Monday, February 21, 2022

Weekend Wrap - Death In the Family Edition

It feels as if this might be my most challenging day of blogging ever.... There's so many juicy little bits and my schadenfreude meter blew past 11 and I had to turn it off, the constant buzzing became annoying.  But there are actual points to be made, let's just hope I can remember them two paragraphs from now.

I hadn't even heard the Sunday piece of this story when I caught this In Memorium post at Geoff's blog:

R.I.P. The Saudi Golf League

Really, it seemed so vibrant just a few weeks ago in the Kingdom.   Was it cancer?  Well, yes, cancer of a kind, a hybrid variant that goes by the acronym GN-PM.  

The Saudi Golf League, a short-lived effort to reinvent the model of professional golf backed by a murderous dictator via the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, has died. It was barely six months old.

The league passed away after legendary golfer Phil Mickelson gave two interviews revealing an almost incomprehensible level of greed, rage, hypocrisy and avarice aimed at the same PGA Tour that helped him amass millions. Authorities speaking on the condition of anonymity have identified Mickelson as a “person of interest” in the league’s demise. Law enforcement has been unable to locate him at his California or forever-future Florida residences.

I have no shortage of quibbles with Mr. Monahan and the Ponte Vedra Mafia, but one has to give them credit for the week at Riviera, which served as an effective repudiation of the Saudi's effort.  The Tour put on quite a show, even if you ignore those press conferences (which I won't do for long).  It's product is a mess, a problem that Messrs. Norman and Mickelson have likely made more intractable, but we'll get to that in a sec.

But they produced the top eleven players in the world at Riviera, and No. 12 was only absent due to injuries.  And that "a Riviera" to me is as important as the "top eleven", because seeing them playing a storied venue with such a rich trove of history may just be the best argument in their favor.  Add Tiger's participation (hi 50 minutes in the booth eclipsed his prior record by an estimate forty-eight minutes), plus the celebration of Charlie Sifford's 100th birthday even allowed the phrase "Caucasian-only Clause" to be mentioned while celebrating the progress, as opposed to demanding reparations.

But before we go too far I want to add a point that I think is important.  The Sunday leaderboard was, to this observer, an effective condemnation of the Premiere/Super/Bonecutter League business model.  You might have noticed that Joaquin Niemann led wire-to-wire, but is the Chilean under a Saudi NDA?  How about Cameron Young?  Those top eleven actually didn't do much this week (though Rory amusingly posted one of his signature back-door top tens), but isn't that our game?  

So, what happened?  Well, let's rewind the tape to Friday, wherein I repeated my recurring belief that there seemed no way for the Saudis to get their....well, minyan.  From Zephyr Melton's "game" story:

Eight players strolled through the media center for pre-tournament availabilities in Riviera’s
picturesque clubhouse on Tuesday and Wednesday. Nearly all of them rebuked the Saudi golf league and affirmed their allegiances to the PGA Tour.

Collin Morikawa took the stand first, saying he was “all for the PGA Tour.” Chasing records set by Tiger Woods was too much to lure him away from the friendly confines of the Tour. Defending champ Max Homa followed suit. Money is nice, he said, but the thrill of winning against the best was by far his motivating factor.

That guy pictured above deserves some credit as well, as his early criticism of the source of the money can't be over-stated, even though it obviously left an opening for a competitive league whose money wasn't similarly tainted.

At that point the rumor had a list of twenty defectors to be announced the week of the Players Championship.  But while there were a couple of alpha dogs that might conceivably endorse a check, DJ and Bryson most prominently, we seemed in that very condition I had been predicting all along, there just seemed no way to ensure a critical mass of participation.  As many observed, it almost seemed as if they were targeting the Champions' Tour, given that the average age of the defectors was, credit Tom Leher, dead for three years.

Then came Sunday, Bloody Sunday:

Dustin Johnson, who some believed was pro-breakaway tour, released a statement early Sunday morning stating his intentions to remain on the PGA Tour. Not long after, Bryson DeChambeau did the same.

“While there has been a lot of speculation surrounding my support for another tour, I want to make it very clear that as long as the best players in the world are playing the PGA Tour, so will I,” DeChambeau’s statement read. “As of now, I am focused on getting myself healthy and competing again soon. I appreciate all the support.”

Like rats fleeing a sinking ship, the biggest names linked to the Saudi league were suddenly voicing their commitment to the tour.

Of course, I'm eliding what was likely the most significant occurrence of the week, the release of Phil's November comments by Alan Shipnuck:

In an excerpt from his upcoming book, Alan Shipnuck of the Firepit Collective published a conversation he’d had with Phil Mickelson regarding the Saudi league last fall. The contents of the article exposed how Mickelson hoped to leverage the threat of the breakaway tour against those in Ponte Vedra.

“They’re scary motherf—— to get involved with,” Mickelson said of the Saudis. “We know they killed [Washington Post reporter] Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.”

Fellow Tour pros were less than thrilled when news of Mickelson’s attempted sleight of hand reached Riviera.

Gee, Phil got himself in hot water by shooting off his mouth, who coulda seen that one coming?

I share some of my beliefs on this blog and I even recognize that I'm prone to a little preachiness, so I'm favorably predisposed to folks that have an outsized opinion of their own beliefs.  But the depravity of Phil's worldview in that 'graph takes my breath away, that a man that's banked hundreds of millions of dollars thinks it the non plus ultra of The Art of the Deal to use "Scary Mofos" for negotiating leverage.... Wow!.

Rory had this Sunday night:

“Who’s left? Who’s left to go?” Rory McIlroy said on Sunday night. “I mean, there’s no one. It’s dead in the water in my opinion. Yeah, I just can’t see any reason why anyone would go.”

It remains to be seen what will happen next in the Saudi league saga, but one thing is certain — the week that was at Riviera severely hindered its chances at survival.

You want some funnies?  I think you'll agree, these guys are good:

Yanno, Dj always seems off in a world of his own, so I'm guess he saw that Alan Shipnuck piece and hadn't realized those guys were scary mofos....

 As for the other big-time loser, he's always observed the Sabbath in his own inimical manner:

Shall we see what the lads at the Tour Confidential panel have to add?

1. While golf was played at an iconic course with a star-studded field this week, it was what happened away from the play at the Genesis Invitational that made the biggest waves. Player after player were asked their thoughts on a guaranteed-paycheck, upstart golf league funded by Saudi Arabian cash, then came a story from the Fire Pit Collective’s Alan
Shipnuck, who wrote of a phone conversation that he had had with Phil Mickelson in which the six-time major champ described himself as a key architect in the league — and added that he hoped the plan would generate leverage in future negotiations with the PGA Tour. The news wasn’t over. On Sunday, both Bryson DeChambeau and Dustin Johnson, long rumored to be part of the Saudi league, pledged their loyalty to the Tour. Whew. Lots to unpack here, but we’ll start with this. With the announcements of DeChambeau and DJ, and what seems to be a strong majority of players sticking with the PGA Tour, is the Saudi league over before it even got started?

Josh Berhow: It’s not over, but this week was a haymaker. For how long this league had been discussed and planned and with everything else that went into it behind the scenes, it’s going to take a lot more for it to be truly buried. But, yeah, this was not a good week for the Super Golf League. And years from now, if it’s still not a thing, this week, and perhaps the domino effect caused by Phil Mickelson, will be the reason why. One thing that was evident this week — the players, whether premeditated or not, seemed to be more vocal in their criticism and more adamant in their allegiance to the PGA Tour. There was a shift.

Josh Sens: I think it’s too early to pronounce it dead. There’s too much money and ambition behind it. But to live up to what its promoters have promised, any rival league was always going to need a critical mass of big names onboard, and that momentum seems all but gone for now. That doesn’t mean some kind of alternate league won’t still take shape. The general concept has been like a cicada in recent decades, going dormant for long spells and then springing back to life.

Nick Piastowski: This week was a blow, no doubt, but it’s not over. I see one of two things happening — either the Asian Tour gets a larger investment, or they pause plans on the league. Or both really. They’ve shown the Asian Tour concept works — the field was strong at the Saudi International, and the PGA Tour, though irritated, let it happen — and I could see more big-purse events. As for the other Tour, that has to be slowed. The Mickelson comment, at the moment, is too much to wash away, pun intended. They’ll regroup, up the money offered and try again.

Michael Bamberger: Saudi wealth among its ruling class is almost limitless. It’s not dead. But it’s easy to imagine it in some form, for the 40-and-over crowd, from all over the world.

I think that's right but incomplete.  I think they're missing is the extent to which the Tour had this coming, the inattention to the product and the mind-numbing schedule with no off-season.  But Jay is the luckiest man on the planet for at least a couple of reasons, though in one case he made his own luck.

First and foremost, how fortuitous that this initiative, which started in the UK, ended up with Saudi DNA.  From Rory pointing out the source of the money to Phil's scary mofos, it became quickly became about the Saudis, not about the golf business.  I'm also inclined to think that this playing out with the Genocide Games™ running in the background didn't hurt.

The second huge issue is that this hit as the new media contracts were kicking in, affording Jay tens of millions of new cash with which to placate bribe those influencers.  People asked where the $50 million large came for the PIP program, though the answer seems quite obvious.

I'm going to skip their second question for a moment and deal with the "Wither the Tour" bit before the "Wither the Phil" stuff:

3. Saudi League question three! Or this is more of a PGA Tour question. While no doubt a win for the Tour with the re-commitments of Johnson and DeChambeau, along with a host of others, where does the Tour go from here? Multiple outlets were reporting that there was discussion this week of experimenting with different formats during fall tournaments. Do you see more experimentation like this to appease players?

Berhow: Yes. Many players, including Phil, have been right in the fact that this has forced the Tour to open its eyes and make more changes to appease the players. We’ve already seen some of that happen with the PIP and Players purse increase, for example, but more still needs to happen. More team events, mix in LPGA stars — 72-hole stroke-play events, 48 weeks a year, is numbing.

Sens: Boy, is it tiring to think about what needs to be done to appease some of the most privileged people on earth. But I get it. It’s the marketplace. In my dream of dreams, we’d go back to the old days when golf took a breather. Scrap the wrap-around season. Give it a rest. Do we really need a bunch of contrived formats and watered-down events to get us through an offseason? Shut it down for a bit, and it will be all the more exciting when it starts back up again. The Groucho Marx rule is a good one here — you can love your cigar and still take it out of your mouth now and then.

Piastowski: Yep. While many of the players came out in support of the Tour, there were still a few grumblings of the status quo. This is the perfect opportunity to strike while the iron’s hot and keep the players happy. Shoot, steal ideas from the Saudi and Premier Golf Leagues. If you rest on this, PGA Tour, we’ll be talking about this again very, very soon.

Bamberger: It’s not really a question of appeasing the players. The Tour exists FOR the players. The players ultimately want what the golf-watching public wants, because it is the golf-watching public that pays the bills. We do want more team play, more mixed play, more match play, more transparency. The PGA Tour does amazing things in the name of charity, but it is also a big business. It’s hanging on to its not-for-profit status by a hair. It needs more transparency in every way.

I think most of that is sorely misguided...

My sense is that, having survived this existential challenge, that the Ponte Vedra suits will revert to form and be even more inflexible and insufferable.  But I think the answers above suffer from two major internal inconsistencies:

  1. Appeasing the players, as Josh Berhow puts it, is a misnomer, because Jay has been appeasing mostly a very small sub-set of the players;
  2. I'll temporarily pass on Mike Bamberger's hopelessly naïve concept of an organization created to serve the players actually staying faithful to that mission, as if we haven't seen countless organizations captured by its bureaucracy.  The point to be made here is about formats, and the fact that we all crave the wide range of team and match-play options or, more accurately, we think we do.  But the harsh reality is that most of those options work far more poorly than we realize, because in our minds we tie it to the Ryder Cup.  Have you watched the New Orleans team event?  It's a fine move on the part of a tertiary Tour stop, but it will never be confused with the Ryder Cup (or, quite frankly, the NCAAs).

The Post has learned exclusively, though, that the PGA Tour was presented an alternative league
opportunity in recent months that would squash the threat of the Saudi league and its controversial endless supply of “sports washing’’ money.

But, according to three independent sources with intimate knowledge of the proceedings, the PGA Tour squashed the alternative concept.

“A player-driven opportunity was brought to the PGA Tour that was financially backed with one of most respected people in finance who already has a long-term relationship with the PGA Tour,’’ one of the sources told The Post.

Those writers above who expect greater flexibility (or, yanno, appeasement) should perhaps read this, to see how the Tour responds even with the Saudi threat still exigent:

The sources said “after months of work’’ they’d mapped out all of the details about how the concept would work in conjunction with the existing PGA Tour schedule.

“We made it feasible,’’ one source said. “All of the logistical issues — TV contracts, ownership of events, scheduling, FedEx Cup stuff, points for the tournaments — were worked out. It was going to happen. There was no reason for it not to happen.’’

The hook to the proposal that snagged the PGA Tour like a tuft of Oakmont U.S. Open rough to a 6-iron, was that the league would be half-owned by the players and half-owned by the financial investor.

The PGA Tour would receive some financial benefits, but not have ownership in the eight-event series. Seemingly of most importance, the PGA Tour would rid itself of the migraine headache created by the Saudi threat and keep the team concept closer to being in-house.

After Monahan took in the information at the meeting — “Jay was seemingly on board as we were dealing with all the intricacies of it,’’ according to one of the people involved in the presentation — he brought it to the chairman of the PGA Tour’s Policy Board, Ed Herlihy.

On Oct. 30, according to one of the sources, it was shot down by Herlihy, a powerful corporate attorney, who told the investor: “If it’s not 100 percent owned and controlled by the PGA Tour, it will be viewed as hostile.’’

That single sentence uttered by Herlihy left those involved — a group that includes four of the world’s top players who have been on board with this since it was presented to Monahan — stunned.

Again, that was in October, when Jay was still sweating about releases for the Saudi event.  If you think that, with Greg Norman castrated, Jay is going to be more accommodating, you might want to think again.

Shall we get to the issue of the day, the future of Phil "Bonesaw" Mickelson?  A hero for our time, at least in his own mind...  I'm considering changing the tagline of the blog from the "Random Musings..." bit to "Proudly Trashing Phil Mickelson Since 2014"....  Whatya think?  

I guess we'll lede with the TC gang:

2. Saudi League question two. After everything that Mickelson has said over the Tour over the past two weeks — don’t forget the “obnoxious greed” comment earlier this month — how much will his commentary impact his legacy?

Berhow: Short term, it will be significant. Long term, less so. People have short memories, but it also depends a lot on what Mickelson does with the next decade or so.

Bamberger: I agree with that completely, Josh. Hold it, what are we talking about again?

Sens: Mickelson has always been a polarizing figure. In my random polls of fellow golfers over the years, the votes seemed to fall about 60-40, Phil worshippers over Phil detractors. I suspect if I took another of those surveys tomorrow, the down-on-Phil crowd would win in a landslide. Josh is right about short memories, but the incident will get mentioned in Mickelson’s obit. Not everyone will forget.

Piastowski: Sadly, the comments may be forgotten over time. They shouldn’t be. If you think otherwise, go read that quote again on the Fire Pit Collective website.

Short memories are usually a good bet, but I'm thinking this cuts deeper than than Josh and Mike sense.  I think those comments are everything that Nick does, but I also think they're the least of it.  Phil has seriously burned bridges with both the Tour itself, but also with so many of the top players, whose thoughts and objectives he's dismissed.

Remember Brooksie's tweak after the "obnoxious greed" comment, wherein he noted that Phil shouldn't be calling others greedy?  I always thought that he could have said the same about the word "obnoxious", and now seemingly every other top player has called the man out, using terms like egotistical and such.  At the very least, there are going to be some awkward pairings.

Perhaps more importantly, he's blown up the bromance with Tiger, who I felt showed an iciness on this subject that should have Phil a touch worried.  

Gonna start to wind this down, not that we won't be revisiting it regularly, but I've got a couple more bits.  I beat my chest above over having seen Phil clearly since 2014, but let me excerpt a couple of comments from that famous Alan Shipnuck piece over the weekend.  This one is just because it's funny, at least to me:

ive always thought he was dogpoop on a stick.
nothing i read here changes that.

Dogpoop on a stick?   Who knew, though, that e.e. cummings commented on golf websites?

But this one actually makes an important point, perhaps?

Regarding Phil: Never ever, ever trust the words of a gambler. Not even a reformed gambler. Their views are always distorted by their love of money to fuel their gambling.

Which is quite the optimistic take, given that Jay's vision for our game includes galleries filled with such gamblers because, well, a fellow has to Live Under Par™. 

Eamon Lynch, writing over the weekend, has a typically scathing take on the man:

An old adage—often wrongly attributed to Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”—holds that if you wait by the riverbank long enough, the bodies of your enemies will eventually float by. That’s as good
a metaphor as any for how some golf industry executives must have felt in the wake of recent comments by Phil Mickelson that incinerated his reputation, alienated most every constituency in the game, exposed him to disciplinary action, and otherwise cast him in a light so unflatteringly amoral that even Greg Norman might hesitate to be seen in his company.

In a November interview with writer Alan Shipnuck that was only made public this week, Mickelson betrayed the traits that have frequently led him into choppy waters: a beguiling mix of arrogance and obtuseness. He confirmed what was widely known—that he’s an advocate for the Saudi-backed Super Golf League—and breezily admitted his willingness to overlook the regime’s abuses simply for a chance to force concessions from the PGA Tour that would further enrich him.

Unable to forgo an opportunity to boast of his strategic genius, Mickelson affirmed with callous indifference the approach shared by his fellow travelers in the locker room, most of whom have not yet been flushed from the shadows. But the comment that holed him below the waterline was an admission that he and other as-yet-unnamed players paid for lawyers to draft the breakaway tour’s operating agreement.

 Tell us what you really think, Eamon.

The fact that Mickelson has not disputed the quotes published by Shipnuck suggests he’s either resigned to his fate or eager for a showdown with the Tour. But if he’s assembling an army to go over the top with him, it is starting to resemble more a mangy assortment of moth-eaten veterans than an elite fighting force. His benefactors in Riyadh are facing the prospect of spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy a Venn diagram of the washed-up, the uncompetitive, the cash-poor and the egomaniacal, all overlapping to form a subset of the unconscionable.

 Eamon, the term I think you're looking for is "Basket of deplorables".... But he does circle back and pay off that Sun Tzu reference:

Mickelson’s braggadocio has hastened a reckoning that was overdue. Ultimatums loom in the coming days and weeks that will force this sorry episode toward a conclusion. The charlatan Tour members involved in this scheme—Mickelson and Norman chief among them—have never been more isolated from their peers, never more exposed in their heartless opportunism, and never more lacking in public support. Jay Monahan and his European counterpart Keith Pelley, among others, have waited patiently by the riverbank for several years. They will not have to linger much longer.

Let's finish with Alan Shipnuck, who had this silly bit:

He's kidding, right?

More substantively, I wonder about Alan forthcoming unauthorized biography of the man.  First, is it timely or did he miss his window, with release not until May 17th.  I also wonder whether his book will have an outsized effect on how he's viewed or, as per the writers above, how short our memories are.

Here's what Alan has to say about it:

It sounds as if Alan shares my long-term view of Phil, the one in which the world bifurcates into Good Phil and Bad Phil.  I know, Good Phil seems to have left town without leaving a forwarding address...

I am particularly interested in the Bones break-up, because there's quite obviously more going on there than has been made public. But it seems significant to me that a rehash of the twenty years of Phil's obnoxious greed will hit just as this story might have otherwise receded, which is at the very least interesting.

 Exit question: Is Phil playing at Sawgrass?  

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Friday, February 18, 2022

Late Week Lamentations

So, anything going on in the golf world?  We've got that one guy trying to burn down the house and, alas, we've got a house burned to ruins.  Coincidence?  We don't believe in those...

But, bear with me as I lede with more pleasant bits...  even some actual golf, perhaps.

Dispatches From Unplayable Lies World Headquarters - As I found my way to the keyboard this morning, I found my intern already at work:

That's First Consul Napoleon, although around the house we just refer to him as the Emperor....  But if the insights seem especially trenchant this morning, again there's that coincidence thing.

Scenes From The Riv - I don't actually love that nickname for the joint, but it is as historic a venue as the guys play regularly, and it seems to be especially fast this week, notwithstanding some bizarre early week weather as detailed by Geoff:

Greetings from hail-pummeled Riviera!

This is the first time I remember cumulonimbus clouds dropping pellets of frozen rain and daring to drop them on George Thomas's masterwork. I’ve been coming here for just over three decades and thought I’d seen it all here weather-wise.

The Quadrilateral editorial team had planed to send a heavy-on-photos-newsletter about the 10th hole to whet your appetite for this major-ish field and vibe.

Including this photo of the iconic 10th hole:


Joaquin Niemann shot an unreal 63 and leads an appealing chase pack, none of which we need to linger over.  It promises to be a great weekend of golf, before we head East for the architectural splendor of the Bear Trap and Bay Hill.  But there are two points I want to make sure to cover.  First, with one obvious but not lamented exception, everyone is here:

Days removed from hosting a thrilling Super Bowl, Los Angeles is the site of another star-studded competition this week at The Riviera Country Club. For the first time in the history of The Genesis Invitational, the top 10 players in the Official World Golf Ranking will tee it up. It’s the first time since last year’s TOUR Championship that all 10 in the OWGR will compete in the same PGA TOUR event.

With Ian Faith in mind, they actually have the top eleven.  Which is, as we all know, one higher than ten....If you don't get that reference, it's your loss.

The other item I want to cover here might more logically belong below, but there it would be buried within a laundry list of personal invective.  As you all know, Max Homa is the defender this week, having won his hometown event last year in an extremely popular win.  Homa is, of course, about as popular and anyone out there, those Netflix cameras are following him for a good reason.

In his presser he was asked about the Saudi league and, shockingly, he seems to be the only professional golfer not party to an NDA.  But he made some comments in answer that everyone should read:

That’s not to say Homa doesn’t consider this sort of thing; he thinks about it constantly. No Tour pro can ignore it. But his counterargument was the best defense of the PGA Tour I’ve heard.
There’s value in familiar courses and familiar events and familiar prizes. There’s significance to Riviera the way there’s significance to Wrigley Field. Now that Homa owns a familiar title at a familiar course, the status quo seems even more appealing.

“We think about it a lot, talk about it a lot,” he said. “It’s an interesting dynamic we’ve got going. I love the PGA Tour. Driving up to this golf course with memories of winning a golf tournament that Tiger Woods handed me a trophy? They don’t have that in a breakaway league.

“That’s not the part that I remember. That’s my take on it. I’m not saying that these leagues couldn’t be great, and things may change. My point is everything from this golf tournament that has made me get the chills as I talk about it and get the chills as I drive up [to Riviera] and think, “What the hell?” when I see my picture on things out on the golf course that I grew up to love, I would not be getting that anywhere else. That’s my allegiance, I guess.”

If you've been reading my rants, you know that the PGA Tour has been pretty damn spendthrift with their own history, so I have a nomination for a successor to Jay.   It should be a fun week, so do watch it and root for Max.

Shall we get to the incendiary stuff?

Burn Down the House, Figurative Edition - The man of the hour is Alan Shipnuck, late of Golf Magazine and now reading his mail for The Firepit Collective.  As you may or may not be aware, this is about to drop:


Scheduled to be released May 17th, you'd think they'd be accelerating the release date to the extent possible.

Alan has now dropped this item, recounting a November conversation he had with the man, and by the second 'graph it has me muttering, WTF:

Mickelson told me he had enlisted three other “top players” he declined to name and that they
paid for attorneys to write the SGL’s operating agreement, codifying that the players would have control of all the details. He didn’t pretend to be excited about hitching his fortunes to Saudi Arabia, admitting the SGL was nothing more than what he called “sportswashing” by a brutally repressive regime. “They’re scary motherfuckers to get involved with,” he said. “We know they killed [Washington Post reporter and U.S. resident Jamal] Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates. They’ve been able to get by with manipulative, coercive, strong-arm tactics because we, the players, had no recourse. As nice a guy as [PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan] comes across as, unless you have leverage, he won’t do what’s right. And the Saudi money has finally given us that leverage. I’m not sure I even want [the SGL] to succeed, but just the idea of it is allowing us to get things done with the [PGA] Tour.”

Phil likes to live life on the edge, but using the bonecutters to , err, cut a better deal with the PGA Tour seems, well, unwise?  Phil, just a pro tip, if they invite you to the Istanbul embassy for a meeting, consider taking a pass.  

But there's a lot to parse, starting with the identity of those three other players, though of course Bryson springs immediately to mind.  To the extent that there are two other guys, my guess is we're looking among the has-beens and only Phil would call Westy or Poults a top player.  But do we believe that they wrote the operating agreement?  That sounds like typical Phil bluster, but how profoundly silly to think an "operating agreement" matters with guys that outfit their embassies with bonecutters....

Of course it's Phil, which means that the usual "How much money is enough?" rules don't quite apply:

But are his grievances fueled by money or principle? With Mickelson, you can never be sure. Given the massive scale of his gambling losses—detailed elsewhere in the book, which, as it happens, can be preordered here—the Saudi seduction might be born of necessity. Mickelson, whose $94 million in career PGA Tour earnings is second only to that of Tiger Woods, raised eyebrows when he sold his Gulfstream in 2019. “He loved that plane so much it was like his fourth child,” says someone very close to Mickelson. “I was absolutely shocked that he sold it. The only reason I could possibly imagine him doing that was him feeling serious financial pressure.” Phil and his wife, Amy, have purchased land on Jupiter Island, in Florida, and have been interviewing architects; Phil may yet get the haven from state income tax he has long lusted after. “I was interviewing him one time,” says writer John Feinstein, “and he said, apropos of nothing, ‘You always think of me as a right-winger, but I’m actually pretty liberal on social issues like abortion.’ I said, ‘But your number one issue is taxes.’ He said, ‘No, no, no, my number one, two, three, four, and five issues are taxes.’”

Shame on you, Alan, for trying to tax-shame him.  Perhaps, instead, you could ask him why he doesn't pay his gambling losses?

 And because manipulative, coercive and strong-armed aren't sufficient to feed the pyre, Phil has more:

But Mickelson’s second outstanding issue with the Tour has nothing to do with money. It’s about control. “The Tour likes to pretend it’s a democracy, but it’s really a dictatorship,” he told me. “They divide and conquer. The concerns of the top players are very different from the guys who are lower down on the money list, but there’s a lot more of them. They use the top guys to make their own situation better, but the top guys don’t have a say.” Players are a minority on the all-powerful PGA Tour Policy Board, holding only four of the nine seats, with the other five being filled by luminaries of the business world who, by age and experience, have more in common with the commissioner than the jocks. Mickelson’s idea for governance is, he says, based on the U.S. Congress: The Tour’s vast middle class would be like the House, voting on ideas that would then be rejected or tweaked and ultimately ratified by a much smaller Senate-like body composed of the game’s biggest stars. “That way nothing will get done without the approval of both sides,” Mickelson says. It is an idealistic vision.

Because the U.S. Congress has been humming along like a finely-tuned Swiss watch?  

But, as I read those comments, it seems like Phil is really picking a fight with the Tour rabbits, so he's punching down.   Gonna be a little frosty in the locker room, no?

Shippy has one more contribution to make to the circus:

So that prediction of mine that the week of the Saudi event would be lit wasn't so much wrong as early.

But, who could those twenty be?  Because the reaction to those comments of Phil was universally harsh.  Let's see, there's Rory:

“Not so Super League,” McIlroy said when a question about the league was being asked during his news conference ahead of the 2022 Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club north of Los Angeles.

“Oh, I’m so sick of it.”

“I guess I’m intrigued who would (join). Certainly for the younger guys, like it just seems a massive risk,” McIlroy said. “I can maybe make sense of it for the guys that are getting to the latter stages of their career, for sure. I don’t think that’s what a rival golf league is really; that’s not what they’re going to want, is it?

And Collin with two "l's":

“I’m all for the PGA Tour,” he said. “Has it opened up things for us as professional golfers to open up things for the PGA Tour to look at what to do better? Absolutely. We’ve seen a lot of
changes, some good, some bad, some that are still going to be amended I’m sure as time goes on.

“Right now you look at the best players that I see and they’re all sticking with the PGA Tour and that’s where I kind of stay and that’s where I belong.”


That Tiger guy:

“I’ve decided for myself that I’m supporting the PGA Tour. That’s where my legacy is,” Woods said. “I’ve been fortunate enough to have won 82 events on this tour and 15 major championships, and been a part of the World Golf Championships, the start of them and the end of them.”

Rahmbo as well, though he used a curious word

“I wanted to take this time to say that this is my official, my one and only time to talk about this, where I am officially declaring my fealty to the PGA Tour,” he said. “I’m a PAC [Player Advisory
Council] member and I have a lot of belief in Jay Monahan and the product.

“There’s been a lot of talk and speculation on the Saudi league and it’s just not something that I believe is best for me and my future in golf and I think the best legacy I can accomplish is on the PGA Tour.”

“Everybody’s free to make their own choice, it’s as simple as that. All I can say is from somebody young like myself who has his entire future ahead of him, it doesn’t seem like a smart thing. Again, the only appeal I see is monetary, right?

 I'm not alone in reacting to a single word:

Ya think?


Of course it's the wrong concept entirely, as these guys should be questioning the Tour and their bloated organization that's made quite the hash of things.  But we'll give Jon a pass because, as you have heard, English wasn't  his first language.

Now Phil was a little personal in his criticisms of the Tour and Jay, specifically, so goose, gander:

“Shocking, never would have guessed,” he said, a verbal eye-roll. When a reporter explained the
gist of the article, Thomas let it fly.

“Seems like a bit of a pretty, you know, egotistical statement,” he added. “I don’t know, it’s like, he’s done a lot of great things for the PGA Tour, he’s a big reason it is where it is, but him and others that are very adamant about that [league], if they’re that passionate, go ahead. I don’t think anybody’s stopping them.”

Asked if it was time for players to pick a side and move on, Thomas said he was well past that point.

“I’ve heard way too much talk about a lot of players that are ‘so done with everything,’ but they keep hanging around, so clearly they’re not too done.”

Phil egotistical?  Boy, I never saw that one coming....  Just a reminder, I've been trashing Mickelson regularly since, oh, September 2014.  But does JT's looper have anything he'd like to add?

Lastly, Pat Perez, who isn't a wilting flower:

Let’s begin. Question one: Was Perez comfortable with Mickelson “speaking out?” “And it seems like he’s speaking for a lot of players,” the reporter added.

Buckle up.

“I asked the question this morning to another player — why didn’t he play Phoenix [last week’s event], and why is he not playing here,” Perez began. “He’s never missed these. I’m surprised he didn’t play.

“I don’t know, I don’t know what Phil’s doing. I know Phil’s got a lot of stress in life right now, and I don’t know what he’s doing. I know he’s not speaking for me, and, you know, I actually really don’t care what he has to say about anything because I just don’t. He doesn’t speak for me. He’s had an amazing career. He obviously thinks there’s something else on the other side for him going down the line. If he gets it, great. He’s made $800 million on the Tour, I don’t know what could be so bad about the Tour. So I don’t know, I don’t know.

C'mon, Pat, tell us what you really think.

“I think the way Tiger’s approaching it is phenomenal. [Woods has said he’s sticking with the Tour.] I think he understands where he made all his money. I think these young kids, I think that’s great that they’re backing Tiger. But Tiger, Tiger’s our guy. Tiger and I are three months apart. I idolized him my whole life even though we’re the same age. What he says is pretty much gold. You know, I would follow his lead more than anything. If he doesn’t want to do it, Rory [McIlroy] doesn’t want to do it, and if you don’t have the top kids doing it, I just don’t know how much water it’s going to hold anyway. I don’t know how long it’s going to take.

“They’re not going to follow Phil; they’re not going to follow [Bryson] DeChambeau unfortunately. You need the young crew right now to go do this thing. I don’t know exactly what Phil, why he’s got so much hate towards the Tour. I mean, he’s damn near 52 now. I know he won a major last year. It’s incredible what he did, it really is, but I don’t know, you know.

Shack has a Phil-centric Quad post up, which finishes thusly:

The short term brinkmanship may deliver a few royalties from that 21st Century equivalent of a Franklin Mint doll. Heck, those NFT royalties might even help pay for the house in Jupiter he’ll someday be building to dodge taxes he loathes paying.

As for every other house Mickelson’s built? Burning like, gulp, too soon, too soon.

How can Mickelson ever turn up at a PGA Tour event without it evolving into an uncomfortable circus?

Does the PGA of America even want to have a media day for their defending champion?

And what blue chip brands will want to be seen on his hat and shirt sleeves? (Callaway gave him a lifetime contract and may be stuck with him.) Other entities hoping to be associated with various “brand values” have too many other stress-free options.

There is also zero chance any respectable network will pay him the Romo money he believes he deserves. Mickelson might have to pay them to get on the air.

And finally, what about that long expected Ryder Cup captaincy in 2025 where the Bethpage crazies will scream and yell in support of their favorite golfer?

One prominent Ryder Cupper on the way to Riviera’s locker room was asked if he’d heard about Mickelson’s latest comments. Without even asking what was said, he mumbled in disgust, “What a &^%$&@ clown.”

Shipnuck, along with Geoff above, credits Phil with some positive results from his use of the Saudi leverage, which seems both inevitable but also speculative.  This is a subject we will likely revisit often, but I see two immediate issues.  First, the existential threat hit just as the new media rights contracts were starting, so purses were already set to increase, and it's arguable whether the Saudi threat has pushed Jay to move those numbers higher than they would have in isolation.

Second, and I think more important, it's resulted in the Tour changing how it delivers the cash to its members, most notably in the PIP program.  If you were, say, concerned that the tour was dictatorial or obnoxiously greedy, shouldn't you worry about Jay having a $50 million slush fund with which to but the loyalty of his faves?  

So, Alan tells us that the bonecutters will release a list of twenty signed contracts the week of March 7th, so what might that list look like?  There's guys whose thoughts haven't been shared, names like Hovland Scheffler and Matsuyama.  DJ has gone to pains to keep his options open, but I see a very real possibility that they're twenty wouldn't include a single top ten player (for those keeping a scorecard at home, Bryson is currently No. 12).  But why would you release such a list?  

I'd like to focus more on substance in future posts, because I do think Alister Tait is onto something here:

Now, Mr. Tait doesn't get it all right:

For years the PGA Tour and European Tour, now the DP World Tour, have measured success in dollars and cents. FedEx Cup money, Race to Dubai money, the Player Impact Program, bonus pools, Rolex Series events, World Golf Championships, where the main hype has been how much money each new “initiative” is throwing at players, how there are more tournaments with bigger prize funds – “north of $200 million" European Tour Chief Executive Keith Pelley proudly said when he announced the 2022 DP World Tour schedule – then can they really complain when others come along and offer to trump them with even more money? Even if it comes from a country with scant regard for human rights like Saudi Arabia?

Weird, given that the PGA Tour has done little but try to measure success in FedEx Cup points, which has hardly been an improvement.  So, it might be the money, but there's no other metric that actually makes any sense...

Tait excerpts these Lee Westwood comments that are indeed thought-provoking:

“The other tours see the Asian Tour as a threat now, don't they, because of the huge investment? It's kind of like a game of poker really where the European Tour and the PGA Tour have had the biggest hand, and now there's somebody else come to the table with more chips, so everybody is on their guard and very defensive and are clearly seeing the Asian Tour as a threat. Nobody can deny that. There wouldn't have been all this trouble with releases and things like that if that wasn't the case.

“Yeah, I can see why they feel threatened, but at the same time, the PGA Tour and the European Tour have gone into areas I suppose in the Asian Tour's path over the years and never had any problem playing tournaments all over Asia and the Middle East, which I think has probably cost Asia, as well. Now that the Asian Tour has this backing, it appears to me like they're just doing what the PGA Tour and the European Tour have been doing the last 25 years.”

Obviously the Asian Tour is just the Saudi's beard, but the irony, she burns.

But here I think he gest it completely wrong:

There’s the rub: the European Tour hasn’t given a minute’s thought to staging events in Asia over the years. Yet is unhappy when the Asian Tour announces a tournament in England, as I reported on here. The PGA Tour hasn’t stopped to ponder that it has lured all the world’s top stars to its circuit and enfeebled the Asian, Sunshine, Australasian and European Tours as a result. To be fair, the PGA Tour didn’t set out to weaken other tours. It’s just been a by product of success. For years the American circuit has lived by the golden rule: we have all the gold, we make the rules.

Oh, I do think the Tour wanted to weaken those other tours, there's no other explanation for 52 weeks of mind-numbing events than the desire to leave no oxygen available for anyone else in the golf ecosystem.   They've substantially diminished the Australian season in December, and otherwise monopolized the calendar to the exclusion of any other entity.  

There's a lot more out there that we'll get to in the coming days.  There were some trial balloons floated on what to do with the Fall schedule, and this whole issue of digital rights deserves much more attention.

For now I'll head for the exit but post a couple of interesting tweets:

The King might have been the indispensable one in ushering golf into the modern media world, but he got a few things wrong for sure.  But other than the revolution, I don't see a lot of lessons to be learned.  The touring pros were governed by an organization allegedly devoted to teaching professionals, so the logic of a separate organization made sense (though the irony is the horrible deal they struck, leaving the PGA and Ryder Cup with the sweater folders.  

But this one points out a disconnect that I haven't exactly sorted through to my satisfaction:

As I listen to Tiger and other players swearing fealty to the PGA Tour, I get the sense that were eliding an important distinction, one that's not helpful to the folks in Ponte Vedra Beach.  I think what those guys are supporting is the current golf ecosystem, one that's made them famous and wealthy beyond their dreams.  But is that ecosystem were a deck of playing cards, then we have to acknowledge that Jay Monahan's hand includes few face cards, maybe a lone jack (which would be The Players Championship).

Everything Jay does is from a position of weakness, a point I've made since starting this blog.  The whole FedEx Cup hot mess is best understood as a cry for relevance.  We think of the PGA Tour as the premiere tour in golf, which it is, but Jay and the Saudis are actually fighting over the last seat at the adults' table.  The aces and kings are all held by Augusta National, the R&A and the USGA.  But, as Alan notes, the Saudis seem have seized on a clever opportunity to guarantee access to those events that matter, at least as things currently stand.  We'll watch this space, but Geoff and others are correct to note that the Ryder Cup is an interesting flash point in this mess.

I'm done, but have one last, completely unrelated tweet that made me laugh:

In a world where our political and sports leadership are working overtime to drive us apart, it's comforting that we can all come together in our contempt for Ress Jones architecture.  See, Rees is a uniter...

Have a great weekend.

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Wednesday, February 16, 2022

Midweek Musings

Your call....would you like to start in Phoenix. LA or Jeddah?  Doesn't much matter, it all seems to be the same story....

The Ash Heap of History - Well, the enduring image of the week in Scottsdale was a heap of something, mostly beer cans and bottles.  You wouldn't be human if you weren't at least a little troubled by the weekend scene at No. 16.  First, in his Monday Finish feature, Dylan Dethier takes a a logical path, first with this acknowledgement that, in the words of Stephen Stills, there's something happening there:

Mayhem at No. 16

You’ve seen the highlights by now. Aces. Chip-ins. Shirtless dancing men. Not every hole should be like No. 16 at Waste Management, but as a cathedral for a particular type of gluttonous, no-holds-barred, excessive spectating experience, this hole’s tough to beat.

Not exactly clear, though how could it be through the haze of potables consumed...

But he does draw a line in the sand a bit later:

Beers as projectiles

There’s a bunch of hand-wringing about how far is “too far” when it comes to the debauchery at the WMPO. Well, I’m here to draw the exact line: It’s all good until a player gets pegged with an
actual beer. And it sounds like we were bumping up against that line over the weekend. Justin Thomas said “the beer-throwing gets a little dicey sometimes.” And Carlos Ortiz, whose hole-in-one inspired plenty of celebration on Sunday, said he was dodging beers left and right.

“A lot of people cheering for you and then you start trying to watch out for your head because I got actually nailed pretty hard on the back with a beer can, and then after that I was just trying to just avoid all the cans I could.”

Call me old-fashioned, but I want my golfers to complete their rounds un-concussed. Beyond that, play on!

C;mon, Dylan, the only thing missing from No. 16 is a medical tent and the invocation of the concussion protocol....

Good luck to Dylan in poking the eye of the pro-beer-can-as-projectile lobby, but I see issue sin squaring that circle, as per Dylan earlier in his feature:

The PGA Tour’s product

Last week, Phil Mickelson came after the Tour, citing its “obnoxious greed,” alleging restrictive media rights and generally portraying the folks in Ponte Vedra as the Evil Empire. This week, Charley Hoffman turned a gripe with the Rules of Golf into an all-out tirade against the Tour, citing the incident as evidence why it soon might cease to exist. All of this comes in the context of massive reported sums offered to high-profile pros to jump ship to a new breakaway tour.

In other words, it was high time for the PGA Tour to showcase its best product. But on the weekend in Arizona, reports of the PGA Tour’s demise felt greatly exaggerated; the WM Phoenix Open was a wild, wonderful week filled with aces, beer showers and hundreds of thousands of delighted fans. Sunday presented a host of U.S. Ryder Cuppers doing battle with a young, lovable underdog, 54-hole leader Sahith Theegala, making just his 11th PGA Tour start. Paying players a boatload of money is easy. Creating the atmosphere at TPC Scottsdale? Not so much.

Sorry, I just can't take any pleasure in that when Charley Hoffman was treated so rudely...

Joking aside, this is an event that has always been on the edge, but Saturday and Sunday was just too much, too often.  I was almost willing to abide the reaction to Ryder's Saturday ace because it was so unexpected.  But by Sunday the reaction was expected (even encouraged), and accompanied run-of-the-mill chip-ins as well, so welcome to our future at No. 16.

Martin Dempster, writing from the home of golf, is not an "on the one hand..." kind of guy:

It’s a disgrace that the tournament organisers have not come out and condemned such behaviour
at a golf event and don’t give me that nonsense about “golf had a brief glimpse of a crowd and players having fun”.

“Refine rather than reject” was the suggestion from another person to comment on the hot topic and that just about hits the nail on the head.

Bottles and cans should be instantly banned at next year’s event and plastic cups be used instead for that consumption of alcohol, which is clearly part of why so many people want to be around that green in the first place.

Refine rather than reject seems to be the new Mend It, Don't End it. Dempster makes a case I've not heard elsewhere, that the eruption affected play above and beyond the effects of the delays:  

According to him, there was “no material damage to the green”, but that wasn’t the case after we witnessed the same reaction to Mexican Carlos Ortiz making a hole-in-one there in the closing circuit.

Sharing the lead at the time, Patrick Cantlay’s birdie putt was tracking nicely until it bobbled badly and ended up a couple of feet short of the hole. His ball had hit a dent on the green left by a can or bottle.

Given the loss in the playoff, he's basically making the case that this cost him the win.  Seems like cosmic karma adjusting for the cheap win he got at The Memorial, no?

My prediction is that the build-out of No. 16 next year will mirror modern baseball stadia, with netting around the whole structure.

I blog without fear or favor, but I actually was more outraged by that accompanying picture above than the tossed beer cans, notwithstanding the involvement of two of my favorite players.  While ask.com is unable to tell me how to un-see the images, we have his word that it's a one-off:

ZM: Did you expect all your fellow players to be talking about your little celebration so much?

HH: Yeah, definitely. There’s a lot of regret in what I did for that exact reason. But I can use it as a motivating factor. If I play good golf this week and the next few weeks, people will hopefully forget — I know they won’t, but hopefully they will.

ZM: So, safe to say never again with that celebration?

HH: That will never ever happen again. It shouldn’t have happened in the first place, but it certainly will never happen again.

He got that right...eventually.   But my biggest gripe is that he was talking about it all week, so it scores low on spontaneity.  That said, this did make me laugh because it was from such an unexpected party:

The 30-year-old spent much of a blustery day at Riv’ grinding on the range in preparation for his second career start here, but he waded through plenty of interruptions. Everyone from swing instructors to gear reps approached Higgs to chat about his antics in the desert. And even some fellow pros got in on the action.

As defending Masters champ Hideki Matsuyama readied to hit balls next to Higgs, he turned and lifted his shirt in jest.

“You know it’s bad when Hideki comes up to you on the range and lifts his shirt,” Higgs said. It was that kind of day at the course for the hefty cult hero, but as we found out, Higgs’ celebration is bound to be a one and done.

I for one did not have Hideki shirtless on my bingo card.

Lastly, Shack seconds my prediction:

Oh it’s here to stay. Just with chicken wire around the grandstands next year and really good WiFi so you can gamble on the madness. Live Under Par lives, baby!

I don't think it can be said enough, this was Jay's image for the Tour as per the Live Under Par promos.

You think I mentioned Charley just by happenstance?

Don't be giving our Jay any ideas...

Today In Saudi Hijinks - Lots of moving parts, so we'll just pick a few to sort through.  Jay had to love this, though I found it a tad more equivocal than most did:

The Champion Golfer of the Year did, however, make his feelings more clear than ever on the
potential for a Saudi Golf League.

“I'm all for the PGA Tour,” he said. “I've been a pro for two and a half years. My entire life I've thought about the PGA Tour, I've thought about playing against Tiger, beating his records, whatever, something that might not even be breakable, but I've never had another thought of what's out there, right? I've never thought about anything else, it's always been the PGA Tour.”

“Right now you look at the best players that I see and they're all sticking with the PGA Tour and that's where I kind of stay and that's where I belong. I'm very happy to be here. I've played I think three events this year, feels like I've played nothing and part of that was designed in the fall to only play two events. But after missing a lot of the West Coast Swing, I decided to go over there and play on the DP World Tour. I miss being out on the PGA Tour. I miss seeing these guys, I miss playing out here and I just want to compete against the best in the world and right now that's where it is. I'm very happy, I'm very thrilled to be here.”

The problem is that there seemed to be a "For now" left dangling at the end of every sentence.  Of course, isn't that the case, whether or not it's said out loud.  The other quite part said out loud was that there isn't anything concrete to which he could respond, but Jay would be wise to not take too much comfort there.

So, no granular proposals to Collin, so is it possible that the Saudi's are copying Harvard's admission policies?  Because this was awfully granular, though the source might result in a spit take:

PGA Tour player ____________ claims that 17 players have signed on to the proposed Super Golf League.

_____, speaking Tuesday on the Stripe Show podcast, did not identify any specifically by name. However, _____ alluded to the group not being short on star power.

"You’re going to see a lot of big names jump over there. I think there’s already been 17 guys that have jumped over, and I can’t say who they are, but there’s going to be some big names going over there," ____ said on the Stripe Show podcast. "Look, I mean, from what I’ve heard the money’s very, very appealing. You’re only gonna have 12-14 events. Those events are gonna have purses. You’re not going to have to deal with missing a cut anymore; there’s only going to be 40 players. And 10 of those 14 events will be in the States. Signing bonuses, huge, huge purses—it’s going to be very appealing for some of these guys. Yeah you’ll see some big names for sure.

”While _____ asserted his belief that tour players should be receiving a bigger slice of the tour’s profits, he went on to say that those jumping to the SGL are “money hungry.”

So, that's a first, I've elided the name of the player making the claim, because i want you think about who might be close enough to things to be counting heads and the like (and I'm guessing you won't suss it out from the photo).  I'll even give you a clue that his parents seem to be Seinfeld fans...

Anyone?  Bueller?  It's none other than former PGA Tour Canada player of the year, Kramer Hickok.  Who would have first-hand knowledge of Saudi offers and acceptance how?  

I guess if we're rumor central, this would be the point to segue to those other rumors:

The lightning rod that is Bryson DeChambeau continues to be struck by rumors. The latest comes
from the “No Laying Up” podcast, which speculated Monday that DeChambeau is absent from this week’s Genesis Invitational because he has quit the PGA Tour. The podcast also suggested that DeChambeau may merely be out with an injury.

"In Saudi, [DeChambeau] said he is no longer playing on the PGA Tour,” the podcast said. “He told players that. That's what he said. I don't think all of the decisions have been made, so you can't, like, report on anything like that. But the information as I know it from very reputable sources that's where things stand as of now."
 
DeChambeau and his management were quick to refute the report. He said on Twitter that he’s missing the Genesis because he’s rehabbing injuries to his hand and hip that he either suffered or aggravated at the Saudi International.

Amusingly, it remains unclear as to whether he's quitting the Tour because of injury or to accept the Saudi's $135 million offer, or both.  Whatever might be going on with his hips, back and wrists, one assumes he maintains enough physical strength to endorse checks....

I was actually more interested on Morikawa's (and Cantlay's) comments on another subject):

Collin Morikawa reportedly finished 11th in the PIP. He made clear he is not a fan of the PGA Tour’s incentive appropriations based on tossing Meltwater Mentions in the air and seeing what sticks.

This is what happens when you get Haas grads on the Tour who lose out on $3 million and ask them about upping the social media focused pool to $50 million.

“I think we're getting paid $50,000 for the year if we play 15 tournaments, I mean, that's $10 million right there,” he said. “When you're out here on the PGA Tour, you have 200 members or so, you have a million employees, you have a million people trying to do better for the Tour and everyone has their own opinion, but what is really best for the Tour?

“Are those two things, the PIP and the cuts made, or not cuts made, whatever we call it, 15 tournaments played? I don't think that's the best use of $60 million, but I don't have an answer for that. I probably should start thinking about this because I am in a position now to where I can help out and voice my opinion and hopefully be heard.”

.  And from Patrick:

2021 FedExCup champion Patrick Cantlay was asked about the PGA Tour’s Player Impact Program. Always thoughtful with his answers, Cantlay had little problem explaining what he loathes about the social-media driven bonus pool.

“I think I'm old school in the respect that I would like the money to be doled out relative to play and I don't think the PIP does that,” last week’s runner-up said. “It may be the first departure that the Tour has had from rewarding good play to rewarding social media or popularity presence, so I don't like that departure.

“People are going to promote themselves on social media anyway and we've definitely seen that. The question is whether the Tour should also be incentivizing that.”

Finally, a couple who get what a radical departure this is.  As Patrick notes, the social media plays would still happen and would presumably be rewarded with sponsorships and the like.  But this is the Tour rewarding its faves, and that way lies trouble.

Eamon Lynch, who I imagine could work a bone-cutter with the best of them, has thoughts on how the PGA and DP should react (although he spends a fair number of pixels trashing Charley Hoffman, leaving little for the circling vultures):

It is time for the Tour to remind those players that there’s no barbed wire impeding the exit and to instead focus on stars who refuse to shake the Crown Prince’s pompoms as cheerleaders for Saudi
ambitions in golf, men who are driven by history, legacy and the plentiful rewards already available. That is a considerably more impressive roster.

Tiger Woods is out.

Jon Rahm? He’s out too.

Rory McIlroy. Ditto.

Brooks Koepka? Justin Thomas? Jordan Spieth? Out, out, out.

These are the players upon whom the future of the PGA Tour and the broader professional game will be sustained. Not Mickelson, and not the coterie of cash-poor, washed-up veterans eager for the Saudi’s insidious embrace.

For several years, Monahan’s response to this issue has been remarkably measured, an approach that lays bare the problem inherent in member-led organizations, where every hollering halfwit with a gripe must be treated like the chairman of the board. But excessive deliberation can become debilitating. A day must come—and soon—when the PGA Tour decides it will no longer be held hostage by a handful of players desperate for Saudi graft.

Let them go, if they really have the stomach for the gamble. The Tour will be no poorer for their departure.

Charley and Phil, for sure...

By the way, except for his amen to Charley's whine, have you noticed that Phil has gone quiet?  He's allegedly off in Montana skiing, but he amusingly seems to have adequate Wi-Fi:

Since sounding off from a country where they do much worse than block people they don’t like, Mickelson’s comments have been analyzed from all corners. And the reaction to his Saudi-leaning ways has not been positive. Nor has he received much sympathy for his perceived lost revenues at the hands of the PGA Tour.

So while on a long-planned skiing trip in Montana, Mickelson took time out from his va-cay to go on a blocking binge. He reacted to various media members from outlets of all shapes and sizes, but also blocked every day fans, fun-loving influencers like Sam Harrop, and even one of more thoughtful young players, Meghan McLaren, who sounded very rational about Mickelson’s diatribe in the land of beheadings:

 

 

Brave Sir Phillip!  Anyone know how Meltwater Mentions treats blocking others on social media?

But, say it ain't so, Phil, you blocked Big Randy at No Laying Up?


As for that Harrop guy, he quite obviously had it coming:


Think he can anticipate a block from Charley as well....

That's all for today, gang.  See you on Friday?
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