Weekend Wrap - A World Without LIV Edition

It's been an extremely tough stretch for your humble blogger, the only saving grace being that the issues are not long-term.  But the last tow weeks has been quite hellish....

Have I had cause to reference Hemingway previously?  I can't remember doing so but, then again, I can't actually remember much.  But, back in the day he was asked how golf tours go bankrupt, and this was his answer:

"Two ways: gradually and then suddenly"

Please buckle your seat belt as we exit the gradual stage.....

Fitzmagic -  I'm a fan of Harbor Town (which I played once back in the day) and this perfect, laid-back post-Masters get-together.... Strike that, what used to be a pleasantly relaxed vibe has been ruined by designating it a Signature Event.  The alleged slam-dunk logic of forcing the top 70 players to play the same week is undermined when half the filed is suffering from pimento-cheese withdrawal symptoms.

Geoff had some thoughts on the week:

Matt Fitzpatrick did it again.

He captured another RBC Heritage at Harbour Town.

He became the second two-time winner on the tour this year.

And continuing a trend that Fitzpatrick brushed off with aplomb last month en route to winning the Valspar, he had to hold off both the World No. 1 and a xenophobic-adjacent Hilton Head crowd.

“It didn’t get out of line in terms of no one was shouting on backswings or anything like that,” Fitzpatrick said after birdieing the first hole of sudden death to beat Scottie Scheffler. “Which was great. I’m all for it. I love the people -- they’re supporting Scottie; that’s great. You want golf to have an atmosphere in my opinion.”

Fitzpatrick’s fourth PGA Tour title joins his wins at the 2022 U.S. Open, 2023 RBC Heritage, and the 2026 Valspar.

The crowd partisanship on display at a pretty old school PGA Tour stop seemed particularly odd thanks to Fitzpatrick’s passion for Harbour Town and the Englishman’s embrace of American tour life.

It's a lovely story of a English family finding their ideal vacation spot across the wide Atlantic, as apparently they don't like their golf course without encroaching residential real estate.  

The Tour Confidential panel struggled unsuccessfully for an angle on the event:

Matt Fitzpatrick won the RBC Heritage in a playoff over Scottie Scheffler, who started the day three shots off the lead but caught Fitzpatrick late. Is your Hilton Head takeaway more focused on Fitzpatrick’s second win in the last month, or Scheffler’s second straight runner-up finish?

Colgan: How quickly we forget that Scottie Scheffler remains a U.S. Open victory away from the career grand slam? Kudos to Fitz for another win, and for continuing to reestablish himself as one of the premier players in the sport … but my eyes are already peeking ahead to Shinnecock.

Sens: Like Woods before him, Scheffler has twisted our expectations so wildly out of proportion that a second-place finish somehow gets cast as a failure. Fitzpatrick is on a great run of golf. Scheffler is operating in a different dimension. Whatever “struggles” he went through earlier seem to be behind him. So yeah, as James said, eyes on Shinnecock. But also on Aronimink before that. And frankly, anywhere Scheffler tees it up.

Schrock: The Scheffler “struggles” were blown out of proportion as we tend to do when an elite athlete dips below the level at which we’ve become accustomed to seeing them operate. Scheffler almost erased a 12-shot weekend deficit at the Masters with an ice-cold putter. He’s the best in the world, and I expect him to contend every time he tees it up. To me, this was more about Fitzpatrick. A year ago, he was in a bad spot. His game was “rubbish,” and he was ranked 79th in the world. A year later, he has three worldwide wins and has beaten both Rory and Scottie in separate playoffs. His rise back is impressive, and I think he’s a much better player now than what we thought his ceiling was when he won the 2022 U.S. Open. Expect him to threaten at Aronimink and the Open.

The success is a surprise, as is the added length he's added, which is where so many before him have lost their games and minds.  No doubt a tough competitor not scared by the moment and, just to add a downer, likely to be a Ryder Cup thorn in our side for the foreseeable future.

Masters Scat - Geoff's been doing his typical post-major thing, by which I mean Winners, Cut-Makers and Point-Missers.  I haven't read any of them yet, think of it as bare-back blogging, but I'll be very disappointed is a certain Spaniard doesn't break into that last category.....

Shall we start with his good stuff? Again, rhetorical....

Champions, 2026 Masters

The very best from another remarkable week at Augusta National.

Tournament Starting On The Back Nine Sunday. The Jenkins credo has made its way back from the dark (Hootie) days. As tempting as it is, there is need to re-litigate course changes that

changed the Masters flow from three-and-a-half days of socializing, respectful applause, and pimento cheese sandwiches to U.S. Open style golf. Some of the reverting back to old school vibe has been done by distances catching up to course changes made with future leaps in mind. Helene helped clear out some trees (or get them moved to plug in holes). A few more could be moved from 15 and 17 to encourage more Sunday afternoon zaniness. The final confirmation that no one should blink an eye until around 4:30 on Sunday afternoon? Rory McIlroy approached his front nine setbacks just other legends aware of the old adage.

The guild requires a Dan Jenkins reference, so we're pleased to meet those obligations....

Golden Bell. What a needy little hole! So many others would love to be the decider just once to plant new little demon seeds. But nooooo, you just have to do it every year. First, it was the

Augusta National Women’s Amateur, when Maria Jose Marin experienced a “miracle” before Asterisk Talley joined the Hall of Fame list of greats to suffer at the hands of 155’s cruelty. Then came the Masters final round, with the same stock swirling breezes that have confounded every generation. But it’s the green’s extreme angle that never fails to shock players. Maybe it’s because Sunday’s back right hole comes a day after the traditional holes cut in the center or all the way left? Either way, measuring 161 yards, the final round shot by McIlroy embodied a wild week: using wisdom gained and stored on his immense mental server, McIlroy remedied his iron pulls in a post-third round practice session. Then he made a nearly seven-foot birdie putt that can be tricky to read. His chasers had every opportunity at No. 12. Scheffler played a smart shot to the green center. Rose drew a strange lie, and playing partner Cameron Young took on the flag but couldn’t make a slightly longer putt. The field averaged 3.259 on Sunday with just four birdies made. McIlroy joined 14 other champions in using the hole to prove his superiority. Golden Bell ruled again.

Although the line Rory took should be an exhibit in out ball rollback debate..... Do we want to live in a world where they can fire with impunity at the Masters Sunday pin on No. 12?

Hard to imagine this guy not grabbing one or more:

Cameron Young. Sustaining the brilliance on display in his Players win, Young didn’t do much wrong playing alongside McIlroy. “I handled it fine, just didn’t make anything,” he said of

starting the day -11 and posting a 73. “That’s the story the week honestly if you look through all four rounds. I had a chip in yesterday and maybe made a putt or 2-over ten feet and really that was it. So I feel like I played the golf I needed to. Just didn’t have the day making anything at all.” Young’s putting for the week was more than fine. He only three-putted once all week (sixth hole Sunday) and had a respectable 115 to rank T19 on a 1.60 average. “If you go through the back nine I pretty much had a birdie chance on every hole and didn't make any. That's how it goes sometimes.” Young has now posted his best finish in the tournament that means the most to him and set the stage for future success at Augusta National. As McIlroy can attest, that’s a pretty handy thing to experience and learn from. And Young seems like the kind of player who will be better for such a close brush with the Green Jacket.

What a great couple of weeks for old-timey phots.  Cam at Augusta with his Dad and the Fitzgerald clan in front of the iconic Hilton Head lighthouse....

This one I would have had in the middle tier:

Justin Rose. The sentimental choice took the lead late in the front nine, only to suffer another crushing Masters loss. “ I was really in control. First ten holes I felt like I was -- yeah, I was. And the mentality was to run through the finish line not just try and get it done. I was playing great, but just momentum shifted for me around the Amen Corner.” Rose bailed right at the 11th, bailed left at 12 and three-putted the 13th after hitting it to 30 feet from 208. “Felt like the crowd was amazing to me all week long. They pulled for me all week long. I felt their encouragement and support. At the end, it kind of goes a little flat. It’s more of a sympathy than anything.” While he still has the drive and skills to win, he’s running out of time. “It was still, nonetheless, very beautiful. But, yeah, another little stinger.” Rose. needs to regroup with the PGA at Aronimink, where he’s won before and in the same city where he captured his 2013 U.S. Open.

He shows what a great guy he is by talking about it, but can't help but hedge a bit by not explaining the momentum shift.  What happened?  It's the oldest bit in  the world.... he saw a scoreboard showing that he was a couple of shots clear and had that, "Holy S**t, Batman, I'm gonna win this thing" moment.  

It's hard because he's such a nice guy, buy we've seen this movie more than once, no?

Geoff devotes the vast majority of his Cutmakers column to CBS, presumably channeling his inner Clifford Roberts:

CBS’s rough finish. The various streams and announcing work produced by CBS were as tremendous as ever, particularly on the streaming side with network-grade shows and enjoyable

announcers who pass the background listening test. You wouldn’t know it because of the wackier-than-usual backlash over shots not shown and some regrettable moments. The streams complementing the main coverage are also as live as golf gets. Meaning, second-screen viewers can see shots immediately, while the main CBS show that is watched by the vast majority (peaking at 20.049 million Sunday) features even more production in the form of visuals, graphics, and other information that is cobbled together for the main audience. That show can’t be everywhere at once to cover golf spread over many holes. This leads to annual complaints about seeing shots well after they’ve aired on Amen Corner Live or Featured Group coverage. Or not at all, as was the case again this year in a few questionable cases (and even though folks can go to the amazing Masters app if they absolutely must see Haotong Li’s 10 on the 13th. The criticism suggesting shots shown on tape are signs of catastrophic failure are odd since, (A) one can get plenty of live golf via the streaming option, and, (B) the notion that covering a golf tournament is the same as a Super Bowl played in a stadium, as NBC’s Kevin Kisner claimed in an embarrassing, obscenity-laden rant about his inability to follow the action while during his soon-to-be one-off Masters Radio stint. (Fun fact: the next intelligent thing Kisner says during an NBC telecast will also be a first for “Kiz”.) (Fun fact 2: his boss at Comcast/NBC is also a member of Augusta National who hopefully had to take time away from much more vital matters to mop up the mess made by his vapid lead golf analyst.)

That said, the “not-enough-live-golf-shots” criticism was legitimate in situations like Friday afternoon’s mistake, when the CBS-produced ESPN coverage missed Rory McIlroy’s dramatic chip-in at No. 17. A roar could be heard while we were looking at another golfer. This roar-in-the-background was a regular annoyance in the 80s and 90s. In 2026, it’s a head-scratcher. The defending champ who happens to be the biggest draw in the field made two birdies in a row and was potentially distancing himself in record fashion. There were only a few groups left on the course. At this point, he should have been getting the Woods treatment of showing everything but bathroom breaks. (We also know from the past that a network gets dinged for all-Tiger-all-the-time coverage.)

I don't disagree about Kiz, who one expects is under significant pressure to be funny.....

But look at the bright side, Geoff.  At least this Rory-induced cheer wasn't accompanied by the mentally-challenged Sir Nick telling us what CBS couldn't be bother showing us.

Here Geoff hints at the long-running ANGC-CBS tension:

After a spectacular West Coast Swing, the shows from Augusta had more out-of-character misses exacerbated by viewers having access to second-screen options almost anywhere they want (Prime, ESPN, Paramount+, Masters.com, Masters app, Telemundo+, etc). This year’s drone work, sound, and updated Amen Corner camera angles were more spectacular than ever. So was nearly all of the camerawork that’s often taken for granted when networks show up with their best practitioners. So there is no question that losing McIlroy’s ball on the 18th for almost a minute was truly bizarre and unprecedented. And it’s still not clear what went wrong since the Masters.com scoreboard’s replay of McIlroy’s shots does (sort of) follow his ball into the sand (albeit not very smoothly, suggesting it may have been a good guess or a hunch by the other 18th green camera operator).

One contributing factor may be related to Augusta National’s well-intentioned love of minimalism. At a typical PGA Tour event, CBS spotters are free to roam and alert the truck on the whereabouts of wayward tee shots. If a camera operator loses the ball, the direct can tell the camera where to look. At Augusta National’s 18th hole, there are tighter restrictions for access to the second half of the hole. This is done in the name of creating the admittedly beautiful look of the player and caddie walking to the green. The on-course reporter also must disappear. It’s an uphill hole where it’s hard to see the outcome of a shot from the fairway.

The national crisis erupting over the finishing blunder may come down to a spotter just not seeing the ball. But having no announcers on the hole may have also delayed a determination of the ball’s final resting spot. Multiple backup systems failed, and a worst-case scenario ensued following McIlroy’s wayward tee shot.

Have you read this?

 Well, why the hell not?

To me, our old friend David Owen nailed the subtitle, especially when you remember who isn't cited.  Roberts was quite the fascinating character and my favorite part was the interaction with CBS after each annual tournament.  The Masters (meaning Clifford Roberts) drove innovation in the broadcasting of golf, while simultaneously constraining it.

To demonstrate, I always cite Bubba's famous playoff shot from the woods on No. 10, endearingly recreated in those commercials this year.  What I point out to folks is that when Bubba hit the shot the viewer had nothing.... No yardage and no sense of what kind of opening he had.  Why?  Because at that point ANGC still precluded the use of an on-course reporter... It's true they now allow Dottie, but that only took fifty years to arrange...

But Geoff is nothing if not constructive:

Here’s a modest proposal: save some bucks by losing the Hallmark Channel reenactments. Instead, run some of those great shots of the past, fly the drone up Magnolia Lane, cut to a pretty course shot with the leaderboard set to some goosebump-inducing Dave Loggins, then get a “hello friends” from Butler Cabin, and get busy showing golf shots so you don’t have to play catch-up the rest of the day. Everyone’s happy! (Except the actors.)

CBS and The Masters may be victims of their well-intentioned efforts to do too much for too many hours at the expense of production precision. They also seem one hole announcer and an on-course reporter short of having the best possible storytelling team. It would be a shame if the 18th hole lost ball causes the tournament and production to pull back from innovating that has pushed golf television forward. The perks for viewers have far outweighed the mistakes.

They have innovated, it's just that they simultaneously constrain innovation.

Shall we get to the fun bits?  Yeah, you're still struggling to pick up on those rhetorical queries....

(Point) Missers, 2026 Masters

LIV, Bryson, Sergio, Code of Conduct violators, PGA Tour profit seekers, crackdowns on patrons, a Par 3 alternative, ESPN, Merch stress, and the new candy bar.

It's an embarrassment of riches....Though this lede photo might come as a surprise:

I'm going to embargo his LIV comments for a bit, but this guy has learned the meaning of karma:

Bryson DeChambeau. After inviting Kevin Hart to hit balls on the big boys range Masters

Tournament Practice Facility ahead of the comedian’s Par 3 caddie gig, DeChambeau played two uneven rounds before heading home a year after contending late into 2025’s final round. Since calling Augusta National a par-67, the not-happening-now $500 million man has been a whopping 126-over, and 16-over the actual par of 72. Bryson’s game won’t grow until he learns to hit better iron shots in majors, where advanced metrics increasingly tell us that approach play is the difference maker, no matter the course. LIV’s top player hit only eight greens in round one, then managed to find 14 in round two, only to triple the 18th after another greenside bunker slash-and-burn job. But Bryson did elaborate on the 3D printed 5-iron he’s created and does genuinely still seem to care when he shows up at a Grand Slam event. “Just going to give what the golf course gives me,” he said after round one. “I have to try to hit my irons better.” Bryson, as a wise philosopher once said, “There is no try.”

 That 18th hole meltdown on Friday as schadenfreudalicious as anything I've seen lately....

Though he did make us wait for this one:

Sergio. The 2016 champion seemed to be in especially miserable form all week, despite achieving his goal of making the cut. “Really, with the way I’m feeling about my game and the way I’d been playing coming in, I honestly gave myself very few chances of doing it,” he said of reaching the weekend. “But the feelings are still very bad, very bad, very ugly.” After driving in No. 2’s fairway bunker on Sunday, Gargia took a giant chunk out of the second tee. It required a cup cutter crew to replace the maimed turf. He appeared to break his driver on a bench, then carried Jon Rahm’s bag down the fairway because his playing partner’s bagman raked the sand. His Point Misser HOFer status was never in doubt, but the final round incident makes him a first ballot lock. He’s since apologized in a pointless statement written by someone else or AI. And as pitiful as the antics were, Garcia accidentally revealed a previously unknown Code of Conduct policy. It explained why he received an unprecedented on-course visit from Rules and Competitions Chair Geoff Yang. Well done, Sergio!

he makes me work too hard.  I can't just title a photo "Sergio Meltdown", I need to specify the event and year.....

My favorite bit about this incident was his playing partner, fellow Spaniard and LIV miscreant Jon Rahm.  Makes for a perfect thought bubble contest, no?  

Life In The Time of (No) LIV - Here were Geoff's comments about LIV's Masters' week:

LIV. If this “golf, but louder” just made its final Masters appearance, what a way to go out. The Saudi Arabia-backed entity appears—gulp—to be-heading toward its inevitable demise. The remainder of this year may feature an entertaining mix of, “we’re not getting paid,” “they lied to us,” “this isn’t what we signed up for,” et. cetera. Oh joy. Heading into The Masters, LIV’s poorly-conceived early-season schedule lacked domestic tune-up events, thereby sending the top game-growers to Augusta in less-than-fresh manner. The toll was evident by uninspired and sloppy play from the 10 who turned up, Tyrrell Hatton’s T3 notwithstanding. There was plenty of crankiness and embarrassment induced by Augusta National’s multi-layered difficulties that no LIV venue could prepare them for for. The once-promising Cameron Smith missed his sixth straight cut in a major. Jon Rahm (T38) barely made the weekend, but at least got a front row seat for Sergio’s Sunday meltdown. Dustin Johnson (T33) reminded everyone that he still plays golf. But with the PIF outlining a new future minus NEOM, Trojena and investments that lose gobs of money and subject fans to persistent DJs, LIV’s demise appears imminent after the PIF decided to end funding this year. Instead of an immediate death, we’ll have more time to ponder how the disruptor tour destroyed legacies and careers. But don’t cry because it happened. Smile because it’s almost over.

 Say it with me... It couldn't happen to nicer group of guys.

I don't actually have huge amounts to add, but shall we see what the TC panel has for us?  Good on you for realizing the rhetorical nature of that question:

Early last week, several news outlets reported uncertainty regarding LIV Golf’s future, indicating the Saudi PIF was on the verge of pulling its funding. LIV CEO Scott O’Neil told his staff via email on Wednesday: “Our season continues exactly as planned, uninterrupted

and at full throttle. While the media landscape is often filled with speculation, our reality is defined by the work we do on the grass.” But O’Neil was more specific about the situation on Thursday, when he said in a TV interview, “The reality is you’re funded through the season, and then you work like crazy as a business to create a business and a business plan to keep us going.” (The clip was deleted but still circulated online.) On Sunday, Jon Rahm won LIV’s sixth event of the season, in Mexico City. What’s your primary takeaway from what was a wild week for the five-year-old league?

James Colgan: My primary takeaway is simple: The Saudis seem to be getting out of the business of running a golf league, which is a truly momentous takeaway for the entire sport. LIV now enters a period in which it will need to work hard to find a path to survival, and as its CEO, Scott O’Neil, himself said, it seems all options are on the table.

Josh Sens. One takeaway is as old as capitalism: that new businesses — even the disruptive variety — are hard to grow no matter how much money you put into them. That said, for Saudi Arabia, getting out of the business of funding a professional golf tour would not have to mean getting out of golf. A new course just opened in Jura. Others are in the works. The ambition is still to grow the country’s presence in the game, but likely now as a host for golf tourism and tour events. Which, in retrospect, seems like it would have been the better path all along.

Josh Schrock: My main takeaway is that if the PIF pulls out, LIV Golf, as we know it, would need to reinvent itself. O’Neil said he would pursue all avenues to get more funding, but it’s hard to see one or several sponsors willing to bankroll the league at a level that would allow for more nine-figure contracts. O’Neil himself said LIV wouldn’t be profitable for five or 10 years without significant changes.

Reinvent itself?  Remind me how well the original invention was doing?  I'm sure banks are lining up at the door to fund Phil and DJ, but it's more than passing strange to wonder about their path to viability absent PIF funding, when they had no path to viability with said funding.

Apparently they insist on continuing to beat the deceased horse:

To Schrock’s point, can LIV continue in its current form without PIF’s deep pockets? If so, what would need to change?

Colgan: Definitely not in its current form. The league has spent more than $5 billion of Saudi funding to date, and, as Josh noted, O’Neil has already said that the league is several years away from any hope of profitability. Depending upon who steps up to help LIV with funding, I’d say any change is on the table.

Sens: Nope, the league would not be viable in its current form, and I have a tough time imagining what other form it might take. A limited series of world championship events with big overseas dollar sponsorships? But is there really a market for more big-dollar professional golf than we already have? The LIV experiment has shown that certain markets — Australia and South Africa, for example — are hungry for golf star power, but, on a global level, building and drawing eyeballs to a new league is a steep hill to climb.

Schrock: LIV could try and merge with the DP World Tour or reconstruct how it did a lot of things when the PIF spigot was on. But the contracts and purses would have to go down, and, at that point, how many players are going to want to continue when the financial payoff isn’t what it was when they initially signed on? A lot of moving parts to consider, many of which we still have limited to no information on.

I would have just gone with a hard, "No."  That said, the Euro Tour is quite the weak sister, however it's status as the third most prestigious golf tour in the world isn't even secure, as the changes contemplated out of PVB sound like a new tour will be created to sit between the PGA and the KF.

If LIV doesn’t survive past 2026, would you expect the PGA Tour to offer LIV’s top players — Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, etc. — a path back to the Tour by way of a similar agreement that Brooks Koepka accepted?

Sens: For the big LIV names, absolutely. If the Tour wants to be a showcase for the world’s best talent, and it does, it will work out a deal with Rahm and DeChambeau and maybe a small handful of others. The rest, I suspect, will have to play their way back in through other smaller tours.

Colgan: In that theoretical, I’d think the Tour can afford to offer a “Koepka Deal” to Bryson and Rahm … and probably leave the rest of the LIV contingent to serve out their suspensions on the DP World Tour.

Schrock: From a pure cost-benefit analysis, Tour CEO Brian Rolapp would probably love to add Bryson and Rahm back in the fold just as he did with Brooks. But things are not always that easy when you’re dealing with two players who already turned down an opportunity to come back, who might not be as well-liked by the current membership as Brooks, who kept his head down after he left and didn’t take any swipes or recruit other players. The feelings might not be the same toward Bryson, who was a named plaintiff in LIV’s antitrust suit against the PGA Tour and its members, or Rahm, whose departure post-framework agreement rubbed many players the wrong way. Would they immediately add value to the Tour? Yes. But for Rolapp to sell that vision, it’ll be a tricky high-wire act.

The first bit for us to acknowledge and amuse ourselves with is that they've named the only two guys that conceivably matter.  And even that includes a bit of a concession, so the easy answer is, who cares?

These guys decided to play their golf in the Cone of Silence, and I wish them continued enjoyment of the fruits of that decision.  I don't miss any of them, do you?

but I do owe them a note of thanks.  Because amid my hellish week, the LIV provided a much-needed smile.

I will nee to depart at this juncture.  Have a great week and I'll get back when I can.