Weekend Wrap -

One of the biggest pitfalls of this work is the use of a killer bit too early.... As a perfect example thereof, I dubbed the 2024 PGA Tour season the Faceplant Tour™, never considering that 2025 season might fail to live up to even those degraded standards.  I stand corrected.

Farmers' Finale - Geoff has kindly vented so that your humble blogger can conserve energy:

Nothing against Harris English. Or the other valiant competitors in Saturday’s final round of the Farmers Insurance Open. But my oh my, was that a glacial gathering at an event typically known for serving up lively finishes.

Blustery conditions, four-inch rough, and the relentless insipidness of Rees Jones’ redesign turned Sunday’s final playing under the “Farmers” banner into just the kind of par-savoring grindfest relished by English. The Georgia native has three top 10s and two top four’s in the last five U.S. Opens. He also competed in the 2016 event at Oakmont, this year’s venue (T37).

With the supreme touch shown over Torrey’s always tricky poa annua greens—including clutch two-putts from 46 and 55 feet at the 16th and 17th holes— English seems like a player to watch this June. And for the Quadritinkerers out there, English has used the same Ping “Scottsdale Ho-Hum” since 2011. Just an observation.

In holding off Sam Stevens by a stroke and Andrew Novak by two, English (-8/280) recorded his fifth PGA Tour victory in 340 career starts.

But a nice sweater, I think we can all agree....

I watched some of the final round, though the time change precluded seeing it conclude.  I did catch this characteristic bit earlier in the round:

Runner-up Stevens injected the final round its lone bit of drama by going for the 18th green in two. He hoped to set an eight or nine-under leading score a full hour ahead of the final group. But in attempting to get home with a 7-iron from 207 yards (downwind), the former Oklahoma State golfer’s ball hit the bank and rolled into the infamous greenside puddle. But the third-year PGA Tour member salvaged hundreds of thousands of dollars with a clutch spinning flop shot to make par and retain solo second. He also secured a spot in this week’s Pebble Beach event thanks to his AON Swing Something-or-Other status. Same deal with Novak.

Good for them, although it's quite the crazy qualification system.  Now is not the moment for this rant but, while it's appropriate to allow players to play their way in, I don't think folks understand that Stevens and Novak having a tee time results in two other guys not playing.  Those two guys tend to be around 51st  on the relevant lists, so we're excluding players that we might think are better than those sneaking in....  Obviously the problem is the hard cap on field size.

So, give Farmers credit because they seem to have been helpful in landing the Genesis at Torrey, but my have they taken up the you-know-what from the nice folks in Ponte Vedra Beach:

Those bright spots could not gloss over a somber finish to Farmers’ run at the San Diego stop. The week featured a wave of illness and Genesis-related WD’s, Friday’s wind delay, and another predictable slow play debacle that led to a stern call-out by CBS on-course reporter Dottie Pepper. The overall mess erased any vibe the event might have enjoyed.

Not helping matters: the Torrey Pines week now comes before three “Signature” events with $20 million purses, smaller fields, and family dining offering your choice of grass-fed beef that’s the cause of all distance gains in golf. This puts the one-time prestigious stop in a tough position to lure star power or a new sponsor (as Tod Leonard explored in a GolfDigest.com story). The week marked the arrival of another dismal bullet point in Commissioner Jay Monahan’s player-driven PGA Tour vision to combat LIV: just let players hit when they get the wind they want, put all your eggs in a few $20 million events, and don’t even think about the competitive integrity of the “product.”

Just a reminder that the whole concept of Signature Events Moneygrabs was created long after the ink was dry on their sponsorship contract, so the Tour effectively destroyed their event.  

Let's digress here and interject the Tour Confidential panel's take on Dottie's comments:

Speaking of Thomas, one thing people have loved about TGL (the shot clock) he recently said might not translate perfectly to speeding up play on the PGA Tour. “You have to make

such drastic changes for it to be noticeable,” he said. “Pretty much a lot of the conversations end the same way; it’s like, what are we trying to accomplish here? Are rounds going to be 12 minutes faster? Are they going to be 20 minutes faster? It’s hard to realistically make a big enough difference where people are like, wow, this is great.” This came just days before CBS analyst Dottie Pepper blasted slow play during the final round of the Farmers on Saturday. This topic has obviously been beaten to death. Will we ever get anywhere here? What needs to happen?

Melton: They sure better figure out a way to speed up play, because the current pace is untenable. Fans don’t want (nor do they have the free time) to spend nearly six hours a day watching golf on their couch each weekend. It’s time the PGA Tour takes drastic steps to speed up the pace — or else risk losing out on even more eyeballs. The MLB proved drastic measures can be successful when they underwent a rules overhaul in 2023, including a pitch clock to speed up the game. It’s about time golf follows suit.

Hirsh: I hate to say this, because I hated this move, but thank god next week’s Pebble event is not a full pro-am anymore. Those could have been six-plus-hour rounds on the weekend. Thomas is right, there are plenty of guys taking much less than 45 seconds to hit a shot in competition and it still takes so long. This shouldn’t even be a plea, but why is the PGA Tour not putting more guys on the clock and issuing penalties? You could give players fines, but what does $20k mean when you’re playing for $20 million purses? Tighten the belts and start issuing shots because there’s no reason I can’t get around my home course in three-and-a-half hours with three amateurs and pros can’t get around in five.

Berhow: The guys have to realize it hurts the product and they need the product to be watchable to make money off it. We can definitely get more strict on enforcing penalties, but it’s also very complicated. There are so many factors that go into slow rounds — too many groups, reachable par-5s, tricky rulings, etc. But there’s also this: playing fast is a skill. It should be taught at a young age and something you continue to work on as you get older. Baseball realized it was losing viewers and has adapted. Golf needs to do the same even if it might seem extreme.

All of which gets us nowhere useful....  I have no issue with Dottie's cri de cœur, you don't solve unacknowledged problems after all, but it's also just talk about an issue we've done little but talk about for decades.

The first question one has to ask is whether there is a will to take this on.  You get a pretty quick "no" to that, so we can't do much with it in the present moment.  That said, did you see the ratings from the AMEX?  At some point they are going to have to own up to the dismal quality of the "product", unless allowing TGL ratings to exceed those of the actual Tour is part of their strategy.

So, pity us, but props to Farmers for moving on from this nonsense.

The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight - A misleading header, because we know the difficulty they have, and we want them to succeed.  That said, what a great header:

LPGA takes unusual step of postponing tournament due to underwriter's financial neglect

Financial neglect?  I love euphemisms.. Of course there are simpler ways to explain it all:

The LPGA made an unusual announcement Friday that it had to cancel an upcoming tournament due to an event underwriter’s financial neglect.

The Fir Hills Seri Pak Championship was scheduled to begin March 20 at Palos Verdes Golf Club in a suburb southwest of Los Angeles. However, on Friday the LPGA removed the event from the spring schedule, with the tour calling out an unnamed underwriter of the tournament for “failing to fulfill any portion of its payment obligations to the LPGA Tour for the 2024 and 2025 events.”

So, you signed up a sponsor and did the heavy lifting of planning the event, and didn't get a plugged nickel from the sponsor?  And yet you're still protecting them?

Unfortunately, Se Ri deserves better:

“We apologize for the impact this has on our players, as well as on our fans, partners and volunteers. We also want to express our heartfelt gratitude to the staff and members at Palos Verdes Golf Club, Palos Verdes Estates, and tournament operator, Outlyr, for their exceptional partnership and hospitality,” said interim LPGA commissioner Liz Moore. “It is our intention to return to Palos Verdes in the future to host title sponsor, FIR HILLS, once again alongside these great partners. We remain dedicated to bringing this event back to our schedule to honor the incredible legacy of Seri Pak, who has been a wonderful ambassador for the game and this event.”

 Wow, has no one told them to get the cash up front?

Confidential Yours - Let's use that TC panel to briefly hit some bits that I've not made the effort to blog, beginning with that JT letter:

Justin Thomas sent a letter to his fellow PGA Tour members asking them to give more access and insight to viewers at home via things like pre- and mid-round interviews and

ways they can “better connect with fans.” While it is an important topic, do you think Thomas’ urging will work?

Zephyr Melton: Will players be more open to interviews? Probably. Will it be all that additive? Probably not. Just like the sideline interviews with football coaches before halftime, there isn’t a whole heck of a lot of insight that’s going to be gleaned from a competitor in the middle of a competition. It’ll be a plus for broadcasts, but only very slightly.

Jack Hirsh: Zephyr’s right, pre-round and mid-round interviews won’t be that additive to the broadcast. That said, I think there are other things pros can embrace to better connect with fans both at the course and on the broadcast. I think it starts with more players being willing to be mic’d up during a round. Netflix did this and they had great success with it for Full Swing, why not bring that to regular broadcasts? It also goes to things like interacting with fans along the ropes, not everyone is going to do this, but how many fans did Bryson DeChambeau gain when he called out the guy who stole a golf ball he threw to a kid at the PGA Championship. More of that, please.

Josh Berhow: Playing pro golf is a job for these guys, and it’s just like any job out there: some people take direction or listen to instruction better than others. I’m sure some will do it but, like Zephyr said, a couple of quick canned answers won’t be the insight viewers at home are hoping to hear. Why do so many people like Max Homa or Joel Dahmen or Bryson DeChambeau? It’s because they have a personality and aren’t afraid to show it. It’s hard to manufacture that. Nice to see Thomas and/or the Tour realizing it needs to be better, but there’s a bigger conversation to be had here and other issues that need fixing too (see below).

Like you, it's hard to imagine that such a letter needs to be written.  But more to the point, do the players understand what a horrible product they're producing?  I'm pretty sure that, those dreadful ratings aside, that they still think everyone loves them....  So, wake me up when Patrick Cantlay does a walk and talk.

Shockingly I've not marked this date on my calendar:

Netflix announced that season three of its “Full Swing” docuseries will debut Feb. 25, 2025. What’s your interest level in season three? And are there any changes you are hoping to see this time around?

Melton: My interest in the show has significantly waned since the first season premiered in 2023.

It’s a show geared toward casual fans, and as a “die-hard,” there isn’t much the show tells me that I don’t already know. I’ll throw it on in the background while I do other tasks throughout the day, but it’s not something I’ll be locked into every night.

Hirsh: I’m saying this more often than I’d like, but Zephyr’s right again. I’ll watch, but I’m not as invested as I was for the first season. Only thing I’m looking forward to is Scheffler’s inclusion after he was mostly absent the first time.

Berhow: Agreed. Also need something from Tiger. And give me house tours for these guys, MTV-cribs style.

Yawn!   They got a season of buzz from the PGA-LIV war, but I can't imagine anyone needing to watch more of this.  And, while Scottie is one of the few guys I haven't come to hate, it doesn't seem likely he'll command the screen.

That said, not a half-bad segue:

Scottie Scheffler is set to return at this week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, ending a month-long absence after surgery. Quick, make your own Vegas line for his 2025 season. What are you setting his season over/under win total at?

Melton: I’ll go with 4.5. Would it be a letdown compared to last year? Yes. Would it still be a heck of a season? Also yes.

Hirsh: 3.5. We have to acknowledge how ridiculous his season was last year. That kind of level isn’t sustainable, but he’s still better than everyone else. Three or four wins is still an outstanding year.

Berhow: I’ll go 4.5, and I’d smash that over.

Just a reminder that Scottie's gaudy 2024 win total included exactly ONE full field event.  He's a great player and I'd be interested in knowing how he would do through a real season of competition, but the business model of the tour precludes that.

Though this might be a more compelling over-under prop bet:

Bonus question: What’s your boldest Scottie Scheffler prediction for 2025?

Melton: He doesn’t win a major in 2025.

Hirsh: He goes back to a blade putter for at least one round.

Berhow: He wins two majors this year (and the Masters won’t be one of them). Also, I’m predicting he won’t get arrested.

Josh, what kind of odds would I get on the over?  

That's it for today.  I'll catch you later in the week, but I do have a family member coming in for a couple of days of skiing, so my guess is that you won't see me until Friday.  Don't take it personally, please, and have a great week.

Your Friday Frisson - Getaway Day Edition

OK, I admit it, I've been a lazy blogger.... Oh, there's a deep inventory of excuses, but I have very much needed a break from the grind.  Whether anything will rekindle that elusive enthusiasm is very much TBD....

In terms of schedule, I head West tomorrow morning for an extended stay that will include a long road trip up to British Columbia.  More on that later.

Farmers' Finale - I did watch some of yesterday's coverage, and those cliffs are as breathtaking as ever.  But I caught an amusing instance of a phenomenon we've discussed previously, referring to long-ago iterations of the Torrey Pines event as the Farmers, yanno, long before that insurance company was involved.  It seemed jarring to this observer, knowing that this is the Framers swan song and that next year we will retroactively renaming all prior Andy Williams Pro-Ams to a sponsor to be named later....

It always reminds me of this meme:

Farmers Insurance is about to be cancelled... thanks for playing.

Fun day to watch the boys deal with winds on a golf course designed to frustrate such play:

Professional golfers are finicky creatures.

They want to control every aspect of their games, from the swing to equipment. If a driver is half a degree of loft off, they'll change it. If there's too much or too little tape under their grips, they

notice immediately. Pre-shot routines? Don't expect them to waver, whether playing great or poorly.

That's why Thursday at the 2025 Farmers Insurance Open was something out of the ordinary. Strong Santa Ana winds rushed from the mountains and swallowed Torrey Pines' North and South Courses in La Jolla, California, during the second round, sending golfers scrambling to hit shots between gusts, measure how the wind was affecting putts and question nearly every single swing. The winds were blowing so much so that there was an 86-minute suspension of play, meaning the second round and cut won't come until Friday morning.

The North Course at Torrey Pines played nearly five shots harder Thursday than it did during Wednesday's first round. The South Course played nearly three shots harder.

In their defense, they're playing on a golf course seemingly designed without knowing it was on the bluffs over the Pacific Ocean.  There's a place called GB&I where they know how to build course that can be played in the wind, yanno, utilizing a ground game, but that's not an option here.

The other interesting bit is that there was a rash of withdrawals, surprising given the contraction of field size in those Signature Events money grabs:

But, starting on Sunday, for the tournament that runs Wednesday through Saturday, players began

withdrawing with unusual speed, most citing illness that seemed to have cut a swath through the locker room. World No. 5 Collin Morikawa was among the first four to exit, followed on Monday by three more and then another on Tuesday, bringing the total on the eve of the first round to eight.

Then, in an extreme rarity, two high-profile players, Gary Woodland and Will Zalatoris, withdrew in the hours before teeing off. At that point, the tour was in a bind to fill the field of 156 and wasn’t able to, because most of the alternates had left the area. Ryan Moore was originally listed as a replacement for Zalatoris, and then he said he couldn’t play.

Enter a healthy and competition-starved Garrigus. The 47-year-old played in only two PGA Tour events in 2024—both of them as an alternate—and only cashed $5,000 checks in show-up money because he missed the cuts.

See if you can read this short 'graph without laughing:

Because Zalatoris is among the more popular players on tour, in replacing him Garrigus ended up in one of the featured groupings with Justin Rose and Maverick McNealy, and after nearly two decades on tour, it was far more fun than intimidating.

Yeah, Feature Groups aren't what they used to be, even before the Garrigus switcheroo....But it's more than passing strange that they don't tell us anything more about this mystery illness.

I haven't gotten to the Justin Thomas e-mail yet, but keep that in the back of your mind and also recall that this is supposed to be one of the good guys:

Max Homa apparently had enough of the wind and his own ragged play on Thursday in the Farmers Insurance Open. The champion of the event at Torrey Pines in 2023 withdrew with three holes to play on the North Course after heavy winds forced officials to suspend play.

Homa stood at four over par for his round and nine over for the tournament. He opened the event on Wednesday on the South Course by making a triple bogey on No. 1, followed by a double and two more bogeys on the front, along with a birdie, to shoot 41 on the outward nine. Homa ended the day with a 77—his second-worst score in 25 rounds in the Farmers.

Homa’s withdrawal brought the number of players pulling out before or during the Farmers to 15 as tour officials said illness was the cause for many of the WDs. Shortly after Homa, Emiliano Grillo also withdrew during the delay with only one hole remaining on the North. With one triple bogey and a double on his card, he was eight over for the round and 14 over for the week. Twelve withdrew prior to the first round, and then Nate Lashley (74 in the first round), Hayden Buckley (79), Grillo (78) and Homa went out before completing a second round.

No class.  This is John Daly territory, and leavers his playing partners out there as a two-ball for their remaining holes.... What we see again and again, and JT's letter is on point here, that the players continue to act as if it's all about them.  Rory tells us that we need to know when the best players are playing, but then they also want to be free to not play when they're having a sad....

I'll also remind that Max and Morikawa's WD's were no doubt complicated by trips back East to play in the TGL, which feels like a vulture picking at the desiccated corpse of the Farmers Insurance Open.  Really hard to see why the nice folks at Farmers wouldn't want to let Jay keep effing them....

Simulate This - Full disclosure, I watched none of Tuesday's installment, which featured JT, Billy Ho.  It's still sitting on my DVR, but haven't I suffered enough?

I found this take amusing:

I love sports, and I’ve often wondered if I would watch any sporting event, no matter how trivial, if a network bothered to put it on TV.

I have finally found one that puts this question to the test. Welcome to Tomorrow’s Golf League,

or TGL. I finally caught up with the most recent match this week (play began Jan. 7). It is, in its way, innovative sports TV. It is also surpassingly weird.

The quirk here is that it is indoor golf. There are teams, and they compete at SoFi Stadium at Palm Beach State College, in front of a cheering crowd — think the 16th hole of the Phoenix Open if by some miracle rain had thinned the crowd down to 1,500 people. (Also: from the sound of it, less drunk.)

No, it’s not played in some huge airplane hangar. Players tee off into a huge screen, five stories tall — basically a top-of-the-line golf simulator. On long holes they hit their second shot virtually, as well. The mix of real life and what’s basically a video game sounds like a golf version of “Tron.” It is not that.

Once they get close enough, players chip and putt onto a real green (there are sand traps with real sand), which is a technological marvel. More than 600 hydraulic jacks change the undulation of the green depending on the hole. That’s undeniably cool.

So is probably the best thing about the competition, putting microphones on the players so we can hear them chat, yell, talk trash, whatever.

But why, you may ask, would I watch a show in which golfers, even those among the best in the world, hit balls into a giant screen? The same reason George Mallory gave for climbing Mt. Everest: because it is there.

I get it. You have to really like golf to watch it on TV. I do, and pass no judgement on anyone who does or doesn’t. But you have to be obsessed with it to watch this.

That first bolded phrase grabbed the header, and we assume that surpassingly weird isn't what they were going for.

 But isn't that second bolded word the crux of the issue, the existential matter of who is this for and who will actually watch it.  We've been fed the usual bit about growing the game and drawing non-golfers to watch, but that seems fanciful, no?

This take on viewership seems to be working overtime to put the best spin on it:

Through three weeks, TGL has had an impressive debut.

Not only in the SoFi Center but also on TV.

Tomorrow's Golf League, which was started by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, has averaged 869,000 viewers through its first three weeks. That's a 50 percent jump compared to the same time slot on ESPN in 2024, per Joe Pompliano. And as he points out, this stat is more impressive.

The average age of TGL viewers is 51 years old. That's younger than the NHL (52), F1 (53), NFL (54) and MLB (60).

OK, younger doesn't seem such a surprise to me, given that technology is involved, but why lede with average viewers?

Tuesday's match between Atlanta Drive GC and New York GC was the closest match yet, a 4-0 victory for Atlanta Drive, and 682,000 people tuned in, per Nielsen. That's the lowest number of viewers through three weeks, but a drop-off shouldn't be concerning.

And the basis for that drop-off not being concerning?

I would posit the opposite, but I'll also admit that I didn't see this one coming:

The debut was bound to have a big audience, pulling in 919,000 viewers. The weeks Woods plays, as he did in week 2 with 1,005,000 viewers, are bound to draw eyeballs. Next week against McIlroy and Boston Common could be one of, if not the, biggest audience of the year.

The numbers are vastly better than the PGA Tour's viewership to begin the year, which is a positive for the league. Week 3 was also the best pace thus far, and as matches get more competitive and stakes go up, more fans should tune in to watch.

Egads, this writer isn't exactly the sharpest knife in the draw.  It might seem like good news, but there's no planet on which the TGL's fortunes aren't linked to the PGA Tour, and if those events aren't drawing an audience.... well, you can finish the thought.

The TV numbers for the PGA Tour's 2025 American Express are in … and they're awful

 How bad were they?

There has been a lot of talk recently about TV numbers, more specifically the TGL and its first three weeks on ESPN. However, the viewership for last week's American Express has been released … and it's horrific.

The PGA Tour drew a measly 232,000 viewers for Sepp Straka's win on Sunday, according to Josh Carpenter of Sports Business Journal, down from 534,000 last year for then-amateur Nick Dunlap's win over Xander Schauffele (T-3) and Justin Thomas (T-3). When LIV Golf's Jon Rahm won in 2023, 391,000 tuned in.

Those are LIV numbers.....  They're not putting on a show anyone cares about, so perhaps the PIP program isn't the future of golf.  Just sayin'...

Random Bits - Geoff has grabbed some bits from Seth Waugh's interview with Eamon Lynch that caught my eye, not least this:

On how the Ryder Cup task force grew long in the tooth evolved. “The agent of change, which was the task force, became an agent of non-change because it was the same kind of people. It was Davis [Love III] and then Jim [Furyk] and then Steve [Stricker] and then Zach [Johnson]. They're all the same generation, all sort of the same person. I don’t mean that in a negative way. We put younger people on the Ryder Cup committee, Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, and they said it would be great to have a captain that's more relatable.”

Seth, they didn't use the "same kind of people", they used the same exact people.  Geez, the first thing they did was to give Davis Love a mulligan after his Medina meltdown.  But it was the cool kids, led by Phil, so it did exactly what it was designed to do...

This is odd in that it happened on his watch:

On paying Ryder Cup players a stipend. “If you take any lesson in the last few years, the world is tired of talking about money. Golf was supposed to be playing for a higher purpose. That's what the Ryder Cup signifies, you know? And because we give 20% of our television rights to the PGA Tour already, we are paying the players. We’re paying all the players, not just 12. I don't think it's gonna change their lives because it's not a big enough number to matter to them. They can monetize their participation in a way that blows away whatever you can pay them. And I just think for the players to ask to be paid for it is kind of a bad look.”

On players asking to be paid. “Not really. They asked a lot of questions. A couple of players wanted to understand the finances of Ryder Cup and the PGA of America. Fair enough, there should be transparency there. You know, ‘Why are we growing the game on the back of me?’ kind of thing. Which I understand, but it's on the back of everybody. But no, nobody ever specifically said I want to get paid. There are obviously implications of it. We've been talking about for 25 years about being paid, and now it'll be how much are we getting paid.”

So Seth makes a good point in that first Q&A, but compensating all Tour players is so out-of-touch these days, when we've been reliably assured that the game can only grow if Cantlay gest paid....

As for the second bit, but Seth seems determined to ignore Patrick's hatless protest in Rome....  That to me was a very clear ask, though I'd characterize more as a demand.  Yanno, along the lines of, "Nice Ryder Cup you got there.  Sure would be a shame if anything happened to it".

I'll throw these in as well:

On agent greed. “They're trying to represent their players and some of that is understandable. As a professional athlete, you know you have a limited window and once it's over, it's over. I understand why they want to harvest as much as they can. I don't think they have taken enough perspective on what long-term greed means. Short-term greed is ugly. Long-term greed is smart. What is your brand? How do I perpetuate the game because that's where I'm gonna make my money?

On money talk. “The Tour lost the trust of the players and then the players got selfish because they lost their trusted benefactors.”

On the damage done to pro golf. “I don't think it's been fatal damage. The game will survive, but you gotta bring fans back. Baseball had strikes, lost a lot of fans and never quite got them back. We build a city every year to have the PGA Championship. It's insanely inefficient, right? The only reason that exists is because people watch it. And if you don't take care of that … that's what I meant about private equity. Don't kill the goose. The goose is the fans, it's not a financial model that tells you what you should be doing. That’s just not how it works.”

We've diagnosed greed as the underlying condition, but we're gonna blame it on the agents?  Tiger and Rory sold the larger tour membership down the river, but it's all Steiny's doing?  That's a good one, Seth.

I think we're early to opine on whether the damage is reversible, but the good news for5 Seth is that his two events are only enhanced by the diminished interest in week-to-week tour events.  perhaps that should be former events, since Seth has resigned.

The Norman Conquests - Did you catch Greggy's silly comments about you-know-who?

Officially replaced last week as LIV Golf’s CEO, Norman will linger for one more season before devoting more time to ruining Mother Nature’s handiwork via course design work. Turning 70 in a few weeks, Norman revealed that LIV will be completely free of his “official tenure” on August 31st.

“I will stay involved with LIV in some way, shape or form,” he warned. “I’m going to stay on the board. So there will be that part of my life, but it won’t be as consuming as what it was before.”

con·​sum·​ing (kən-ˈsü-miŋ): strategically standing in the background of a LIV group in order to get screen time whether anyone wants him there or not.

The megalomania really shines through when discussing all he’s done for Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. Saying he “would love to” sit down with the two to absorb their adulation for the millions of dollars they made via the PGA Tour’ Player Impact Program, Norman makes clear he’d win any debate regarding LIV’s arrival. It’s as if Norman believes he helped Woodsilroy cover their December mortgage payments.

“I would love them to recognize the fact that – like Tiger with his PIP money [Player Impact Program] – that only came because of LIV, right?” Norman asked. “So Tiger benefitted from that. Rory’s definitely benefitted from that. I would love to sit down and talk to them about it, no question about it. Because I’m not a judgmental person and you only learn the facts and truth when you hear the other side of it.”

At least this all-important PIP conversation would never devolve into Norman expecting to be told that he was right all along. Never!

He resides in a rich fantasy world, so perhaps we should just let him be, but the best part of Shack's item is the greatest hits photo montage:

Good times!

That will have to be all for today.  I will see you early next week from Western HQ.  Have4 a great weekend.

Weekend Wrap - Polar Vortex Edition

Yeah, this winter weather isn't going according to plan.... And it's no better in British Columbia than in Utah.  Though it was fun watching them play football in the snow yesterday.

Oh, The Tour Season Has Already Started? - I've watched almost no golf these last three weeks, only occasionally catching a gander at the leaderboards.  It's hard to imagine the Tour can be over the moon, though I think this falls under GWB's famous "soft bigotry of low expectations" bit:

PGA Tour Sony Open Hits Final Round High

Last Sunday’s final round of the PGA Tour Sony Open delivered a 0.35 rating and 545,000 viewers on Golf Channel, up 6% in ratings and 4% in viewership from last year (0.33, 524K) and 106% and 93% respectively from 2017 (0.17, 282K). It surpassed last year as the most-watched final round of the tournament in at least a decade.

Yeah, it's a third-tier event, but those are Sunday numbers.... Did Golf Channel break two dozen viewers on Thursday-Friday?  Just a reminder that those are from Hawaii, so they benefit allegedly from broadcasting in Prime Time...

I'm sure the Austrian golf GOAT drew eyeballs yesterday, though this might only be the first of many amusing headers:

Sepp Straka, who shaved his head before season, wins American Express

Well, it worked for that Samson guy....

It was a relatively easy win, though he let it get away down the stretch:

Sepp Straka was on a cruise control all week at the American Express. The Austrian entered Sunday with a four-shot lead and appeared to march to his third PGA Tour win while strolling into the record books.

Straka was able to hold off Jason Day and Justin Thomas on Sunday to secure the victory at 25-under-par. But his shot at joining an exclusive PGA Tour club — one that even Tiger Woods isn’t part of — went up in flames on the par-15 16th hole.

Straka arrived at the 16th hole on Sunday having not made a bogey all week. He had gone 69 consecutive holes without a bogey and needed just three more bogey-free holes to become the fourth player ever to win a 72-hole stroke play event while not making a bogey. Lee Trivino (1974 Greater New Orleans Open), J.T. Poston (2019 Wyndham Championship), and Tom Kim (2022 Shriners Children’s Open) are the other three to achieve such a feat.

I can't stop laughing at that typo.  Yeah, it's been decades since gholf.com has had proofreaders, but they seem to be confusing one of our all-time greats with a thoroughly mediocre relief pitcher.

There's little from this event of note, though you might want to dive in on William Mouw's baker's dozen....Hee seems to have taken it well.

Sit tight, we'll get back to the Tour in a moment, but first....

Simulate This - The Tour Confidential gang took on Tiger's TGL debut:

Tiger Woods made his TGL debut on Tuesday, as his Jupiter Links team lost to Los Angeles in the second edition of the new tech-infused league. What were your thoughts on Tiger the player and Tiger the entertainer?

James Colgan: I thought Tiger proved why the TGL built its business around him. He is

interesting enough for the world to pay attention no matter what he’s doing. That’s insanely valuable for golf in any form, including simulator golf.

Josh Schrock: There’s no question people will keep tuning in to watch Tiger mash balls into a simulator screen. We only get to see him four or five times a year otherwise. But Tiger the entertainer needs some work. His best on-mic moments can’t be him crying laughing at Kevin Kisner’s hosel rocket, and saying his mom is booing him. The league needs more from him on that end to have long-term growth.

Alan Bastable: Dream scenario was the little-walking-required sim league bringing out the best in Tiger. That did not happen. Instead, Woods looked ordinary at best…well, as ordinary as Tiger Woods can look, anyway. His speed seemed okay, but his iron play and short game left much to be desired. Tiger doubling over in laughter after Kiz’s bunker botch was fun if only because it showed us Tiger in a state in which we rarely see him. But goes without saying TGL will need more of Woods reacting to good shots than bad ones if this thing is going to take flight.

Sorry, Josh, but whether folks will keep tuning in to see Tiger mash balls into a screen remains very much in doubt.....

I think the 9% Tiger premium was at the low end of expectations but, more importantly, now comes the hard part.  You've gotten eyeballs from the technology and then from the Big Cat, now remind me why folks should come back....

Two weeks ago, TGL’s long-awaited debut drew 919,000 average viewers on ESPN, and Tiger’s debut last week pushed that number to over a million. Now that viewers know what TGL is (and won’t see Tiger this week), what do you expect to see from the ratings? Can TGL continue to increase viewership? How much will we learn from this coming week’s numbers?

Colgan: The biggest questions for the TGL are still ahead of them. Will people continue to care when the novelty and Tiger factors are gone? The ratings are going to be lower, but by how much? I would say anything in the 700-800K range again this week would be a win.

Schrock: I agree, James. It wasn’t a shock that over a million people tuned in to watch the Cat walk out to “Eye of the Tiger” and goof around with Max Homa and Kevin Kisner. I expect they’ll be big numbers in two weeks when Tiger is back and faces Rory’s team. But how many people are going to watch Justin Thomas, Patrick Cantlay and Billy Horschel against Rickie Fowler, Cameron Young and Matt Fitzpatrick? If there’s no massive drop-off this week, then the TGL should feel good about its chances of building out some type of audience while working out the kinks.

Bastable: Hard to imagine a scenario in which this week’s numbers don’t take a hit, and not just because of Tiger’s absence. If you tuned in to the first two events, you witnessed two drama-starved blowouts and also puzzling looks from world-class players who watched seemingly well stuck wedge shots miss their marks by 10 or 15 yards. Both of those developments might give viewers pause about returning for a third straight week.

This week looks to be a tough one for them, no?  Not only is there a limited audience for Patrick Cantlay's and Cameron Young's rapier-like wits, but folks will be coming off three straight days of prime-time football.... 

Everyone has been focused on that January 27th Tiger v. Rory match-up, which has me chortling.  First, Rory is certainly an alpha dog in our game (or a dog of some ilk), but do we think people will tune in just for Rory?  Yeah, not so much....

Even more amusingly, is the fit of Rory with this event.  You caught those comments about those wedges that flew greens by 30 yards?  Not only is that about the worst thing for us to be discussing, as it undermines the whole integrity thing of the event.  But what's the weakest part of Rory's game?  OK, yeah I remember Pinehurst, so I'll grant you the short-putt issues, but the Ulsterman has never been able to control the distance of his wedges... So, if Tiger's flying greens by thirty yards with a wedge, what's the over-under for Rory?

But now let me pay off a concern you might have heard only from your humble blogger:

Collin Morikawa withdraws from 2025 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines

Each week so far during the PGA Tour's 2025 season, fans have seen a big-name golfer withdraw from an event.

World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler was a scratch for the season-opening Sentry at Kapalua after a Christmas day kitchen accident. Jake Knapp withdrew from the Sony Open in Hawaii. Scheffler and Xander Schauffele then both WD'd from Week 3 at The American Express.

Up next for the PGA Tour is the Farmers Insurance Open, and that event will be minus one of the game's popular players. The field of 156 was announced Friday but two days later, we learned Collin Morikawa will be a no-go for the tournament. Wesley Bryan is now in the field replacing him.

Have you stopped laughing at Jake Knapp being included in the list of big-name WDs?  

But can you guess why I'm including this with the TGL content?  Let me make it even more blindingly obvious:

In Morikawa's lone start in 2025 at The Sentry, he finished solo second.

Except that he had another start on a Tuesday night in South Florida.... Are you with me?

Shockingly, Collin and Xander didn't want to finish an event in Hawaii and have to make their way to Florida by Tuesday, so note which they gave up.   This to me is the ignored issue with the TGL, to wit, that they are competing for talent with the Tour's traditional sponsors such as Sony and Framers Insurance.   But it's easy to see Farmer's motivation for not renewing....  Not only did the Tour decimate any opportunity for them to generate a respectable field by declaring other events "Special" (OK, admittedly it's not the designation, but rather that $20 million purse), now the TGL is cherry-picking SoCal boys that might otherwise have gone to Torrey....  Why would anyone trust the Tour after this?

Second Best Header of the Day - I don't care about the event, but is this the best Hatton-related header ever, or is that too competitive a category?

A day after smashing a tee marker, Tyrrell Hatton holds it together in Dubai to collect his eighth Euro Tour victory

Not sure where everything is headed, but one assumes that Tyrell will be at Bethpage....  and we wouldn't want it otherwise.

I might was well through this in from the TC panel:

Tyrrell Hatton held off Daniel Hillier to win the Dubai Desert Classic on Sunday to pick up

his second win in his last five starts, and he’s finished in the top 10 in all six of his starts since the 2024 LIV season ended. Is Hatton primed to have the best 2025 of any LIV Golf player? If not, who will?

Colgan: Jon Rahm! He’s officially due for a major. Also, if Bryson keeps his 2024 form, he’ll be a favorite in every major,

Schrock: I think Hatton is a sleeper major contender. He’s played well on LIV and now has won two DP World Tour events in his last handful of starts. But I think it’s going to be Rahm. He knows the narrative that’s out there after his subpar major season last year, and I think he’ll come back in a big way this year. I’d go Rahm, Bryson and then Hatton. But don’t be surprised if Hatton contends and wins at either Quail Hollow or Oakmont.

Bastable: It’s Bryson’s world (and YouTube channel); we’re all just living in it. He has another major win in him this year, and maybe a couple. LIV should be drafting off BDC in as many ways as it can.

Yeah, what they said..... Still puzzled by Rahm's 2024, but Tyrell isn't in their league, though I do think he has major thorn-in-our-side potential at Bethpage.

Location, Location, Location - Not only has the start to the Tour season been a yawn, but among the few reasons to tune in are the premiere venues such as....well, hold that thought.

Once I saw this I knew they were in trouble:

Genesis Invitational creates 'LA Strong' shirts for fire relief support as dangerous weather still threatens region 

So, it's the weather that's the issue?  But at least everyone has their pronouns correct....

Then came this, which at least seems to have the causality accurate:

PGA Tour monitoring Los Angeles fires with Riviera stop scheduled in four weeks

Finally:

The PGA Tour is moving next month's Genesis Invitational to an alternate site after wildfires near

Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California, and other parts of Los Angeles killed at least 25 people and destroyed thousands of structures.

The Genesis Invitational, which is hosted by Tiger Woods, was scheduled to be played at Riviera Country Club on Feb. 13-16.

"The PGA Tour's focus continues to be on the safety and well-being of those affected by the unprecedented natural disaster in Greater Los Angeles," the tour said in a statement Thursday. "We are grateful for the life-saving efforts of first responders and the tireless work being done to put an end to the tragic wildfires.

"In collaboration with Genesis, The Riviera Country Club and TGR Live, and out of respect for the unfolding situation, we have determined that the 2025 Genesis Invitational will be played at an alternate location the week of February 10-16."

I'm sure they'll come up with somewhere interesting, no?

The PGA Tour said the alternate course would be announced in the coming days.

Among the potential locations under consideration, according to sources, are La Quinta Country Club in La Quinta, California, the site of this week's American Express, and Torrey Pines in La Jolla, California, which will host next week's Farmers Insurance Open.

OMG, Farmers should sue the bastards.  There wasn't any reason to play in their event, but even a SoCal native only nee4ds to play Torrey once a year.....

Fox Back In The Henhouse -  You've heard already that LIV inked a deal with Fox, though the details are worth noting.  I'll not cover it per se, though I will copy-and-paste this from the TC folks:

Speaking of TV viewership, LIV Golf will open the 2025 season with a long-awaited TV deal with Fox, one that ensures more than half of this season’s schedule will air live on Fox or FS1 with additional rounds available on other Fox properties. While it’s obvious that it should boost LIV viewership numbers, how much of an impact do you believe it will have in eyeballs and increased interest? A little, or a lot?

Colgan: I’d say this TV deal is Greg Norman’s legacy as LIV CEO. He convinced his pals, the Murdochs, to sign up for LIV, legitimizing the league’s TV audience for at least 2 years. But will

this deal actually legitimize the league? I’m doubtful. I think most golf fans have made up their minds on LIV by now.

Schrock: Having LIV Miami air on FOX or FS1 instead of the CW and Caffeine TV is an obvious step up, but I don’t think that’s a reason to believe fans are now all of a sudden going to flock to watch LIV. After three seasons, the fans who like LIV and what it presents will watch, and everyone else will either tune into the PGA Tour or go out and play golf themselves. Having LIV air before the latest episode of “9-1-1 Lone Star” isn’t going to move the needle for most.

Bastable: Right, simply airing LIV events on network TV doesn’t solve for the league’s watchability problem. To most fans, it still will feel like so little is a stake in LIV events, because, other than wheelbarrows of cash, so little is at stake. This is all likely to change, of course — whatever PIF and the PGA Tour are cooking up is likely to give LIV contests more gravitas. And you have to figure Fox’s brass has some insight into whatever that plan might be.

The poker tell is in the question, note that close to half of the broadcasts rate even FS1, which nobody knows where to find on their Cable system.  I don't even know what their other properties are, so good luck watching those events.

Alan Bastable does hint at the question it provokes, which is what has been shared with Fox as to those negotiations and the future of LIV.   Of course the other question is whether money is changing hands, about which they are quite mum.

That will have to sate you for today.  If you're interested, remember that Torrey I is a Wednesday-Saturday affair..  I would expect to see you at some point as the week unfolds.

Thursday Themes - Eye Of The Tiger Edition

I know, it's been a while, but I was thinking of you the whole time....

It's been quite the weird ski season, and the sense is that it won't get better anytime soon.  The ten-day forecast for the home mountain includes a massive 2" of the white stuff, and the comparable forecast for British Columbia isn't any more robust.  

As for golf, Employee No. 2 and I did watch a bit of Tuesday night's festivities after arriving home that day from Utah.

Can You Feel The Game Growing? - Fortunately, this Golf Digest summary is far more even-handed than its header would seem:

TGL Week 2 Superlatives: Tiger's debut, Kisner's hosel rocket and an itchin' for friction

Excuse me, which superlatives are those?   Wait, I stand corrected, "worst" is, in fact, a superlative, so do carry on....

All your humble blogger can say is, thank God for Kiz....

Thanks to the magic of Kevin Kisner, this week we’re rolling our best and worst performance categories into one. NBC’s new lead golf analyst showed what happens when you spend too much time in the booth and not enough time on the range, splashing two in the drink, hitting three in the sand and failing to make a single putt, which is ordinarily the strength of his game.

On the penultimate hole of the evening, however, Kisner’s performance went from bad to so bad it’s good when he nearly recorded TGL’s first fatality, striking the flagstick with a skulled bunker shot that was headed straight for his teammates’ foreheads. As Tiger Woods wiped away tears of laughter (and probably fear), Kiz almost jarred his 15-yard chip for what would have been one of the most ridiculous pars in golf history, putting a big rubber stamp on his star/heel of the evening honors.

Almost jarred?  I was asleep by then, but if the hardest shot in golf is the one right after a shank.... 

Highlight of the night 😅 pic.twitter.com/o4tkLenf7w

— Jupiter Links Golf Club (@JupiterLinksGC) January 15, 2025

It's hard to convey how bad Kiz was, bad even by the standards of an NBC analyst....

For sure this wasn't the plan:

Most Troubling Trend: Blowouts

The first two matches of TGL have been done and dusted before the singles portion of the evening even began, leaving both squads with nothing to play for but season-long tiebreaker points. To this point, that seems more like a fluke than anything, but if Week 3 is equally uncompetitive, we’ll have to start wondering if there’s more to this trend than coincidence.

My Spidey Sense tells me that Week 3 is problematic for other reasons, which we'll get to below.

When your highlight reel is limited to, checking notes, your walk-on:

Best Big Cat Moment: Eye of the Tiger

Tiger's TGL entrance is electric ⚡️🐅

📺: ESPN pic.twitter.com/orQ9xwAzt9

As for the show, Tiger had some thoughts:

Giggly and red-eyed from laughter, Woods took a self-deprecating tone to his team's 12-1 lashing at the hands of Collin Morikawa and Los Angeles Golf Club.

“We were entertaining. We hit a lot of shots," Woods laughed. "I think the people here got to see how bad pros can be. It was a boat race. ... I can only imagine what our teammate, Tom Kim, is thinking."

Ummm, Tiger, would you mind if I get a second opinion on the entertainment value?  I'm thinking a tampon might have helped....

And this spot-on coda:

“As evident from today, I don’t have any golf skills,” Woods laughed. “The walking is not really an issue. It’s that my game is not very good.”

 But at least Tiger's game was one Kiz could kill for....

But there was this bit as well:

Woods and his Jupiter Links playing teammates, Kevin Kisner and Max Homa, took refuge in the learning curve of hitting into a 60-foot screen and the playing surface's uncertainty at SoFi Center.

“We hit every single wedge shot long,” Woods said.

“Significantly long,” Kisner said.

This provides one of those effortless segues to this Golf.com piece:

2 things TGL must fix for Tiger Woods’ new golf league to flourish

If the line is set at two, I'm certainly taking the over.... But this is the second of his two, one that I think is a way bigger issue than perhaps the authors understands:

The second issue was with the Full Swing simulator technology. This didn’t appear to be an issue on the first night, but it was clear the tech wasn’t working properly Tuesday night.

There’s a zero percent chance that Woods, the greatest ball-striker in history, would hit a flush 100-yard wedge shot and wind up blowing it 30 yards over the green. There were too many moments on Tuesday night where the simulator left players perplexed at how poorly they hit a shot, especially from short range.

“I didn’t even hook that,” is not something that needs to be a common saying on TGL broadcasts.

The technology can’t make the best in the world look silly or inept. Full stop.

Holy Shotlink, Batman!  That's just what this venture needs, an assertion that the tech of a tech-infused golf league doesn't actually work.  This item is written by the previously unknown-to-me Josh Schrock, but we've had launch monitor technology for decades now.  You'll notice that none of the players are hinting at this, because how ya gonna bring them back for Week 3 if it's all effed up?

Amusingly, even if I were to accept his premise that Tiger airmailing the green had a zero percent probability, now do Rory!  Yeah, 30 yards long on a 100-yard wedge shot is his signature move!  The only thing missing when Rory makes his January 27th debut would be JP and Rory asking each other what just happened..... IYKYK.

This Schrock promised two fixes, yet offers up a third:

That brings me to the green. It’s a technological innovation, but the league must fine-tune it. Players of this caliber rarely run 25-foot putts 7 feet past the hole. Tiger Woods and Justin Rose having an impossible time stopping downhill puts and/or missing putts in the 5-to-7-foot range by half a cup or more is…not great.

As my colleague Dylan Dethier pointed out, the players stopped short of openly criticizing the technology on Tuesday, but the league needs to polish it by next week’s match.

Obviously the players have to keep their yaps shut, but are we sure about excluding the possibility that Tiger simply has no golf skills...

As I understand things, this tech-infused venture is supposed to be somehow dependent upon a dirty rag:

Easiest Fix: The Hammer

After two weeks of play, TGL appears to have some very tricky problems to fix, but one that shouldn’t be difficult is the Hammer. Last week, we said the Hammer had a lot of potential, but Golf Diget’s resident Hammer skeptic Drew Powell raised some valid concerns. On Tuesday, after an early flurry of Hammer blows, those issues quickly bubbled to the surface when LAGC took control of not only the scoreboard but the Hammer, allowing them to simply play keep-away with the supposedly match-changing gauntlet. This issue has rendered the Hammer largely impotent in the back half of both matches so far, with the losing team unable to access their only means of mounting a comeback. Thankfully, the solution shouldn’t be too radical:

Give teams a high-risk mechanism for “stealing” back the Hammer. Perhaps they can challenge the Hammer-holders to a closest-to-the-pin contest on par 3s or an eagle challenge on the par 5s, wagering their own points on the board in exchange for the yellow towel. This doesn’t need to wait until Season 2. The TGL concrete is still wet. Much like the NHL, the league should be willing to make rule changes and improvements on the fly, and this feels like a logical place to start.

It's pretty lame, no?  There's this inevitable tension between competitiveness and entertainment value, but I don't think they can make this work simply as a hit-and-giggle undertaking.  Unless, of course, Kiz plays every week.

Employee No. 2 had quite the range of reactions, not having watched the first week.  She initially found it pathetic, though we kept watching and she did admit to that contradiction.  Her final take was that the evening needed to end with the six guys in a fistfight....  Hmmm, GMTA:

Most Needed: Villains

So far, TGL has placed a huge emphasis on Good Vibes™. The players yuck it up with each other, the celebs flash their pearly white veneers course-side and Matt Barrie, well, let’s just say

he’s no Johnny Miller on the mic. While this is all by design—the league is clearly geared towards being a fun golf gateway for casuals—it has started to feel a lot like an exhibition. On Tuesday, as Woods, one of the fiercest competitors in sports history, smiled his way through a truly abysmal performance, it became painfully clear:

TGL needs villains.

Sports fans love nothing more than something to hate. Usually that’s an opponent. Sometimes it’s a coach, GM or owner. Heck, we even pick scapegoats on our own teams. TGL is crying out for a few Bad Guys—a T.O., a Nick Kyrgios, a Roger Clemens, a Patrick Reed, perhaps. There has to be some friction, because friction is inherent in competition. Without it, TGL will always feel like empty calories. Maybe a fiery guy like Atlanta Drive G.C.’s Billy Horschel can provide that spark. Or maybe recent match-play controversy alumni like Patrick Cantlay and Tom Kim will martyr themselves for the cause. As we all learned at a young age, there can be no Batman without the Joker.

I think there's a cause-and-effect failure here, notwithstanding my approval of the accompanying photo....

I agree that bad blood would be helpful, but there's a missing predicate.  One has to be invested in the teams and the outcome before one can assign white and black hats..... next week is NY Golf Club vs. the Atlanta Drive..... Quick, name any players on those teams.  

I think this Yahoo piece captures some of the issues:

Despite the in-house audience, TGL is primarily a TV-based enterprise, and from that perspective, the product still needs work. ESPN doesn’t yet appear to have decided whether the tone of this should be serious or jovial, and so the coverage pinballs between the reverential and the silly. TGL ought to be the equivalent of a televised beer-pong match, not a PGA Tour event, and ESPN ought to lean into that strangeness rather than, say, seriously trying to compare LAGC to the Lakers dynasty.

TGL also brings one of the most cringeworthy elements of PGA Tour broadcasts indoors: interviews with sponsor executives. It doesn’t really matter in this case that the executives are famous athletes; a segment with Serena Williams — who clearly has little interest in golf — was a tough listen.

I think the whole venture suffers from that competitiveness vs. entertainment dichotomy, and they're really not delivering much on either front.  Watching these guys struggle has some appeal, but I'm not sure this thought actually helps:

Most Important Distinction: These are great golfers, not great simulator golfers

Tiger Woods, Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa, Hideki Matsuyama, Ludvig Aberg. To say TGL boasts some of the best golfers on the planet is not a stretch. The problem, which became clear as Tuesday’s night chop-fest unfolded, is that simulator golf is a very different discipline. Though TGL’s roster boasts 13 major winners, South Korea’s top simulator pros would wipe the floor with them in a head-to-head screen match, so why aren’t they the ones we’re watching?

Simply put, the level of play hasn’t been sharp enough through two weeks, and the carnage, apart from Kisner’s hosel rocket, hasn’t been that fun to watch. It’s one thing to watch Jean van de Velde take off his socks and wade into the burn with the Claret Jug on the line. It’s another to watch a guy splash one in a virtual water hazard, take a drop two feet away and hit it back into the same screen. There’s plenty of reason to believe these guys will get the hang of it—they have the raw ability, work ethic and the professional nous to do anything with a golf club in their hands—but the question is whether they’ll improve fast enough to make the rest of this season worth watching.

How about we find some actually good simulator players?  Maybe folks will tune back in to see what Kiz does next, but other than that......

By delaying this post a day we have actual ratings:

Tiger Woods, the headline player and co-founder of TGL, did not play in the simulator golf league’s first night—instead he waited a week in what was widely believed to be a strategic move to keep interest and buzz high for the new venture.

That turned out to be a smart move.

ESPN reported Wednesday that the second TGL match, in which Tiger Woods’s Jupiter Links was soundly defeated 12-1 by Los Angeles Golf Club, drew an average audience of 1 million viewers. That’s a 9% increase from the inaugural match on Jan. 7.

According to the network, viewership peaked at 1.1 million from 8:30-8:45 p.m. and was steady in the 1 million range from 7:30 until past 9 p.m. The match ran 18 minutes past the allotted 7-9 p.m. window, forcing the start of a Duke-Miami basketball game to be moved to ESPNews.

 God is worth less than 100,000 pairs of eyeballs?  Good to know....

Where does it go from here?  This is your Week 3 match-up:

I know, they made us wait three weeks for Lucas Glover..... Should we do a reader poll as to projected audience size?   They're pumping the bejeesus out of the following week's Tiger v. Rory match-up, but I'm thinking Week 3 will be quite the downer....

I had some other stuff to blog, but we've gone long here and I've got a day to kick off.  Nothing that won't keep, so we'll catch up down the road.