Weekend Wrap

We did get some snow in Utah at long last... Way too late (especially after temps in the 60's) and not near enough, so what the kids call dust on crust.  And so the ski season from hell winds down...

But, shall we cheer ourselves up with some golf carnage?

The King's Revenge - The cardigan has always been red, though the significance thereof has become more apparent in recent seasons:

There’s water on one side and rough on the other and the bone-dry fairways are firmer than the roof of your courtesy car and about as wide. The sun is out, the wind is up and if you can shoot even you

have flat-out golfed your ball. Arnold Palmer always wanted a U.S. Open at one of his courses, and on Sunday he got one, three months ahead of Father’s Day.

Sunday, Sunday at Bay Hill Speedway.

Jon Rahm, who won the National Open at Torrey Pines last year, needed three putts on 16 in the finale, and when he came off the green he raised his putter head high above his head as if readying to smash it into the rear bumper of a parked golf cart.

The great and large Spaniard held off that swing but not the swift kick he gave to the boom mic beside the left Mastercard tee marker on 18 after his last tee shot finished in the gnarly right rough. You have to like a man who cares, though he, of course, should have replaced the microphone himself. A tournament staffer did it for him, immediately and silently.

OK, but that guy kicks microphones in his sleep.  Somebody got handed a trophy, no?

Scottie Scheffler, at 25, has now played in five U.S. Opens. He missed the cut in 2016 and ’19 but he was the low amateur in 2017, and last year at Torrey he had a T7 finish. Then came his fifth Open start, the 2022 Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill.

An hour after victory, he was still wearing his game-day shoes and still had his glove in his back left pocket but now he was wearing the red Arnold Palmer cardigan awarded to the winner here. Scheffler shot an even-par 72 on Sunday to win by a shot. As Johnny Miller (winner of the 1973 U.S. Open at Oakmont) used to say, “Pars are the good guys at U.S. Opens. They wear white hats.”

“Par is a pretty good score on every hole out here,” Scheffler said in victory. “I’m never upset with par.”

So, we always talk about that first win opening the floodgates, perhaps in Scheffler's case that will actually apply.   I'm still not completely sold on the guy's putter, but otherwise he seems the real deal.

I am, as usual amused by Rory McIlroy, or at least by the reaction to the Ulsterman.  He was the 18-hole leader, as we noted on Friday, generating reactions like this:

Rory McIlroy (unknowingly) drums up the Augusta hype train

But by Sunday....

“I feel punch drunk, to be honest,” McIlroy said. “The weekend, it’s like crazy golf. You just don’t get rewarded for good shots. Like I’m venting here and I’m frustrated and whatever. I think

as well the frustration is it’s a carbon copy of what’s happened the last three years here. I started off really, really well with a 66 or 65. Friday afternoon conditions got a little tougher. Then over the weekend, it’s sort of been the same stuff.

“So three years in a row it’s sort of been start off, lead the golf tournament, then you just sort of regress and come back to the field each and every day. Yeah, it’s frustrating. It’s hard to keep your patience out there.”

He’s right about the regression. On Thursday, McIlroy shot a seven-under 65 and jumped to a two-shot lead after 18 holes — then shot 72 and the back-to-back 76s. In 2021, McIlroy opened with a 66, only to go 71, 72, 76; and in 2020, he went 66, 73, 76, 76. (In 2019, he improved over the first three rounds and fell back on Sunday — 72, 70, 66, 72.)

Rors, funny you should hit on the statistical concept of regressions.  Because I know a player that won four majors by 2014, but since hasn't managed to even contend. 

The other irony at play is the analogy to U.S. Open conditions.  You know what event didn't provide U.S. Open conditions?  That would be the 2011 U. S. Open, won by eight shots by one, McIlroy, Rory.  Fact is, despite what his passport might say, he's about the worst prepared touring pro in windy, firm conditions that I know.

As is typical on Mondays, shall we check in with the Golf.com braintrust?  Sorry, that was rhetorical...

1. The best in the world melted down at Bay Hill this weekend. Thick rough, high winds and speedy greens across an already testing layout befuddled the pros, with Scottie Scheffler coming out on top — surviving? — with a five-under total. While it’s a break from the birdie bonanza from earlier this year, do you think the course bordered on the unfair?

Michael Bamberger: No, it’s fair. You can’t have the rough deeper, but it’s fair. With the wind up and the sun out, it is bound to play super hard. There’s nothing wrong with that. No matter what they shoot, they’re still eating cake.

Josh Sens: It wasn’t just fair, it was also entertaining, a refreshing break from those 20-under birdie fests we see plenty of already.

Dylan Dethier: Variety is the spice of life! I wouldn’t say they melted down. I’d say they battled a difficult golf course in difficult conditions. The players are allowed to be frustrated. I’m also allowed to enjoy it. Hard golf makes for prime viewing.

Josh Berhow: Not unfair. The wind is always a wild card. These guys are the best in the world and don’t particularly enjoy shooting high scores, so when courses and conditions bite back, you hear some of them get a little more defensive. I don’t want 18 under winning every week. I’m good with gritty pars winning golf tournaments.

Your humble blogger has long enjoyed watching them play under challenging conditions, though Florida golf has long been among my least favorite sub-species.  But there's so little week-to-week variety on Tour that a single-digit under par winning score has them curled up in the corner in the fetal position.  What's not to like?

One irony here is that Bay Hill seems to have appropriated the DNA of next week's stop on the calendar, an event of great importance to the Ponte Vedra suits.

The Tc gang used Scottie's success as a frame for this prognosticating:

5. Scheffler has now won twice in his past three starts, and he’s projected to leap Rory McIlroy and become the fifth-ranked player in the world. His hot streak has come at the right time, too, since the Players Championship begins this week and kicks off the heart of the Tour’s schedule — Players Championship, Masters in April, PGA Championship in May, U.S. Open in June and Open Championship in July. From what you’ve seen through the first half of the Tour season, who are you buying for the stretch run?

Bamberger: Justin Thomas, Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Gary Woodland and Jordan Spieth, and in that order.

Mike, I don't know what you've bene smoking, but I hope you brought enough to share.  Did you not see Rory's weekend? 

Sens: What, no Morikawa or Cantlay?

Dethier: We’ll discuss this on the next PGA Tour Stock Exchange podcast, so I don’t want to give too much away, but if we’re buying low, how about Brooks Koepka and Tony Finau?

Berhow: The guy you just mentioned, Scottie Scheffler! A rocking Ryder Cup, two wins in his past three starts, confidence galore and, now, proof he can win on the PGA Tour in both birdie-fests and U.S. Open-style grinds. Look out. Oh, and Morikawa.

What, no Rahm?  OK, they didn't have the luxury of pealing like I did:

6. Pat Perez, on this week’s episode of GOLF’s Subpar, said that Jon Rahm told him: “I’m not done until I win 19 majors … I’m not going to take off golf until I get to 19. Whether I do it or not doesn’t matter. But I am not quitting until I pass Tiger on that list.” To date, of course, Rahm has won one major. While we appreciate Rahm’s confidence, let’s make a prop bet — Rahm will win over/under six majors?

Bamberger: Based on the quote above, I’m taking the over. The way, way over.

Sens: Rahm will win multiple majors, but the talent pool is so deep and winning is so hard, six feels like a pretty good line. I’ll take the under.

Dethier: Under. Six is so many majors. He has played golf at a higher level than anyone else for a couple years in a row now and he has one. In golf, peaks are difficult to sustain. But I’d be delighted for Rahm to prove me wrong.

Berhow: Push!

Funny, way back in January my biggest question was whether Rahm could separate himself from the pack.  Thus far the answer is that he's unable to separate himself from the middle of the pack, though the usual rules about small sample sizes apply.

But he's violating every rule of karma here.  The time to turn your attention to your 19th major is after you've bagged the 18th.  

A couple of other events this week were maybe even more interesting.....or significant.  or, yanno, something...

You Ko Girl - We all love our Nelly and fawn over her, but she might need to set her sights on Miss Congeniality:

Jin Young Ko’s victory on Sunday morning at the HSBC Women’s World Championship would be considered dominant, were it not so routine.

The fact of the matter is, the 26-year-old LPGA Tour pro is winning at a clip unseen by anyone not named Tiger Woods, and it doesn’t appear as though she has any plans of stopping.

Ko won again on Sunday at the HSBC Women’s World Championship, a final-round, six-under 66 carrying the way to her 24th professional victory. Not that it was a surprise, anyway — with the victory, Ko has now won six of her last 10 starts. (For those scoring at home, yes, that is a 60 percent winning percentage … in golf.)

Yeah, it's crazy good, as captured in this TC question:

2. Jin Young Ko continued one of the more impressive runs in recent history. In winning the HSBC Women’s World Championship on Sunday, she has now finished atop the

leaderboard six times in her past 10 events, and in shooting 66, she has now shot 15 consecutive rounds in the 60s and 30 straight rounds under par. In short, she’s on fire. How do you see her season playing out? How many wins will she have at year’s end?

Bamberger: How many tournaments will she play? She looks like she’ll literally contend every time she plays. It’s happened before in women’s golf. It’s impossible to sustain, but it’s fun while it lasts.

Sens: Remember when Yani Tseng was never going to lose again? Michael’s right. It has happened and best to enjoy it for what it is rather than worry about what might be coming. That said, she’ll win two majors this year.

Dethier: Six? Eight? Who knows. As Sens lays out, let’s appreciate this for what it is. Ko almost never misses a green in regulation. She almost never makes bogey. She almost never shoots an over-par round. It’s going to make the Chevron all that much more exciting when she and Nelly Korda next tee it up in the same field.

Berhow: She won five last year, and it seems like she’s going to get at least that again this season. I hope she goes on a tear and threatens double digits, but I also hope another big-time star (Nelly Korda?) can have some good battles with her to give the sport a nice juicy rivalry at the top.

Coming to a boil at the perfect time.  The two alpha-dogs have an appointment at Mission Hills in a couple of weeks.  That event will have a bittersweet pall over it, as the LPGA squanders its ties to Dinah Shore and decamps to, checking notes, Houston.  

But speaking of Yani Tseng, do these girls know to not even look at the trophy?

More Like This, Please - I continue to believe that watching golfers play for survival is the most compelling spectacle our game offers:

Ryan Brehm needed a bit of a miracle. And he got it.

Brehm had just one start remaining on his Minor Medical Extension and decided to use it at this week’s Puerto Rico Open. But it was a big ask: he needed to win or finish solo second to keep his

PGA Tour.

So, of course, why wouldn’t he just win the whole thing?

Brehm held a three-stroke lead after 54 holes and never flinched on Sunday. He shot 67 for a 20-under total and dominating six-stroke victory. It’s the 35-year-old’s first PGA Tour win and came in his 68th start (he’s also won twice on the Korn Ferry Tour).

The only thin better is to watch a young player fight for his professional future with his wife on the bag... Think about it, the only person with a larger stake in the outcome is the one that has to keep the player focused.

 Of course you can't get eyeballs for the Ryan Brehms of the world, but it's great spectacle.

PIP Follies - The TC gang took on the PIP program:

3. Tiger Woods, the PGA Tour announced, won the first Player Impact Program, an initiative that measures, among other metrics, a player’s buzz. Notably, Woods may have also won next year’s PIP when he humorously responded to an earlier tweet from Phil Mickelson, who had declared himself the winner. With one year of the program in the books, how would you rate its success? Would you change anything?

Bamberger: I’d eliminate it. I’d say the results show it is a ridiculous contest or whatever you want to call it.

Sens: I’m for scrapping it as well. But then, I think it would be a net gain for the world to get rid of social media altogether, so I’m biased. If you have to keep it, just give it to Max Homa and be done with it.

Dethier: Look, it doesn’t do me any good, so I don’t much care about the future of the PIP. But its purpose was essentially to keep the top pros on the PGA Tour a little bit happier at year’s end — essentially a prize pool in lieu of appearance fees or guaranteed money. From a competitive standpoint, it serves no purpose. But from an organizational standpoint, I get it. As much as anyone can “get” those rankings and final standings, at least …

Berhow: It’s really a bizarre thing. Here they talked about something called Q-rating and MVP index and then Google search and this and that, and really what it means is that they just unloaded millions of dollars to most of the players you thought would get it anyway. I don’t know — I get the idea was to keep the stars who bring eyeballs to the game happy, but there’s gotta be better, more genuine, ideas than this. I don’t have one, though, so maybe there isn’t.

Don't forget those Meltwater Mentions!  This solved a temporary need for Jay, though the interesting thing now will be the log-term consequences.

4. Following Woods and Mickelson in the PIP standings were Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Bryson DeChambeau, Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Jon Rahm and Bubba Watson. Among the notables who missed the top 10 — and the money — were Rickie Fowler, one of the more popular players on Tour, and Max Homa, one of the more social media friendly players. What, to you, is the biggest surprise from the PIP results?

Bamberger: That anybody cares about it at all. Except those who are cashing checks.

Sens: I don’t think it’s surprising at all that people care about it. But I am surprised that Homa didn’t get more love. He’s smart and funny. Isn’t that what this sort of thing should be about?

Dethier: At risk of sounding like a know-it-all, I’m not surprised by either of these things! I’m intrigued by the results and, despite Homa’s reign as emperor of Golf Twitter, that doesn’t change the fact that Twitter ain’t real life. I was, however, surprised that Rickie Fowler wasn’t on the list, given the nature of the criteria.

Berhow: Homa not registering in the top 10 was a reminder to me that Twitter is just one small corner of the internet.

The first obvious ramification is that those at No. 11 and below will not be amused....  And obviously there will always be more losers than winners.

The second obvious impact is to understand what behavior is being reward.  Because, as I first heard in conjunction with law firm compensation, is that which gets rewarded gets repeated. I'm not sure we'll like the PIP-world we've created, but then again I've admitted to being deep into the "Get off my lawn" stage of life.

Gonna wrap here and catch you all later in the week.

Thursday ThreadsIs Jon Rahm … slumping?

I had actually started this post yesterday morning, but life intervened.  We'll see if any continuity issues jump out at you.  I'm intending to avoid the Saudis for the most part, though any attempt to make it Phil-phree zone won't make it past the first second item.

Bay Hill Boogaloo - back at Arnie's joint, and this Goldf Digest headline writer might just be over-interpreting eighteen holes:

Rory McIlroy (unknowingly) drums up the Augusta hype train, Jon Rahm struggles and Bay Hill bites back

There are days when Rory McIlroy makes this most vexing game look impossibly easy, when he’s swinging freely, putting like a kid and bouncing around like he owns the place. Thursday was one of those days. McIlroy opened the Arnold Palmer Invitational with a seven-under 65 on a Bay Hill track with juicy rough and ever-present water hazards, and he finds himself in a familiar position after one round: alone, on top of the leader board.

Though for Rory there are Thursdays and then there are Thursdays at Augusta, the latter of which find the Ulsterman looking like one of Jerry's kids.

At the beginning of the season (to be clear, the one in January), I thought the question of the year would be whether Jon Rahm could separate himself from the pack.  Now, given the way he's played, I'm checking his status for Augusta.  OK, no worries, he's in.

Is Jon Rahm … slumping?

It’s a patently ridiculous question to even ask, but Rahm has been on a patently ridiculous run of

consistency … until the last few weeks. The World No. 1 saw his streak of 34 straight rounds of par or better end on Friday at the Genesis Invitational and needed a nervy five-footer on his last hole just to make the cut. A six-under final day crept him up to T-21, but that’s still a disappointing week for a guy who’s been living on the first page of leader boards.

Rahm would’ve shot one-under 71 on Thursday at Bay Hill had he not stubbed a putt that couldn’t have been more than eight inches. No, seriously, that actually happened.

"I really couldn't tell you," Rahm said of the mishap. "I wish I could give you all the excuses in the world, but no, it's as simple as … you know, it just didn't feel good in my hands, and I tried to stop, and I didn't. I just simply didn't stop. I don't know. It was very odd."

I'm not going to bother chasing down that video, since you've undoubtedly seen it.  As I understand the shotlink data, the best golfer on the planet left a ten-inch putt seven inches short.  And no, the headcover wasn't still on... 

A PIP Nail-biter - Rumors aside, it came down a late push by a grizzled veteran.... in a silly-season event:

Despite not playing a single round on the PGA Tour in 2021, Tiger Woods won the inaugural Player Impact Program and its $8 million first prize.

Players were notified Wednesday morning of the results from the first year of the program, enacted at the beginning of 2021 to reward the 10 players who bring the most positive attention to the sport. Phil Mickelson claimed to have finished first in December, but tour officials insisted at the time that the competition ran through the end of the year and that no results were official until an audit from accounting and consluting (sic) firm Grant Thornton. In early December, Woods make his first public appearance, at the Hero World Challenge, since his February 2021 car accident. Two weeks later, he played alongside his son in the PNC Challenge. Both events garned plenty of attention as 2021 wound down.

Wow!  That's like a 16th major, no?

Now this program was founded and intended to exist in permanent double-secret probation, which has long been the Tour's SOP.  But, to their credit, they've actually released the computations, as opaque as they may be:

It must all be on the up-and-up, as a major auditing firm wouldn't lie to us, would they?  OK, at least a major auditing firm not named Arthur Anderson....  And you know that designation as a major consluting firm is being added to their promotional materials, though as auditors they'll know to add the second "t".

What to say about this hot mess?  Sean Zak has nine surprises, the first of course being that the Tour released the data.  True that!  Sean is not the only one to poke BAD over this:

2. Bryson DeChambeau’s low Q-Score

One of the five metrics of the PIP is Q-Score, defined by the Tour as “Awareness: A player’s general awareness score among broad U.S. population.” One might think that the 2020 U.S. Open champion, the PGA Tour’s preeminent long-driver, who made headlines repeatedly throughout the year and even competed in multiple made-for-TV matches, would register highly in public awareness. But apparently not! DeChambeau ranked 22nd in Q-Score among his Tour compadres, which ended up being his worst metric within the PIP. Luckily for him, that doesn’t matter. Players finishing 3rd-6th all reaped the same reward: $3.5 million.

He appears to have an identical Q-rating to the Number One player in the world, so doesn't seem that bad to me.  

You sure these two belong in the same sentence?

5. No Rickie or Max

When the Tour initially announced to players its intentions with the PIP, it simulated how the 2019 season would have played out. Tiger Woods won, to no surprise, but also unsurprising was Rickie Fowler, who ranked 5th behind Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Rory McIlroy and Woods. Fowler has long been one of the Tour’s most marketable players, but in 2021, that clearly wasn’t so much the case. Fowler’s name was nowhere to be found on the top 10 results that were shared. Could he have been in the next 10? Probably. But without that information at our disposal, we’ll just have to wonder.

Similarly absent is the Twittering Golfer himself, Max Homa. Beloved on Golf Twitter and in social media circles for roasting swings and generally just being himself, Homa was definitely a surprise to see not included on the list. At least for the most ardent Golf Twitter supporters. Homa also won multiple events in 2021 and has hosted/appeared on many podcasts. Again, would love to know if he finished at, say, 14th in the ranking. Until then, Max clearly has some work to do.

 Let's see, one of those has strong social media presence, and the other wears orange.

But didn't someone else declare victory in this matter?  Trying to place the name, as he seems to have been out of the news lately.  Like I said above, can't get past the first item...

But see if you think this header over-promises:

Tiger Woods hilariously dunks on Phil Mickelson after winning huge PGA Tour bonus

You've been warned, so any spit-takes are on you:

🤷‍♂️ whoops 🤷‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/SkMTGerVOB

— Tiger Woods (@TigerWoods) March 2, 2022

Hilarious!  Boy, these guys are good.

Our friends at No Laying Up did the job American journalists won't do.  We've been hearing a lot lately about the subsistence-level compensation available on tour, so math has been done:

Here's what I've got for total earnings for last season, including:

1. On course earnings
2. FedExCup bonus
3. Comcast Business Tour Top 10 bonus
4. PIP pic.twitter.com/eTisuooM2w

— No Laying Up (@NoLayingUp) March 2, 2022

I get that those numbers pale in comparison to the nine-figure sums allegedly on offer, and who among us wouldn't have been tempted.  But they'll get by regardless.

I've been a critic of this program ever since it was disclosed, and Alistair Tait agrees, though his concerns seem more basic:

Imagine earning a seven-figure cheque just for being popular. How about earning $8 million even though you only worked one week of the year.

Think of the irony of fighting a proposed rival Golf Super League offering obscene amounts of money by, er, offering golfers obscene amounts of money for doing very little.

Woods took top spot despite playing just once in 2021, finishing second alongside son Charlie in the PNC Championship in December. Kevin Na uttered the question on everyone’s lips when he asked:

“How is this possible?”

In a world of professional golf dripping with money, anything is possible Kevin.

Which builds to this rousing coda:

Quite simply, it’s obscene. And before anyone accuses me of being an out-and-out socialist who subscribes to Socialist Worker newspaper, if I was offered a seven-figure cheque for posting a few more tweets and Instagram pictures than my peers, I’d grab it with both hands. But that doesn’t make the PIP any less obscene.

Imagine how $40 million could be used to – dare I say it? – help grow the game.

Still, the PGA Tour returns to reality this year: it has upped the PIP pot to $50 million!

Granted, it's objectively obscene.  It's just that I don't know how to criticize Bryson for taking $3.5 million for doing nothing, when he reportedly turned down $135 million for doing a similar nothing.

Tait raised the point about the absence of guys like Collin Morikawa, which is fair.  But the bigger issue is the dubious metrics and motivations the program necessarily involves, as it seems to me little more than a slush fund for Jay to pay off his faves.  Problem is that everyone at No. 11 and lower now has a grudge.  If I were Greg Norman, the next dime I'd drop would be to Collin Morikawa.

Don't Rush Into Things, Kids -  Apparently DJ is going to make an honest woman of Paulina, though I'm worried they're rushing into things.  But Paulina's bachelorette party looks to have been exactly what you'd expect:

Well love birds, we have some big news. We STILL do not know when or where Dustin Johnson

and Paulina Gretzky will tie the knot some nine years after their engagement, but we do know that date is inching closer. On Tuesday, Paulina Gretzky took one of the last off-ramps before Marriage Town, jetting off to St. Bart’s for an predictably glitzy bachelorette party, which, much to the delight of us Motel 6 rewards members, was documented in exhaustive detail on Instagram. If you want to know how the OG golf WAG spent her final days of wedlock-less bliss, put on your drinking boots and rhinestone cowgirl hats and check it out.

The funniest bit seems to be that no one still knows when the happy day is....

Talking Baseball -  Is this a great time of year or what?  With pitchers and catchers having reported, we'll be hearing "Play Ball" any day now....  What?  Really?  Well, that really sucks!

Just a couple of bits.  First, Geoff is thankful that baseball is beclowning itself such as to cover for our silly little game:

Just when it seemed convenient to let Major League Baseball owners take over as the sport-that-can’t-afford-to-appear-immersed-in-extreme-avarice, golf said not so fast! The PGA Tour kept the money talk going with Wednesday’s unexpected PIP reveal. Tiger Woods captured the trophy, which sources suggest is a gold-plated algorithm made by Tiffany. It seems Tiger’s no-longer-secret bonus pool win was sealed by a late surge of PNC Championship Meltwaters. Sure hope Charlie gets his fair share since he carried the gimpy old man.

Tiger’s inspiring come-from-behind win was revealed on PGATour.com to let Phil Mickelson know why he did not win after December’s premature victory declaration. And to make ensure the Lefty backlash reached Defcon Silly, Woods Tweeted an Emoji-infused jab. A closer look at the numbers revealed by GolfDigest.com shows how manufactured the whole thing is.

Meanwhile, as MLB was skewered, their Commissioner Rob Manfred broke out the golf equivalent of a lower lip-biting, mid-funeral, air-guitar solo when caught practicing his golf swing during a labor negotiations break. Perhaps he was dreaming of the Seminole Pro-Member missed to do his part in dooming the negosh. Instead, all Manfred got was unimaginably bad press, a Daily News back cover, and another black eye for his expansive collection.

Pretty much.  He stole my second bit, here's that Daily News back cover:

Yeah, Geoff, he looks like a doofus.... but I thought we were trying to make golf more, yanno, inclusive.  

Captain, My Captain - To the surprise of exactly no one, Zach Johnson got the gig in Italy.  Probably the funniest past of this that Z admitted that he's never actually been to Italy...

Shane Ryan is here to help, with ten suggestions:

1. Take as many captain's picks as … oh, OK. Good job.

Yup, ZJ is already on this one. One of the very first announcements he made during Monday’s

introductory press conference was that they'd stick with six captain's picks. This makes the first time any team in modern Ryder Cup history will start with that many picks. Stricker started with four in 2019 but seized the chance to increase to six once COVID-19 hit, and then kept the full six even after the Cup was re-scheduled. The fact that Johnson is keeping it going is a very good sign for the Americans. Statistics show that players who make the team via captain's pick perform better than those who qualify at the bottom of the list. Aside from the data, this flexibility is extra important when playing in Europe. We all saw how Jim Furyk was handcuffed in Paris, essentially forced to take Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau on a tight course that didn't suit them. With more picks, Johnson will have a ton of flexibility in what he called a "horses for courses" strategy, regardless of how the Europeans manipulate the course at Marco Simone. (It will be interesting to see how the Europeans respond here; Harrington made a tactical error decreasing his number of picks, and at the very least you'd expect them to go back to four.)

I'll agree that Jim Furyk handcuffed, though the perpetrator seemed to me more his limited intellect, given who he played in foursomes.  This may be more logically known as the PReed rule, minimizing his chances of automatically qualifying.

As for this, just shoot me now:

3. Pods work for a reason

It was Paul Azinger in 2008 who first had the epiphany: It's strange in an individual sport like golf to ask 12 competitors to suddenly become a tight-knit unit, but it's far less strange to get them to bond in groups of four. Pods foster unity and camaraderie, and require less of a complete philosophical shift from players who play an inherently selfish sport. Here, yet again, there's very little reason to worry: Though Azinger's success at Valhalla didn't catch on immediately, it's now practically dogma among the Americans.

How'd they work in Paris?  

Of course, there was one question foremost on everyone's mind:

Geoff had this take on the substantive bits:

• The five-time Cup competitor is sticking with the same qualifying system and six
  
  captain’s picks.

• He’s already appointed Steve Stricker a Vice Captain to assure everyone the Task Force is undaunted by Phil’s issues.

• Johnson’s never been to Italy but can’t wait to get there.

• His hair has staged a Brooklinesque comeback.

Yes, we need a Ryder Cup Task Force just to figure out what's going on with that hair.

He predictably ducked the question about a certain Vice-Captain, yanno a guy that seemed to be in line for the big chair in 2025.  

A Gracious Man - Obviously I could have included this in that first item, but I had promised a respite.  Rory is indeed a generous soul, such that at times I even feel a tinge of regret when I criticize him.  He had these comments about the PIP runner up, and my sense is that the other guy will not be nearly as happy to see him:

“It is unfortunate. I think Phil has been a wonderful ambassador for the game of golf, still is a wonderful ambassador for the game of golf,” McIlroy said at Bay Hill. “It's unfortunate that a few comments that he thought he was making in confidence or off the record got out there and were, not used against him, but this whole situation is unfortunate.”

“Look, we all make mistakes. We all say things we want to take back. No one is different in that regard,” McIlroy said. “But we should be allowed to make mistakes, and we should be allowed to ask for forgiveness and for people to forgive us and move on. Hopefully, he comes back at some stage, and he will, and people will welcome him back and be glad that he is back.”

 Eamon Lynch sees it differently:

The same lack of begrudgery is not being extended to another man missing this week, one long marketed as embodying Palmer’s touch with fans. Phil Mickelson is a former API champion but

often skipped the event. Whether he returns—here, or to the Tour at all—is the subject of intense speculation in the locker room.

Mickelson announced his retreat from the Tour February 22, part of a public statement addressing comments made public a week earlier in which he admitted he was overlooking atrocities by the Saudi Arabian government because their Super Golf League concept was providing him leverage to wring concessions from the PGA Tour that would further enrich him. On the range at Bay Hill, it is easier to find a player who has Googled schadenfreude than one willing to publicly sympathize with the embattled veteran.

“The public is finally realizing what we have always known,” said one multiple winner.

“Not a fan,” said a young star, the type who might once have been assumed to idolize a man of Mickelson’s stature.

Yeah, I think this has been building for some time.  The rap sheet is long and includes something for each and every guy out there to dislike.

Eamon explains:

The enmity toward Mickelson is layered. Few are bothered by his breezy dismissal of Saudi human rights abuses, the Tour being largely a constituency for whom injustice means being denied relief from a bad lie. Even his muscling of Tour commissioner Jay Monahan doesn’t present an issue for many, since his response to the Saudi threat has been to put more money in their pockets. A few things have rankled, however.

The first is his alliance with the Saudis, described by one player as a “failed coup.” Players are alert to anyone trying to take food from their table, and Mickelson stands accused of trying to steal dinner and burn down the kitchen. Then there is his failure to mention the Tour in his apology, which cemented a perception that he is fully on board with a breakaway group. Lastly, is the man himself.

Do we have enough time for that last bit?

In golf, competitors speak of each other in complimentary terms even when they don’t mean it, which owes to the Tour’s tendency to privately fine those who speak ill of their peers in public. It’s safe to assume that HQ won’t be levying fines against McIlroy, Billy Horschel or Pat Perez, all of whom were pointed (“idiotic,” “ignorant”) in their criticisms of a fellow player in recent weeks. Even Zach Johnson denied Mickelson succor Monday when he was announced as the U.S. Ryder Cup captain for 2023. Three times Johnson was provided an opportunity to present Mickelson as a potential member of his backroom team, and three times he passed.

What speaks volumes in this mess is not the criticisms of Mickelson but the absence of those willing to circle the wagons around him. McIlroy offered softer comments Wednesday at Bay Hill. “We all make mistakes,” he said, which generously assumes Mickelson might think he made a mistake. That statement was a rarity at the tournament. Not a day or dinner passes without a new tale being passed of behavior that ranges from the unbecoming to the unconscionable, served with a side of rumors about what might yet emerge.

Players are keeping their counsel not because of what Mickelson said, but because of what might be revealed next, because they are weary of his “figjamminess,” because his personality has grated too often for too long. Wherever he is hunkered down, it must be sobering for Mickelson to realize that a 30-year career not only produced no allies for his breakaway plot, but no friends willing to rally around amid the fallout.

I'm proud just to have helped add "figjamminess" into the golf lexicon.  For those unfamiliar with the root, which no doubt comes from Middle English, a definition can be found here.

In the interest of including all sides, Alistair Tait sees no issue with Mr. FIGJAM's return to polite society:

I had to laugh after reading a recent article asking how/if Phil Mickelson can make a successful return to the game from his latest self-induced gaffe over the proposed new Golf Super League and Saudi Arabia’s involvement in said circuit.

Mickelson will have no problem whatsoever. Recent history proves that only too well.

Golf fans are very forgiving.

Mickelson’s rap sheet is pretty detailed for a guy who passes himself off as a fun-loving, man of the people, sign every autograph sports star.

Remember, this is the guy who trashed Tom Watson in public at the 2014 Ryder Cup. A conversation Mickelson should have had the guts to hold with Watson in private, face to face, was played out in front of the world’s media. And remember, Watson is revered in Scotland for his love of the Home of Golf. Mickelson’s actions were unforgivable for many, me included, yet he’s still a draw when he plays in the Open Championship.

No cumulative effect, Alistair?  I don't think his problem is with the fans, it's with his fellow players.  That's where this one seems different, although you could well argue that if PReed is welcomed back every week, then standards would seem to be sufficiently low.

I'm somewhere in the middle.  Not willing to suggest that he'll be banished from the game, but I don't think he has many friends left among the top players and there's that torching of his hard earned Tiger bromance.  Not sure he'll ever be trusted by his peers, with the obvious venue for the fallout being the Ryder Cup.

That's it for this week, kids.  Pray for snow, as we desperately need it.

Midweek Musings - Sun Valley Hangover Edition

Many thanks to my dear readers for tolerating my short hiatus.  I had a delightful time in Idaho with family, and got a bit of skiing in.  I'm now back in Park City, where the temperatures are in the mid 50's on the mountain.  Record low snowfall combined with unseasonably warm weather assures that my ski season, which never really got started, will come to an early conclusion.

As a mitigating factor, however, this is the morning sky as I begin blogging:

So, while I regret having not properly covered the Honda, my only defense is, well, Sepp Straka.  More importantly, I'll not be blogging the first major of the season.... Yanno, this one:

'Seminole had a better field than the Honda': PGA Tour rookie dishes on exclusive event

Their famous Member-Pro deserves TV coverage, no?  The field was loaded.

I see no option but to start with that topic that has had an exclusive on our attention.  And while I'm committed to the return to other golf news, I'm not at all convinced that that will be today.

The news has remained unrelentingly negative for our hero Phil, as I'm sure you've heard.  Continued sponsor flight with the only silver lining being that Callaway opted for a time out in lieu of cancellation.  He's also been stripped on his hosting duties at the event formerly known as the Hope, so we can at least enjoy that little bit of irony.

Let's start with Sunday night's Tour Confidential musings on all things Saudi:

Phil Mickelson dominated headlines for the second straight week despite not hitting a golf ball. One week after Mickelson’s Saudi league and PGA Tour comments were published by

The Fire Pit Collective, and after Mickelson was heavily criticized by many of his peers, the 51-year-old pro on Tuesday released a public apology on his social media accounts. In a lengthy six-paragraph message, Mickelson called his comments reckless, apologized for anything he said that was taken out of context, granted his sponsors an opportunity to pause or end a relationship with him and said he plans to take some time away from the Tour. What was your takeaway from Mickelson’s mea culpa?

Sean Zak: That he picked and chose his apology subjects carefully. “PGA Tour” was not mentioned once. Phil isn’t sorry for what he’s done/is doing. He’s sorry for how the news broke.

Michael Bamberger: Exactly.

That and the fact that he likely won't bank an eight-figure check...

Josh Berhow: There was a lot there, although what caught my eye was that his second sentence was about off-the-record comments. The author, Alan Shipnuck, who was writing a book about Mickelson, says they were not off the record. Who do you believe? That’s up to you, but I know who I’m going with. My point is this: regardless of how these comments got out, the second sentence of a lengthy apology was an excuse. That rubbed me the wrong way.

Bamberger: Exactly.

 We actually have something from Alan on this subject:

This is part of what’s so infuriating about Phil’s off the record accusation: I am now the keeper of so many secrets. *Everyone* wanted to tell me *everything* but there were ornate agreements about on-background and OTR and I have honored every single one of them. https://t.co/a6VTTREyCo

— Alan Shipnuck (@AlanShipnuck) February 25, 2022

Yanno, I hadn't really thought that through, but of course those that don't buy Phil's act would be running their mouths on background.  Question is, how do we compel Alan to do a notebook dump?

Josh Sens: Mickleson also said his comments were taken “out of context.” That seems disingenuous. I’d like to know what other context there is in which his comments would mean something different. He said what he meant.

Bamberger: Exactly.

That Phil couldn't get two sentences into an apology without blaming someone else is certainly on-brand.

Alan Bastable: In politics, they talk about October surprises — events no one saw coming that influence elections in the eleventh hour. For the Saudi league, this whole Phil episode has that feel to it. One phone conversation may have deflated the whole thing. As for the apology, yeah, it felt much less like an “I’m truly sorry,” and much more like an “I’m truly sorry I got caught.” He did nothing more with Shipnuck than verbalize the plan he was executing, i.e., using the Saudis for leverage against the PGA Tour, just as many of his fellow pros were. If he was legitimately contrite, he wouldn’t have engaged with Norman and Co. to begin with.

Bamberger: Exactly. It was not a cogent statement, in my opinion.

What would we do without Mike Bamberger?

Certainly there were other players willing to watch this play out, but none so foolish as to burn the bridges behind them.  The numbers being thrown out would be hard for any of us to ignore, but there's obvious reasons that those most interested were at the very end of their careers (yeah, maybe Bryson and DJ are exceptions, but they mostly kept quiet).

Golf analyst Brandel Chamblee called Mickelson’s statement “one of the worst apologies I’ve ever seen written.” What about it left a sour taste in some fans’ mouths?

Everything.  Next question.

Bamberger: The writing? The lack of candor? That a guy who can convince you that a blue sky is pink did nothing to turn you around on these various issues? I’m surprised he didn’t go in front of a live audience. He plays best that way.

Zak: Part of it is that his apologies in the statement were aimed solely at the people who give him (or would presumably give him) the most money. He apologized to LIV Golf, the company that is set to essentially broker millions of dollars from the Saudi government. He apologized to the sponsors who pay big money to be embroidered on his hat. Did he owe anyone else a grand statement? He could have eloquently included other people who have been let down by his recent approach, that’s for sure.

Berhow: I guess I already answered that a little bit in my previous answer, but Mickelson, as Brandel said, tried to play the victim card here and I’m not sure it worked for him. A lot of it made it sound like Phil was on some righteous path to make golf better, and we just have to trust him. It seemed preachy. But I think Phil can and will rebound from all of this. People are quick to forgive those who ask for it.

Sens: What bugged a lot of people about his original comments was the greed and hypocrisy that people read in them. Mickelson didn’t really apologize for those things. 

Bastable: Oh, they’ll forgive. Tiger survived an international sex scandal, ARod and so many others survived juicing scandals. Phil, too, shall endure. Knowing him, he’ll probably win another Masters and be carried off the green by a mob of delirious patrons. The apology was too long and meandering. A good apology should be like a resume: direct and no more than one page.

We will continue to sort through the wither Phil bit below, but most folks like their apologies to actually include, yanno, an apology.

I do think, as Josh Berhow notes above, one of the bits that continue to course through my head is that bit about fixing golf, which Norman echoed in his letter to Jay Monahan.  Again they have this tendency to equate their own first-world problems with the game itself, which just reeks of entitlement.

Here they take a shot at the Phil's phuture subject:

In the past week, Mickelson has lost some of his sponsors and, reportedly, is no longer the tournament host of The American Express. Are you surprised some of these brands have started distancing themselves from the five-time major champ?

Zak: Not at all. This is one of the things that has been most up for debate in the last few days. These sponsors pay good money to be associated with Phil. But the last month of being associated with Phil has not been a great vibe! Those sponsors have separate partnerships with the PGA Tour, at large, and he’s been acting in opposition to the Tour in a very public way. The onslaught of headlines with lead photos that show their company being associated with those comments and the various implications … once he gave them an out, they jumped at it. Can’t blame them at all.

I think Sean hits on something important there, that Phil put everyone aligned with him in a very awkward position.  Shockingly, he put his need to get paid above the  

Berhow: Slightly surprised, mainly because some of them have been tied to Mickelson for so long. Some might have been leaving before Mickelson granted them the opportunity anyway, but Sean’s right, it gave them an out and they took it.

Sens: Not surprised. Mickelson’s own apology made it seem like he saw it coming, too.

Bastable: Clearly Callaway was the most torn, with its “pause” treatment that leaves the door open for Phil to return. These episodes are delicate: when one sponsor goes, it puts immense pressure on others to follow suit. The domino thing happens way more often than not. Tiger eventually got sponsors back; Phil will, too.

Bamberger: He couldn’t possibly continue to be the host of the American Express, proud PGA Tour stop, when he was aligning himself with the PGA Tour. That had to happen. As for the others, as they said in The Godfather, it’s just business. For now, Mickelson is bad for business. That will change. Alex Rodriguez can provide Mickelson with his own playbook.

Hold that thought while we finish with the TC boys:

The Saudi golf league seemed to take a hit after many players pledged their allegiance to

the PGA Tour following Mickelson’s comments, but Greg Norman, the CEO of LIV Golf Investments, the financial arm of the proposed league, isn’t backing down. He sent a memo to players and agents saying the PGA Tour could not ban them for joining and also sent a note to commissioner Jay Monahan, saying, in short, “This is just the beginning.” If you’re Norman and LIV brass, what’s your next move?

Zak: I’d release details every week. As the golf-headline-reading-populace, we need something. The PGA Tour is going to be trumpeting itself and all its cash reserves two weeks from now at the Players. LIV should start sharing some of the mostly concrete details they’ve locked in. A name or two from the list of players who have signed up. A couple courses that will be involved. Whet the appetite for more.

Berhow: There’s too much money behind all of this for it to go away and I don’t think they have the liberty to retreat and rethink their plan. For better or for worse, it’s fresh on golf fans’ minds and needs to stay that way. But some sort of commitment — any time of commitment! — like from a player, a venue or some sort of schedule needs to come to light to get players and fans interested.

Sens: Get something on the schedule. Make it as compelling an event as you can. A legal battle might come later, and — at least according to antitrust attorneys I’ve spoken with — Norman and Co. might have a legitimate case. But launching a formal fight against a ban seems like putting the cart before the horse if you don’t have enough big-name players to come over in the first place.

Bastable: Focus on growing the Asian Tour. The proposed super league is so charged right now that no players of note will go anywhere near it. At least not now. Check back in a year or two. You can be sure the Saudis and LIV aren’t folding up the tent, and, as Berhow says, there’s too much money on the table for every player to look the other way.

Bamberger: Completely agree with that, Alan. Professional golfers will go where the money is, where the glamor is, where the good courses are. If this is all rooted in sportswashing for the Saudis, time is on your side. Check this space in 2072.

Not sure that will help the Shark and his paymasters very much.  But before circling back to Phil, Eamon Lynch has another of his typically acerbic columns on this very subject.  Shall we sample a few choice bits?

It’s unlikely that PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan will ever respond to the letter he received this week from Greg Norman, for much the same reason that he probably wouldn’t

engage someone wearing a tinfoil hat and shrieking in the street. But if he did reply, Monahan could do worse than to heed the example of James Bailey, a former general counsel for the Cleveland Browns.

In 1974, an Akron, Ohio, lawyer named Dale Cox angrily threatened to sue the Browns over the dangers posed by fans launching paper airplanes around him in the stadium. Bailey returned the complainant’s letter with a famously terse response that has been widely circulated over the years.

“Dear Mr. Cox,” he wrote, “I feel that you should be aware that some asshole is signing your name to stupid letters.”

I didn't actually know we were allowed to use "asshole" at a major golf publication....

After congratulating himself on spending decades fighting for the rights of players to be adequately paid—as distinct from the less important rights of the less important people under the boot of his employer—Norman addressed Monahan with a debating dexterity (and command of capitalization) that would be the envy of an eighth-grader.

“The Tour is the Players Tour not your administration’s Tour,” he wrote. “Why do you call the crown jewel in all tournaments outside the Majors “The Players Championship” and not “The Administration’s Championship?”

“You are guilty of going too far, being unfair, and you are likely in violation of the law.”

If a man isn’t embarrassed to peck out those words on behalf of the Saudi Arabian government, one supposes we shouldn’t be embarrassed for him.

I think we've known for some time that the Shark is immune to embarrassment..  which makes him the perfect soul mate for our Phil.  But Eamon seems ready to move on from that nickname:

The great white pilot fish insisted that Monahan can’t ban golfers from playing golf. Monahan hasn’t actually done that, though his comments suggest he believes he can decide whether they play on the tour he runs, much as McDonald’s might think it has a say in whether independent franchisees can simultaneously sell Burger King over the same counter. Norman went on to claim that top players are still interested in joining the League and demanded they be allowed to make a choice, perhaps forgetting that they have already publicly exercised that choice.

If only Eamon would tell us what he really thinks.

Here's Eamon's coda:

So what do Norman and his puppeteers do next?

For all the bleating in the letter to Monahan, the Saudis’ grounds for a lawsuit are not clear-cut. It’s difficult to establish actionable injury in claiming the PGA Tour is preventing you from establishing a rival endeavor if you have never actually stated your intent to launch such a business. That changes if players sign up and are then banned by Monahan, but as of now, the Saudis have no declared players and no declared intent to launch.

That leaves potential tactics more suited to irritants than competitors. The Saudis could use economic influence to undermine the DP World Tour’s Middle East schedule. There is precedent. Last year’s announcement of DP World as the old European Tour’s new title sponsor was delayed several months by a Saudi intervention. They could also stage an event in the U.S. and offer enormous appearance fees to players. The PGA Tour has never granted waivers for members to play events held in America opposite its own schedule. A refusal to permit members to play a Saudi event in the U.S. could be used as a Trojan horse to litigate the PGA Tour’s influence over its members and test the limits of the independent contractor status.

None of those options represent a pathway to near-term success for the Saudis.

Until both product and players are unveiled, the Super Golf League exists only on paper, much like the war Norman imagines himself to be waging. What we can deduce from the sophomoric tone of his letter to Monahan is that the Crown Prince’s paper tiger is realizing that his dream of launching a viable rival to the PGA Tour is no closer than it was when last he tried three decades ago.

I can't find the relevant pieces right now, but there have been a series of opinions that the Saudis should refocus on the women's game, which is as sensible as it is laughable.  Remember that $135 million offer to Bryson?  I'll bet Nelly Korda could be had for that amount....  Of course, the Saudis have likely seen the LPGA TV ratings, and what's the value on Sportswashing is no one is watching?

So, back to the question of the day, whither Phil?

Here's a dissenting opinion for you:

Tony Jacklin, who has previously written that players would be “mad” for not taking Saudi

Arabian millions, has come to the defense of Phil Mickelson.

In an interview this week with Golf Monthly, the two-time major champion and World Golf Hall of Famer said he didn’t see “a hell of a lot wrong with” Mickelson’s negotiations with a proposed breakaway golf league funded by Saudi Arabian money. Details of the talks came to light last week in a story written by Alan Shipnuck on the Fire Pit Collective golf website, where Mickelson described himself as a key architect in the Saudi league — and added that he hoped the plan would generate leverage in future negotiations with the PGA Tour.

“If he was genuinely trying to get the PGA Tour off its backside to do more for the players than they have been doing and found a way to do it, leverage as he calls it, then if that’s what it was, I don’t see a hell of a lot wrong with it,” Jacklin told Golf Monthly this week.

Well, he was trying to get the Tour to do more for a sub-set of the players, though that sub-set was awfully small.

Geoff has a Quadrilateral post on a similar tangent:

Why Did Mickelson Get Cancelled?

He may have lost the plot, but last week's wave of corporate defections seems excessive compared to other athlete controversies.

This struck a chord with your humble blogger:

So back to my radio interview. I was north of two minutes into explaining the forces at play—PGL, Saudis, etc.—and not even to the Alan Shipnuck book excerpt when it became clear the saga was tough, if not impossible, to explain. There is no elevator pitch to capture Mickelson’s situation and his shocking downfall, other than to say it’s a bunch of First World money issues sprinkled with neuroses, greed, stupidity and bad advice.

He’s definitely made a mess of things, cost people millions, killed future captaincy chances and possibly other endorsement gigs. A broadcasting role also seems unlikely at the amounts he’d expect. Worse, he sullied what should be a joyous time as the oldest-ever defending major champion.

Mickelson reaffirmed his Hall of Fame point-misser status with his tone and strange apology. As a result he’s disappearing for a while and must be wondering what happened to have such public divorces in a world where Tiger Woods never lost Nike. Or in a year Aaron Rodgers kept all but one of his lucrative deals while doing public harm during a pandemic. (And with his general unpredictability and desperate need to shampoo.)

So why is Phil Mickelson getting cancelled? Let’s try to figure out the most plausible scenario.

I was on a chairlift with one of my ski buddies that's a casual golf fan on Friday, when he asked me to explain what Phil did that was so bad.  Like Geoff, as the words came out I could tell that I wasn't making a compelling case.  Quite frankly, it sounded a lot like Tony Jacklin's reaction above.... 

So, let's see what Geoff has:

“They are scary mother&^%$#@’s” and…? The controlling figure behind the Public Investment Fund is indeed a scary mother&^%$#@. The headline-making quote from Shipnuck’s book excerpt is accurate. The Crown Prince is dangerous. The language might be edgy, but none of the companies in business with Mickelson can justify fleeing over crude phrasing about crude people.

Saudi ties? It’s been well known for a while that Mickelson and others might take advances from to join a breakaway “league”. To date, no one has lost an endorsement for flirting with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Americans keep taking Ubers backed by the Saudi’s PIF. So while it’s always possible there was a Crown Prince component to this, no company would dare take that stance when all eyes are on the situation.

I think Geoff is underselling this aspect of it.  He doesn't even mention that the Euro Tour was in bed with the Saudis, but there's a world of difference between cashing an appearance fee check and playing in a Saudi event versus using the Saudis to hurt or destroy the PGA Tour.  

Here's Pat Perez on that aspect:

“He could have done this in such a different way,” Perez said. “He could have gone, ‘You know what, I made a fortune on the PGA Tour, God bless the PGA Tour for taking care of me and

giving me a place and this and that, but I feel like I want to go down this other route to kind of close out my career. Thank you everybody, it’s been phenomenal. But you know what, thank you Jay [Monahan] and everybody else and Tim Finchem and all these other guys from the PGA Tour, but I think I’m going to go down this route. Goodbye.’ That would have been very easy.”

And this:

Mickelson said the Saudi league provided leverage to reshape the Tour, but Perez said Mickelson’s motivation was his own financial gain, not for the good of his fellow players.

“If he was actually trying to help the players and this and that, he did it completely wrong,” Perez said. “I don’t know how he could have done it more wrong. You are not leveraging to use the Saudi group to get us more money. You are trying to fill your pockets; you were trying behind everyone’s back to get players to sign so you could get your big golden paycheck in the end and then take off.”

That to me is one of the more interesting aspects of this all.  While Phil clearly needed several other alpha dog players to jump with him, he doesn't seem to have expended much effort in the recruitment process.  I think the most interesting thing here is the adjectives used by his peers, which included "naive, selfish, egotistical and ignorant,” and that's just a partial list.

Back to Geoff:

The PGA Tour must have suspended him so…? There is no sign Mickelson was suspended by the Tour. But we’ll never know unless he says something. Even if they did suspend Mickelson for “conduct unbecoming” in revealing the PIP results or equating Commissioner Jay Monahan to the second coming of Genghis Khan, is that enough for Mickelson to lose become an outcast? His controversial interviews torpedoed the Saudi Golf League and saved the PGA Tour, so Phil deserves a thank you check, not a suspension.

This highlights one of the more disturbing aspects of the Tour, that they don't release disciplinary actions.  

“Biting the hand” discomfort? Plenty of golf fans voiced their displeasure with Mickelson for complaining about the same tour that allowed his talent to shine, his bank account to swell, and an amazing pension to accrue. Many of those fans got blocked on Twitter by Mickelson for criticizing his toxic tone. But even the comments and blocking binge feel like small matters. Besides, if greed and ignorance proved fatal to his corporate partners, then they wouldn’t be so regularly overpaying influencers or expecting a normal partnership with Phil Mickelson.

I think the Pat Perez comments apply here.  Phil seemed eager to destroy the PGA Tour, regardless of the desires of his peers, so it felt pretty ugly.  And it's Phil, so his arguments included his signature mix of outright fabrications and made up numbers, which to me mitigated several legitimate criticisms of the Tour.

Sheer, unadulterated stupidity? Who tells a reporter about using a murderous regime as a leveraging tool? Who thinks golf pros raking in more money is vital to the game’s future? Perhaps for a company in the business of accounting, financial management software, selling beer or moving golf clubs, stupidity is dangerous to “the brand”. But fatal? Unlikely.

I think Geoff misses an important component to this mess, though there's a glimmer of it contained in his final 'graph:

Or maybe Phil was just on Double Secret Probation? It’s the least sexy but most plausible reason Mickelson’s partnerships unraveled so dramatically. Early week rumblings at Riviera suggested Mickelson’s comments to GolfDigest.com were already proving disastrous and expediting the process of ending certain lucrative partnerships. Is it possible that after years of controversies, legal scares, rumors, and more potential Billy Walters drama, some form of Double Secret Probation with his sponsors did him in? It’s not a leap to think he’d been warned of deal terminations the next time he stepped in it. While that may sound petty compared to other athlete controversies and is unlikely to be confirmed, there is plenty of reason to believe any public embarrassment was going to be the final straw.

When they give out medals for assholery (glad to know we're allowed to use that word), Phil is due a lifetime achievement award.

I think what Geoff ignores is that each and every one of these sponsors has seen Phil act in reckless and self-absorbed ways, from his gambling and involvement with the Detroit mob, the insider trading scandal referenced above, the long-term jihads against the USGA and others and, last but not least, his treatment of two Ryder Cup captains.  One writer called this latest bit an aborted coup, which I think is a reasonable take, whereas I've frequently called that 2014 hissy fit a hostile takeover of the U.S. Ryder Cup effort.

Gonne wind down with just a couple of further thoughts.  First, there have been many comparing this to Tiger's sex scandal, including at least one reference in the TC panel above.  Obviously any such comparisons are only superficial, but to me there's an important distinction.  Tiger's scandal was entirely of a personal nature, obviously changing folks' perceptions of the man, but entirely unrelated to the game and/or Tour.

Phil, in contrast, was trying to conform the professional game to his own vision, and that's a substantively different and more serious matter.  I think an underappreciated aspect to this is how God-awful that vision of the game is, but I'm sure we'll revisit that often in the future.

But if Geoff is puzzled by the sponsor's reactions, perhaps he should reread the comments of Phil's peers.  If the guys he plays against consider him a pariah, why would sponsors want to be tarnished by such an association.  

We'll have more on Phil's path back to redemption I'm sure, but how does he mend fences with Rory, Patrick and, most importantly, Tiger?  

That's it for today, but we'll get to other golf news in future posts.  At least I think we will....