's longtime looper Joe Skovron) and Cameron Young.  So what to make of the fact that the music played on?

Ludvig Aberg has a new caddie.

Aberg’s new caddie is Joe Skovron, who you’ll know as Rickie Fowler’s longtime caddie and, more recently, Tom Kim’s caddie. Aberg has played less than one full season on the PGA Tour but has already generated sky-high expectations after winning on the PGA and DP World Tours and impressing as a part of Team Europe at the Ryder Cup.

Skovron’s appearance was no surprise; we learned of the partnership a few weeks ago as Aberg sought a veteran caddie with big-pressure experience and let looper Jack Clarke go.

As well as:

Cameron Young has a new caddie.

Cameron Young and Paul Tesori have parted ways to start the year. The veteran caddie had joined Young’s team last March, which drew significant attention at the time given Tesori’s success on the bag of Webb Simpson.

In some ways the Young-Tesori partnership mirrored that of Skovron and Kim; both involved rising stars leaning on successful caddie vets. The pair got off to a promising start with a runner-up finish at the WGC-Match Play and a T7 at the Masters. But the rest of the season was below Young’s lofty standards.

I'm old enough to remember when Joe LaCava went to work for Dustin Johnson for all of an hour-and-a-half.  When LaCava jumped elsewhere (to be fair, it was for Tiger's bag) I was a lonely voice speculating that Joe hadn't liked what he saw from DJ.  Similarly, and admittedly both of those guys are on a down cycle, should these moves be viewed as commentary on the players they dumped?

Of course, we should keep our powder dry and see how long Joe himself stays with that perfect penis.... 

Loose Ends - A few bits in open browser tabs to clean up, first this requiring an intervention for Shane Ryan:

Shane's blinding insight is to use importance as one axis of his graph, the genius being bleakness/wholesomeness being the second axis.  The fun is in looking at the full spectrum, though the problem is that it doesn't copy in a form that you'll be able to readily read.

Shane provides larger images of each of the four quadrants, but I'll leave you to view those on your own.


It's a time suck, so you've been forewarned....

You already know that Eamon Lynch is very much old school, though we'll wish him luck in preaching about the importance of punctuation to today's screen-addicted kids:

Tour WAG of the Year?   Alex Myers has dubbed Jessica Hadwin as the Queen of Golf Twitter, and it's quite the worthy nomination.  If you're looking for the anti-Justine-Reed, look no further, beginning with this modest little tweak:

That's gonna leave a mark..... But that made me go an find this fun bit, reminding me that these two should teach a master class in staying normal:

First, that is just the perfect skewering of that tedious "Play Better" trope about which your humble blogger is always ranting, but to link it to "get tackled harder" is just comedic genius.   I assume y'all remember him being tackled after Nick Taylor sunk that snake to win the Canadian, But his bride of the year also had this back at the time:

Luckily, Hadwin wasn’t injured among the confusion, which Jessica confirmed in another tweet: “Sorry to leave ya’ll hanging, had to get the toddler ready for bed. I’m thrilled to report that @ahadwingolf is still among the land of the living and in true Canadian form, apologized to the security guard for being tackled.”

Even better was this with those contractors:


That'll be all for today and likely the week.  Enjoy Kapalua (coverage starts at 6:00 p.m. EST) and your weekend snow, and we'll p[ick things up early next week.

 

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