Thursday Threads - Solheim Cup Edition

Lots of worthwhile golf to watch this weekend, just not involving the PGA Tour.  The ladies have their Solheim Cup kick off tomorrow, and the Euros are at Royal County Down for the Irish Open, which comes on in an hour.  

The Fourpeat? - I'm more of a win-lose kind of guy than one of those win-retain pansies, but there is one obvious takeaway to the Euros quest for a Fourpeat, to wit, that the Americans haven't won this thing in a while.  Which renders this hagiography quite lame:

If this is Lexi Thompson’s last Solheim Cup, she'll exit as the heartbeat of the U.S. squad for more than a decade

If?  Damn, were you trying to run my day?

Lexi Thompson is approaching the likely curtain call of her Solheim Cup playing career. While the reality of the end has been dawning on her captains since Thompson announced in May that this

year would be her final full-time season, it has been a challenge to imagine filling the void Thompson will leave behind. The Solheim Cup is her favorite event, with Thompson always praising the honor of wearing her country's colors.

Even while wrestling with the decision to announce her retirement, making the U.S. team to play on American soil again at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club was at the top of the star's goals for 2024. Four top 10 finishes helped Thompson earn a captain's pick from Stacy Lewis for her seventh Solheim Cup. But hearing Lewis describe Thompson's impact on the team, she may have made the team regardless of how she played.

"I think it is her legacy, is her and the Solheim Cup," Lewis said. "Just the way she is with the crowd and the fans, this event is Lexi to a T."

I don't about that, but I'm willing to concede that it suits her to an "L".... Yanno, literally.

This seems to be the best they can come up with from the modern era:

Even mired in a struggling 2023 campaign before the matches in Spain, Thompson played beyond her poor form with an impressive 3-1-0 week. While her performance may have been overshadowed by Thompson's response to a shank on the 18th green during Friday four-ball, she answered numerous critics with a crucial 2-and-1 victory in singles against Emily Kristine Pedersen as the final match on the course to tie the Solheim Cup at 14 points apiece.

When the high point of your week is a shank.... 

I find Lexi so emblematic of the struggles of this tour, wherein the hype bears no relationship to the underlying play.  We're constantly inundated with talk of her greatness, but not the kind of greatness that leaves footprints, apparently.

It's a good event, not least because some bad blood has arisen over the years between the teams.  This Golf Magazine piece captures some of the controversies the event has triggered, including this personal fave:

Mulligan

During a four-ball match on Saturday of the 2000 Solheim Cup in Scotland, Annika Sorenstam thought she chipped in for birdie to tie the match, only to find out she played out of turn since American Kelly Robbins was actually away. The future hall-of-famer had to replay her shot, failed to chip in and Sorenstam and Janice Moodie lost the match 2 and 1 to Robbins and Pat Hurst.

Did you know that golf did hot mics?

Hot mic

At the 2007 Solheim Cup in Sweden, Dottie Pepper was a member of the TV squad and thought the broadcast had paused for a commercial break when she said that, ahem, Americans Laura Diaz and Sherri Steinhauer were “choking freaking dogs.” Pepper apologized, and six years later she served as a Solheim Cup assistant captain for Meg Mallon.

 Trust is not always a defense, as Dottie found out....

Of course, the most famous incident involved a certain protagonist that is making her return this week:

Nine years after Solheim Cup concession controversy, Alison Lee back on U.S. team

The week was a historic one for the Americans as they stormed back from a 10-6 deficit to win

the Cup in Sunday singles, thanks, in part, to a crucial point from Lee. But the day before, the American rookie had unwittingly found herself at the center of controversy.

Paired with Brittany Lincicome in a pivotal four-ball match in the final session before singles, the duo came to the 17th hole tied with Suzann Petersen and Charley Hull. After the Europeans holed out, Lee faced a putt to put her side 1 up. Her attempt slid 18 inches past the hole.

Lee, thinking she’d heard the Europeans concede the short putt and seeing Hull walking off the green, picked up her ball. That’s when Pettersen returned from off the green and asserted that the hole had not been conceded. The ensuing moments were equal parts emotional and tense, with both Lee and Hull shedding tears.

Nine years after the fact I remain convinced that Suzanne Petersen has no idea what she was apologizing for, mostly because Tim Rosaforte so botched that interview.  It was actually just a horrible etiquette violation.  Silly not to concede the putt, but nothing requires you to concede anything./  But Suzanne was already off the green playing her games, and Charley Hull rushed off creating crowd noise while Allison was supposedly left to putt that 18-inchers.  If you want to see it, stand with your arms crossed and watch.  But if you're storming off to the next tee, you can't tell us you wanted to see it...

It's a great event, so give it a look.

Hold on, let me interject just this header, which I'll pay off below:

U.S. captain Stacy Lewis centers entire Solheim Cup week around remembrance of 9/11 and those who serve

 

County Down - What a great venue, as Shack tees up:

In Northern Ireland majestic Royal County Down hosts the Amgen Irish Open for the second time in a decade. And while this event should have been slotted into a links season run during the summer months—assuming a world where the Operational Joint Venture Partners at the PGA Tour and DP World Tour were actual in sync—we still get elites testing the old gem and making your morning coffee taste that much better (assuming you have a Sky or Peacock subscription).

“Playing the Irish Open on arguably one of, if not the best golf course in the world, in my eyes, is a real treat,” said Rory McIlroy on Wednesday after getting reacclimated with a course he played in the Walker Cup and in the 2015 Irish Open. “We don't get to play this caliber of golf course on tour, so to be able to play somewhere like this is amazing.”

Watching the golf from RCD will require some work for American viewers since Golf Channel and NBC are understandably prioritizing the Solheim Cup. The weekend portion of the Irish Open will stream exclusively on Peacock and the NBC Sports app (with a cable subscription):

That argues first and foremost for catching Thursday's coverage, and hopefully we get lots of coverage of RCD's other-worldly front nine.  

LIV Stuff - Time is not our ally, so just some quick notes.  Apparently cashing those big checks comes with consequences, first this guy's plaintive whine about being at Bethpage:

Jon Rahm’s Ryder Cup future is murkier than ever — just ask him

The Ryder Cup is more than a year away but Jon Rahm’s involvement remains murky as ever. He’s alone in this endeavor, and he knows it.

Rahm has set his sights on playing three DP World Tour events in the next six weeks, which might normally be an easy schedule addition, but this isn’t a normal time. Also in his next six

weeks, Rahm has two LIV events and a new baby set to join his family. But before any of that happens, Rahm needs to do something about the fines he’s facing from the DP World Tour. Either pay the fines or appeal them, like Tyrrell Hatton recently did. Otherwise, Rahm will not be playing the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black next fall. (Mandatory asterisk: We live in fluid times. Regulations can change. Rory McIlroy basically asked for things to change the instant Rahm committed to LIV Golf.)

It’s been discussed at an increasing frequency as the summer has gone by. Rahm needs to play four tournaments this season on the DP World Tour to maintain his membership for 2025, which is his mandatory ticket to becoming a Ryder Cup team member. Thus far, he’s only played one, the Olympics in France, which counted towards his total. According to Rahm, he’s signed up for three tournaments to meet this minimum, beginning with the Spanish Open in three weeks, the Dunhill Links a week later, and the Andalucia Masters, also in Spain.

According to the DP World Tour, however, Rahm is currently ineligible.

But is it, in fact, murky?

“Jon has outstanding sanctions for breaches of the DP World Tour’s conflicting tournament regulation,” a spokesperson from the Tour said. “Until those outstanding sanctions are resolved, he is ineligible to play in a DP World Tour event.”

Those “sanctions” are suspensions and fines lobbed his way for every start he’s made at LIV Golf. From the earliest days of pro golf’s civil war era, the DP World Tour has issued one-tournament suspensions and £100,000 fines for its members who play tournaments without conflicting event releases from the Tour. While it is understood that Rahm has enough open weeks in his schedule to find space for the one-week suspensions, he is clearly uninterested in paying the fines.

“I’m not a big fan of the fines,” Rahm said from LIV Golf’s individual championship on the outskirts of Chicago, where he and Joaquin Niemann gave a joint press conference Wednesday.

And we're not fans of you jumping to LIV.  Pay or don't pay, but you've become tedious.  

We have some headers for you, mostly that guy that needs to stop opening his pir hole:

Rory McIlroy hopeful amid new PGA Tour-PIF talks

My day isn't affected by Rory's hopefulness or lack thereof, though I remain hopeful about Rory's next three-footer.  This as well about a certain exhibition match:

Rory McIlroy: Not sending message with PGA Tour-LIV match

We cared about your messages for a bit there, but it didn't exactly work out for either you or us.

As everyone knows, the Tour has been meeting with PIF this week, including Tiger.  But, Geoff has the needed perspective

Meanwhile in embarrassing gross are-you-%$#@&*!-kidding-me golf news with potential ramifications for the global schedule, the PGA Tour and Public Investment Fund of Saudia Arabia have been engaged in two days of meetings this week.

In New York City.

On the anniversary of 9/11.

For those who’ve been in a very long coma: September 11th remains a solemn day of remembrance where millions of a certain American vintage carve out time to think about where they were on 9-11-01, the humans who were lost, and the sacrifice of First Responders who went into the Twin Towers and did not come out. Anyone alive and old enough to remember that day never forgets any detail of the day or the aftermath. The emotions rarely grow dull with any reminder of that awful day.

It’s also a date where, 23 years later, most with a pulse continue to ponder the question: why? Who would do such a thing? Why did these people hate themselves and our way of life to such an extreme? And to the point we have learned after much effort, that government of Saudi Arabia would be funneling money to the hooligans to carry out the attack in an inconvenient fact desperately masked to this day?

Geoff hasn't gotten the memo that it's all OK, now.  The financing of 9/11 and those 15 out of 19 hijackers are a small price to pay when compared to Patrick Cantlay's need to be paid.  he's got lots more snark, all of it justified:

Perhaps the sudden rush in having the “Transaction Subcommittee” meet with Saudi’s fund goons without Adam Scott, Woods and McIlroy was fast-tracked to coincide with the latter’s Irish Open appearance?

You know Rory, he might ask annoying questions!

“Yeah, it's certainly peculiar timing,” McIlroy said Wednesday at Royal County Down, likely referring to the awful 9/11 choice more than his possible role in any negotiations. “I don't know much about the talks that are going on. I know that there is but that's not something that I'm a part of. I know as much as you do at this point, and I'm sure news will start to trickle out here in the next few days.”

Let’s be clear: there is currently no truth to the rumor that the next scheduled meeting will be October 2nd at the Saudi consulate in Turkey on the anniversary of the Crown Prince turning a journalist into sawdust.

Nor are the sides reportedly planning to meet in Honolulu on December 7th or near Normandy Beach in June. At least as of now.

Again, I share this grimness in a major-focused newsletter because it’s an important reminder that these supposedly brilliant people want to grow and run the game on all levels. And they can’t even show the grace to respect one of the most solemn days on the American calendar. How embarrassing.

I guess the good news is that we can't blame this one on Rory.... But I can certainly feel the game growing....

before I leave you let me circle back to Geoff's far more accurate header on the Rahm kerfuffle:

Rahm Unwilling To Pay Fines For Ryder Cup Access

I'm shocked... Shocked, I tell you.

I famously predicted long ago that the result of the fissure in our game would cause us to hate each and every one of them.  Yeah, it's a gift. 

Have a great weekend and we'll catch up on Monday.