Weekend, (Un)Wrapped

The event that will not die....  No leisurely Monday post for you kids today, as your humble blogger has much golf to watch from Can (See) Until Can't.

The Players in Winter - All four seasons have put in an appearance, as has wind from all four major compass points.  Michael Bamberger goes deep for the bigger picture:

You already know that Sunday night did not close with a new Players Championship champion. Thursday’s rain, working hand-in-hand with Friday’s rain and Saturday’s rain, killed any chance of

that happening. Why the PGA Tour can’t get a weather agreement with Mother Nature Inc. is hard to fathom. It has deals with most everybody else. But there it is.

The new champion — likely a player* who has never won a Players or a major — will be decided at the end of a long Monday. The third round should finish Monday morning. The fourth round will be played Monday afternoon, in threesomes, off two tees and without the customary grandeur this tournament prizes.

What a way for a fella to win $3.6 million.

Not that Anirban Lahiri, Harold Varner, Sebastian Munoz, Cameron Smith, Sam Burns, Tom Hoge and other contenders are complaining.

Though none of them would be the most unlikely winner of this event in history, as Craig Perks has retired that specific Championship Belt.

So, yes, things are a little weird at this Players. Well, what did you expect for the PGA Tour’s so-called signature event in 2022? Men’s professional golf has been running on weirdness for two years now.

You know: the pandemic; Tiger Woods terrifying car crash last year; the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots and how they caused the relocation of this year’s PGA Championship from a Trump course, in New Jersey, to Southern Hills, in Tulsa; the many reports about the prospect of an international tour, backed by the Saudi ruling class, is attempting to challenge the PGA Tour; the immolation of Mickelson, the reigning PGA Championship winner, by way of his pointed comments about both the PGA Tour and this Saudi-backed tour.

Yes, and that two years of weirdness started right here, with Jay's fumbling volte-face at the 2020 installment, when he famously whined about having 200 acres to spread the players over, thoughtfully forgetting the jammed courtesy busses and grandstands inhabited by the paying suckers.

Completely unrelated, but here's a story I missed:

We can guess who Rory Sabbatini is rooting for. Lahiri! Sabbatini was paired with Lahiri last week at Bay Hill, when the third round was played on its traditional day, Saturday. Sabbatini withdrew from the tournament after 13 holes with a knee injury but walked the remaining five holes with Lahiri, just to keep him company. That’s a rare thing to happen — if it has ever happened! Sabbatini said later that he would have only done that for 20 percent of the players on Tour. Sabbo is a particular guy.

Left unsaid is that perhaps 2 % of those same Tour players would do it for the worlds most famous Slovakian golfer....And that estimate might be high.

Azinger made a reference to players wearing sweats under their regular pants, and I naturally assumed he had consumed a hot toddy or two:

Friday brought the rain. Saturday brought the wind. Sunday brought the cold. This Players

Championship has had a whole lot of everything. After seeing a “feels-like” forecast below 30 degrees—in Florida!—Joel Dahmen decided to add an extra layer underneath his golf pants. These weren’t long johns or thermals. These were straight-up sweatpants.

“The coldest I’ve ever been on a golf course,” says Dahmen, who grew up on the Washington/Idaho border. When he was a kid, if it was that cold, they wouldn’t play. Four days earlier, during Wednesday’s practice round, he wore a polo/shorts combo and enlisted a bucket hat and shades in a long-running crusade against the sun. The course was bouncy then; now it’s pillow-soft. Sundown was 6:30 all week; all the sudden it’s 7:30. Harold Varner III is one shot back in a tournament that pays $3.6 million for first place, and he’s wearing a windshirt from the merch tent. In related news, down is now up.

The next time we'll see those ski caps will be at the Old Course, at least hopefully.  

Of course, Wrik Van Rooyen is an exception to that.  Not sure the photo is from this week, but he was rocking what one announcer called ankle-stranglers:

Of course, it tyook me a while to notice, as that porn 'stache demands respect:

Focused like a laser on the important stuff....

Here's as concise a summary of the week as I could find:

It’s been a truly chaotic week at TPC Sawgrass. Weird things are happening. Between the rain delays, the unexpected days off, the comically lopsided draw, the gale-force winds, the freezing temperatures, the water balls on 17, the ace on 17, the mood around the Stadium Course is one of pure delirium.

When do they start the slaying of the first born.  Your humble blogger is a middle child, so we anticipate no disruption in service.

Not a week for the alpha dogs for sure:

Why did golf’s superstars disappear at the Players Championship?

Let's see, checking notes, plague, pestilence, frogs....did I miss anything?

The stars faded for a lot of reasons. They got unlucky. Most of them, at least, wound up in the hellish Thursday afternoon wave, which required well-executed survival of both monsoon and windstorm just to remain in contention. They started off behind the 8-ball, and some weeks, that’s just too much to overcome.

I wonder of maybe NBC got a tad greedy.  In a typical week, the big names are split pretty evenly so that Golf Channel gets half in each of their Thursday-Friday TV windows.  This event is different, because those early week windows are so much longer.  Pure speculation....

Dylan Dethier has this on that very subject:

7 surprising players to miss the cut at the Players Championship

From a cursory glance it looked to me like all, save Tony Finau, were on the wrong side of the draw.

Of course, this guy tried to intervene:

💬 “I told them golf tournaments should be 54 holes in the desert!” 💬 pic.twitter.com/M3MjMgr7ge

— Eamon Lynch (@eamonlynch) March 11, 2022

Not really, but funny....  The only thing better might have been watching Phil in those winds.

Shall we spend a few moments on No. 17?  Eamon has some thoughts:

Lynch: The Mona Lisa of one-dimensional holes – 17th at TPC Sawgrass – tested something we seldom see at the Players Championship

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Too often, professional golf—in particular the strain presented on the PGA Tour—tilts toward the one-dimensional, not only in the repetitiveness of individual

stroke play but in the consistency of course conditions that envelop players every week like a comfort blanket intended to minimize blubbering.

What variety there is exists mostly in the questions asked hole by hole, and even that has been diminished in the modern power game as players bludgeon courses into submission rather than seduce them in the manner of yore. The Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass still poses its share of nettlesome challenges for the best players in the world, but its iconic 17th hole is the Mona Lisa of one-dimensional golf.

That’s not to say it’s a wholly lousy hole. It’s indisputably entertaining, which is no small matter when it comes to fan engagement, dramatic theater, merchandise branding and hospitality sales. It’s daunting too, a necessary stress test in the closing stretch of tournament play. In normal circumstances, it’s not particularly difficult, even for recreational chops (it’s the shortest hole on the course and the green is huge). But No. 17 is woefully lacking in the one aspect that makes a golf hole truly interesting: options.

Don't know what he's talking about.  The lay-up is on the walking path, as Jordan showed us.

But here's an interesting distinction:

Great golf holes offer a choice of routes that depend upon a player’s skill, confidence or courage. On 17 of the holes at TPC Sawgrass, a poor swing leads to car crash golf—injurious, but offering the possibility of recovery. But the penultimate hole at Pete Dye’s creation is plane-crash golf, where a poor swing is fatal. That’s why the least interesting hole here was the focus of attention when high winds buffetted the Players Championship, producing more squealing splashdowns than a kid’s water slide.

Car-crash vs. plane-crash golf...got it.

But the play in the wind was wacky fun, as Eamon notes (along with the statutorily require swipe at Brandel):

Among the spectacles that were awesome to behold in whipping winds were Brandel Chamblee’s mane and Justin Thomas’s 69. JT’s caddie, Bones Mackay, told me Sunday morning that it was among the top-five rounds all-time he has ever carried for, a captivating mix of sublimely flighted shots and clutch putts, all while knowing he had been diddled by the draw.

Twice during his round, Thomas hit pitching wedges 185 yards, while delivering a glorious 5-wood into the 18th green from 193 yards. His scorecards show two 3s on 17, but numbers don’t do justice to the situation. “When you have a 7-iron on that hole and it’s into off the left, it’s a lot more fun when someone tells you a story of them doing it versus you have to it,” he said.

That's what made it so much fun.

Tough, but not unfair. Players who spoke after Saturday’s shenanigans unanimously said the set-up was difficult (brutally so) but had not crossed the line, a gracious sentiment that is so often denied the USGA.

The essential nature of the challenge was best summed up by Keegan Bradley, who drew a stark comparison between two 9-irons hit in his round. On the 12th, it was from 95 yards. Four holes later, the same club flew 206 yards. “To me there’s no yardage,” he said. “It’s just the trajectory of your ball, whatever club you can get to fit that window, that’s the shot.”

That's what was so interesting... To a man, the players were steadfast in their opinion that it was brutally hard, but did not cross that mythical line.  For those of you keeping a scorecard at home, now we know what they mean by "fealty."

Shack had a long post up on this Saturday carnage that I'm still trying to sort through, beginning with the header:

Island Green Madness: When Unlucky Gets Confused With Unfair

Which reminds this observer of this:

“Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.”

― Mel Brooks

Back to Geoff:

An intense Saturday of rain-delayed play saw high winds after a front moved through Ponte Vedra. Temperatures dropped and the TPC Sawgrass’ 17th saw one of those days of trouble, with 19 water balls spread between first and second round play.

While that’s nothing compared to the all-time worst of 50, Kevin Kisner said the conditions produced “pure luck” and impugned The Players Championship’s “integrity.” Other players seemed to take things in better stride if you read Adam Schupak’s Golfweek wrap of the antics. Credit to players like Collin Morikawa who said he just missed his shot and while difficult, the task was doable.

And if you take a look at PGA Tour’s compilation of all 19 water balls—drop area shots included—it’s staggering how many shots were dead just a few yards off the club face. Or how many purely awful strikes were made trying to play the ball down. I estimated 9 of the 19 just were unlucky due to a gust or just missing the 3,912 green. The rest never had a chance.

Which I think gets at the most important point.  It's only 135 yards, but it makes the best players on the planet make the worst swings imaginable.  But it's also why the green is so ginormous....

Geoff also had this great graphic on what the kids like to call traj:

That's a pretty wide range of height for such a short shot.  To me, the sad takeaway is that, likely because Tour set-ups are so uniformly boring, that when called upon to keep their ball below the wind, many of them kinda sucked at it.

This was back in the Paleozoic Age, but serves as reminder that carnage here isn't a new thing:

Bob Tway was +14 on the 17th hole in the 2000 PLAYERS.

He went 4-6-12-4 on the hole. He was -8 on the other 68 holes that week.

— Sean Martin (@PGATOURSMartin) March 12, 2022

The guy I feel worst for is Scottie Scheffler, although life has been good to him lately.  Whereas most of the leaders didn't play the hole in the worst of those Saturday conditions, Scheffler played it as his first hole on Saturday, which would seem bad enough, but when he finished No. 18 he then circled around and started his second round on Number Ten, so he had to play it twice in about three hours.  Neither attempt worked out well at all.

Gold Man - A wise man once said, stupid as stupid does.  Submitted for your disapproval:

Looks like a sawed-off finish to flight the ball, but WTF!

Even worse on video:

Just think of the energy, meetings and hours put into this mixed reality lameness @THEPLAYERSChamp. 😵‍💫 #whatwouldthemastersdo pic.twitter.com/GsEFN27urP

— Geoff Shackelford (@GeoffShac) March 10, 2022

Explaining the inexplicable:

THE PLAYERS’ Tiffany & Co. trophy – a three-dimensional depiction of the tournament’s gold swinging man logo -- will hop off his stand and come to life on the broadcast this week. The PGA TOUR, working closely with NBC and creative agency The Famous Group, will become the first golf organization to incorporate mixed reality into its broadcast, as the trophy will digitally appear on the 17th hole.

And judging by the 28 handicapper swing—I say that with full respect for all 28’s—this will not age well.

Mixed reality is the merging of real and virtual worlds, making physical and digital objects co-exist in real time. For THE PLAYERS, the technology will be used to show the trophy taking aim at TPC Sawgrass’ famed Island Green. His shots will be illustrated with a golden trail.

That's Geoff's snark that I left in the excerpt...But as stupid a waste of efforts as this was, it got worse:

 Yeah, they had to muck up one of Tiger's better interviews...

Geoff again:

The so-bad-you-can’t-take-your-eyes-off-it “mixed reality” has earned less-than-glowing reviews after Sunday saw NBC asked Tiger to watch this grand idea. Tiger pretty much ignored seeing some strange combo of C3PO, Oscar and a 24 handicapper in his place. He was a good sport but focused more on the NBC call at the time.

Agree.  Gary Koch has milked his "better than most" call into quite the career, and I don't begrudge him.  But the underappreciated part of it all has always been Johnny's "how about in!" interjection, while the ball was still a ways from the cup.  All sorts of things have come out of Johnny's mouth over the years, but I always thought he deserved a co-credit on Koch's signature moment.  And, apparently Tiger agrees...

Whoa, Nellie! - A scary story I want to get to just in case you've not heard:

Nelly Korda, after feeling swelling in her arm on Friday, says she has a blood clot.

In a statement on her social media channels on Sunday afternoon, the second-ranked golfer in the

world said she was told to go to the emergency room after alerting her doctor. Korda said she is now recovering at home.

“On Friday I was in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL for a photoshoot and a commercial appearance,” her post said. “After a typical morning workout, my arm started to feel like it was swelling. At the advice of my doctor, I went to the Emergency Room as a precaution. I was diagnosed with a blood clot.

“I am currently at home getting treatment to eliminate further risks. I will communicate my status as and when and there is more information. In the meantime, I want to thank everyone for their support and ask for privacy for all our family during this time. I hope to be back soon! Thank you. [Prayer emoji.]”

You don't need me to point out that Nelly is at an age where things like this shouldn't happen, which somehow makes this all the more foreboding.

You also don't need me to tell you that it hits just as the LPGA heads into its descent into Mission Hills, and that eagerly awaited J.Y. Ko - Nelly face-off.  Let's hope this is a freakish one-off and that she's back soonest.

Wither The Bone Saws - I'll Take Unlikely Headers for $2,000, Alex:

Reports: Saudis Preparing Mega-Purse Event, Execute 81 In Record Day Of Beheadings

Only 81?  Now I see that progress Mr. Norman was telling us about....

 It's actually better than that, because it's Geoff blogging this Eamon Lynch bit:

Chatter about a prospective Super League has taken on the feel of Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh,” in which a misbegotten band of barflies (like Jimmy Tomorrow) are forever promising

progress that never materializes. Unlike the patrons of O’Neill’s saloon, it’s possible—even likely—that the Saudi-financed concept will advance, or at least make noise. Whispers in hallways at the Players Championship persist like herpetic hypothesis: on what players might yet jump, on what Phil Mickelson will do next, on how the Saudis will pivot.

The latest conjecture has the Crown Prince’s coat holders planning to stage a tournament with an enormous purse that could dwarf the $20 million offered at the PGA Tour’s flagship stop in soggy Florida. The goal would be to engineer litigation by inviting Tour members to compete while hoping commissioner Jay Monahan denies the permission required to do so, thereby presenting an opportunity to challenge his control over where members play, or to at least jeopardize the Tour’s tax-exempt status as a 501c organization.

Herpetic?  I'm not actually sure it makes any sense, but happy to have it added to my dictionary....

This isn't the time for a legal deep-dive, but if the event is scheduled against a PGA Tour event, I'm not sure there's much there.  I'm also not sure that Jay would be stupid enough to take the bait, although I'm equally sure that Phil is.

But stay tuned...

I'm going to release you here kids, as I have an unconscionable amount of golf to watch today.  I'm thinking I'll drop in tomorrow to wrap the festivities, but that should be considered a leaning, as opposed to a promise.

"ate-Week Lamentations

Happy to be home with my three loved ones, all of whom seem equally pleased.  It won't last, but we have to savor it until that inevitable regression to the mean.

The Players - Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it:

It's been said that "you're still away" are the three worst words in golf. "Monday finish likely" might take exception.

That's precisely what’s staring at the field at this week's Players Championship, something that hasn't happened at TPC Sawgrass since 2005. That year, play was suspended in the second, third and fourth rounds because of rain and unplayable conditions. The only reason it didn't extend all the way to Tuesday was because Fred Funk holed a six-foot par putt at the 18th hole to win, avoiding a four-way playoff with Tom Lehman, Luke Donald and Joe Durant that would have had to been completed on Tuesday morning.

This time, we might not be so lucky. A horrendous weather forecast for Thursday, Friday and Saturday has loomed all week, with the Thursday part coming to fruition when tee times got pushed back a full hour in the opening round due to overnight rainfall and thunderstorms. Once play began, it lasted all of two hours and 15 minutes. At 11 a.m., play was officially suspended due to dangerous weather, a delay that lasted four hours and 15 minutes. All told then, five hours and 15 minutes of weather delays played out and that was before most in the morning wave even came close to making the turn. When play ended due to darkness on Thursday, only 69 golfers had finished their rounds, Tommy Fleetwood and Tom Hoge leading with six-under 66s. Meanwhile, 12 players from the original afternoon wave didn't tee off on Thursday.

What a coincidence, 5:15 being just about what it takes these guys to play eighteen these days...

But a Tuesday finish?  It's suggested in the header, but that would be Jay's worst nightmare...  OK, second worst.  But they can't really cut this one to 54 or 36, can they?

One of our faves had an interesting day, one he took with his characteristic graciousness:

The reason you like HV3 — how can you not like the dude? — is that he finished his long day’s

journey to 69, here in the first round of the Players Championship, with a triple bogey and a bogey and still he exhibited his customary good cheer.

Your mind immediately went to that muggy Long Island Sunday — mid-May, 2019 PGA Championship, Bethpage Black — when Harold Varner III went off with Brooks Koepka in the final day’s final twosome. Koepka won. Varner signed for 80.

And then he signed for fans, talked to reporters and cooled his jets. He knew the sun would rise come morn. He knew his T36 paycheck for $48,000 was going to clear.

“Tough game, isn’t it?” a reporter said to Varner when he came in, trying to soften the blow.

No softener needed.

HVIII had a big moment recently, though I couldn't help but wish that it had occurred anywhere else.  But see what you think of this bit:

Varner, 31, won last month in Saudi Arabia, the PIF Saudi International, an Asian Tour event. He made a bomb on the last for an eagle and a one-shot win over Bubba Watson. He has not won on the PGA Tour. Because he won in Saudi Arabia, there was speculation that he would be recruited to join the golf league reportedly being planned by Greg Norman and funded by the Saudi ruling class.

“My name went right to the top of the list, and I do have to commend [PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan] for sitting down and talking to me and being totally open about,” Varner said. It wasn’t entirely clear what he meant, but the message he conveyed is that his fealty is to the PGA Tour.

There's that word again!  Is there a sports JournoList?  Seriously, it's no longer enough to play on or belong to the PGA Tour, one needs to sear fealty to Ponte Vedra Beach.  UIs an exchange of blood required?

The Hall - I caught the end of Tiger's speech, and found it.... well, curious.  But Mike Bamberger had hos own reactions, and a few good bits such as this:

The people were starving.

Golf people tend to arrive early to their functions, so when the sleek glass doors at the PGA

Tour’s chic headquarters opened at 6 p.m., golf’s glittering class — plus Joe LaCava — was ready to move on in, with the promise of a pre-ceremony hors d’oeuvres and, before the night was out, Joe’s boss being inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. That is, Tiger Woods his own self.

The folks in their finery were hungry to resume their public social lives after two years of pandemic restrictions. They were hungry to see Woods in person, because his public outings are far and few between. And they were hungry period, as the ratio of milling guests to circulating food trays was approximately 85 to 1.

The LaCava reference is a bit odd, don't you think?  Mike took his new bride and went to caddie on the European Tour, so he's the last guy I'd accuse of an "Not of our class, Dearie" perspective, but still....

To me it reminds of one of those awkward moments during Tiger's speech, when he spoke of how he didn't get there alone, included specifically his great caddies.  Well, yeah, but of the big three, Fluff, Stevie and Joey, to the best of my knowledge he's on speaking terms only with the latter.  What does this tell us about Tiger?

This has wide consensus:

Berning had the line of the night:

“And by the way, Tiger, of my three U.S. Opens, the total winnings was $16,000. I was wondering if we could swap checks. If not all, we could do one.”

Woods laughed. So did his girlfriend, Erica Herman, sitting to his right. And Finchem, sitting to his left. Her truth-to-power joke was a trenchant reminder that professional golfers play golf (library voice here, please) for money.

Gee, Mike, the events of the last few months have left most of us pretty clear on the role of moeny in our game...

But then Mike makes the point that jumped out at me:

Woods won U.S. Opens in 2000, ’02 and ’08. His checks were for $800,000, $1 million and $1.3 million, respectively. The winner of this week’s Players Championship will earn $3.6 million.

Which is that Tiger could say the very same thing to Bryson or Jon Rahm (yanno, the guys that won the last two U.S. Opens).  

I didn't see Sam's introduction, but it had to have been a sweet scene:

Woods was introduced, charmingly and confidently, by his 14-year-old daughter, Sam. Sam

Woods, already on the varsity soccer team at the Benjamin School, in South Florida, read her remarks, printed out on a single piece of paper, single-spaced and using all of one side and half of another. She reminded her listeners that the day before she was born her father had a putt, at the 2007 U.S. Open, at Oakmont, near Pittsburgh, to force a playoff. Instead, he flew to Orlando in time for Sam’s birth. “He may have lost that day, but he won the greatest gift of all,” she said. Oh, Sam Woods plays the violin, too. Who knew?

More importantly, we now know what happens when you mate a Cablinasian with a Swede, the wonder being that we don't do it more often.

Her father closed out the night, more than three hours after it began. He was never more appealing. Wearing an ill-fitting gray-plaid sport coat — a Peter Millar number given to all the male World Golf Hall of Famers — Woods spoke without notes. He knows we know everything he did as a pro and in his final years as an amateur. The revolution was most certainly televised. In his remarks, he wisely took us to places we have never been, inside his childhood home and on the public Southern California courses where he first learned the game that eventually made him rich and likely more famous than he ever wanted to be.

The suggestion here is to watch it if you can. Woods speaks as he never has before and spends about 18 minutes doing it. He talked about playing golf at night, hunting for balata golf balls, putting for quarters. Public golf. His mom, driving. His dad, lecturing. When he talked about his childhood putting, Crenshaw leaned in.

I should perhaps heed Mike's advice, because I felt like Tiger was just checking boxes.  And when he delved into anecdotes there were a couple of call-outs to settle old scores that I thought landed with an audible "thud".

Perhaps I'm being overly cynical here, but this is a good note, if true:

He spoke of the modest circumstances in which he grew up, how his parents took out a second mortgage on their home, to finance their only child’s golfing ambitions.

Not that millions of parents throughout the country don't do the same, but Mike elides the strangest note of all, the call-out of Phil Knight and Wally Uihlein.  Wally Uihlein, for God's sake!  He dumped Titleist about an hour-and-a-half after the check cleared, but he was of use for a while.

Perhaps the oddest bit of all is that Phil's name shows up in Mike's piece.  Go look for yourself, but perhaps Mike could use a stronger editor?

The Tour - Eamon's back!  Yeah, he brings the goods, though this effort could be more focused:

Success stories in sport often owe as much to the ineptitude of the vanquished as to the brilliance of the victor. When future generations of Tweeters analyze the past few years in golf, PGA Tour

commissioner Jay Monahan will be credited for deft backroom diplomacy in building crucial alliances both public (key players) and private (Chairman Ridley). Yet a thorough accounting should note the extent to which Monahan has benefitted from the bumbling of those pushing a Saudi-financed rival league, a mutiny of clowns that could make Bozo seem Churchillian by comparison.

Monahan’s confidence was apparent in his opening remarks at a Tuesday press conference at the Players Championship, during which he projected the mien of a boxer who knows he has his opponent on the canvas, if not quite counted out.

“The PGA Tour is moving on,” he began, a declaration designed to irk his erstwhile correspondent, Greg Norman, whose February 24 epistle to Monahan had promised that things were only beginning.

“We are and we always will be focused on legacy, not leverage,” he continued, wording immediately obvious as a targeted drone strike on Phil Mickelson.

Yeah, I didn't give that last bit it's due.  That's why all the fluff about whether Jay and Phil had spoken was so silly.  The may not have had a conversation, but they've certainly communicated to each other.

But folks are coming around to points I've been making, if I may be allowed to beat mine own chest;

Other tangential troubles circling Monahan’s once impenetrable fortress in Ponte Vedra Beach were evident in his comments too. It passed almost unnoticed that the head of the most politically squeamish league in sports announced that players, caddies and staff had been given ribbons in the colors of the Ukrainian flag to signal their support for those currently being bombarded by the forces of Vladimir Putin. (Some players who will don ribbons this week would balk if the colors were those of Yemen, where their Saudi suitors are equally guilty of war crimes.)

The gesture and accompanying humanitarian fundraising drive seems superficial, but it tentatively enlisted the Tour in a growing movement that demands sporting bodies not remain silent on matters of human rights. That chorus even spurred action from FIFA, arguably the most venal organization in sport (admittedly a competitive category). Monahan knows this wave of sentiment will probably wash up on his own shores soon enough, perhaps forcing a rethink of the Tour’s China business.

Sigh!  I truly hate this crap.... Why should I care what folks who run golf tournaments think about Ukraine?  Winston Smith, call your office!

The R&A did the same, going so far as excluding any Russian golfers that mat show up at its events.  Moral preening is never pretty.

Of course, we now have a clear set of rules, as per this trenchant quote:

Professional golf will be forced to reassess where and with whom it does business. As a senior golf industry executive said to me recently, “You are either in business with people who chop off heads, or you’re not. We should not be.”

Ummmm, waving hand,  have a follow-up.  Are we in business with people who send ethnic minorities to concentration camps?  How about people who seize the bank accounts of those peaceably protesting their own government?  I believe the cool kids call this a slippery slope...

Monahan attempted to sidestep another issue that will force a fundamental change in how the PGA Tour operates. When pushed on transparency, he addressed it in the context of how he communicates with his members, not what he communicates about those members to the outside world. An organization hungry for its share of sports gambling dollars will soon realize how untenable it is to maintain a culture of secrecy around disciplinary action that bettors feel entitled to know about.

“It’s a criticism that has been lobbied against the PGA Tour through the years, and I think we always have to be open to evolving. That’s something that we are open to,” he finally conceded.

They won't even be open about injuries, Eamon.  They're "open to evolving", but "Shut Up", they explain.

Two years after the Saudi scheme burst into public view, Monahan finds himself with a dominant edge, but not yet a decisive one. What happens next will depend largely on his putative rivals in Riyadh. And if their aptitude thus far is any indication, Monahan won’t expect to be staring at an empty lunch plate anytime soon.

I think what Eamon ignores is that the very fact that this offer came from the Saudis was Jay's luckiest break.  The nightmare scenario is not that the Saudis keep trying, it's that a similar effort comes from cleaner sources.  Of course, the counter to that, which requires only a brief review of the TV ratings, is that no one but the Saudis would overpay so much, given their rather unique needs.  

In addition to Eamon, Dylan Dethier must also be reading this here blog:

One of the problems with the PIP is that it leaves 10 players happy...and everyone else unhappy. Thoughts:pic.twitter.com/M3YmxhfRpD

— Dylan Dethier (@dylan_dethier) March 8, 2022

You read it here first.

One more related bit from Alan Shipnuck, who has a new Ask Alan up, which includes this completely unnecessary self-defense:

The Tour previously said that PIP results would not be announced. Last week they were. Was this a deliberate shot across Phil’s bow to paint him as a liar? #askalan @kevin_demsky

I love a good golf conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but the PIP results were not publicly announced. They were privately revealed to the players, as they had to be. Because the PGA Tour is basically high school with money, the secret was kept for about 13 seconds. But you bring up an interesting point. Mickelson purposefully made a false statement about winning the PIP, and he was just as sneaky when it came to his secret dealings with the Saudis. If he were, hypothetically, to get involved in a dispute with a veteran reporter in which fans had to weigh which one was more likely to be telling the truth, Mickelson’s recent behavior would suggest he is not always entirely transparent. Just spit-balling here.

We knew.  Decades of Phil's nonsense, including his transactional relationship with the truth, are coming home to roost (pretty sure I mangled a metaphor, but you guys know what I mean).

Alan had this one other bit on this topic:

Is the Saudi Golf League dead? @kevinp613

Not even close. The firestorm surrounding Mickelson’s blunt and callous comments were a mild setback, but to say the least, the Saudis are used to bad publicity. In fact, I’m hearing from well-placed sources they have doubled down and are accelerating their timeline, now hoping to launch the SGL in early summer. The thinking is they want to force the hand of the PGA Tour to follow through on its threat to suspend players who compete in the SGL, touching off a legal challenge the Tour very well could lose and thus make it much easier for the SGL to do business. The insidious thing about sportswashing is that it works, and the Saudis know it. Sure, they’d love to have launched with Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau in the fold, but the key is to get the SGL off the ground. If they can, the objections and moralizing will slowly dissipate, and in Year 2 or 3 they can buy more and better players. Fealty has an expiration date.

Interesting, although I could use some more details.  I'm not sure what it means to launch the SGL, are we talking new events without the cover of the Asian Tour.  Or, which seems more likely, are we talking about beefing up Asian Tour events using appearance fees to lure players of whom the public has heard?

 As a wise man once said, you are either in business with people who chop off heads, or you’re not.

Alan, Asked - Lord knows I have more to address, but I also need to get my day started.  So how about some low-impact blogging?

By the time this youngest crop of superstars closes out their prime (let’s say 2040), what number of majors does the top guy in that group have? Hard to imagine anyone getting to 5 anymore, with as much competition as there is (and as much as is around the corner, too). @luke_peacock

It would have been helpful if you defined your terms more precisely, but I assume we’re talking about players currently under 30? It feels like Jordan Spieth has been around forever but, at 28, he’s only a year older than Jon Rahm and three years older than Collin Morikawa. Wait, does Brooks Koepka, 31, count? What about Rory McIlroy, 32? They are simultaneously aspirational and cautionary tales. Koepka has pushed his body so hard he is now golf’s most brittle superstar, and over the last three years he has squandered a handful of golden opportunities to burnish his resume. Eight years ago McIlroy owned four major championship victories and there was talk he was headed for a dozen. He is proof that a lot of life can get in the way: high-profile breakups, business lawsuits, injuries, sponsor divorces, ennui, marriage, kids, existential crisis. Still, I refuse to believe Spieth won’t summon the magic at least one more time during the right week, which would get him to four majors, tied with McIlroy and Koepka. Can Rory and/or Brooks figure it out again and win one more? That would tie them with all-time geniuses like Seve Ballesteros, Lord Byron Nelson and Peter Thompson. Phil Mickelson has been a keynote player for three full decades, and this unmatched longevity got him to six majors. That’s a big ask. The game has never been deeper, or younger; at this moment the top five in the World Ranking are all under 30, the first time that has happened. Winning majors has always been hard. Greg Norman and Ben Crenshaw are two all-time (albeit flawed) talents, and they only copped two apiece! Every major is precious, and increasingly so. The answer to your question is five, and Morikawa is the guy who is going to get there.

Rahm's going straight for nineteen, so this is chump change.  But Alan's larger point, that it's hard to conceive of anyone really racking up big numbers, seems right.

With the new style of bomb-and-gouge, have too many players abandoned the safe play, especially when it is warranted? Watching Woodland take dead aim at the pin on 17 was mind-boggling. @opinionsvary328

More than a decade ago, Mickelson distilled his entire worldview into one quote: “Sometimes you’ve got to take risks to win the golf tournament, and a lot of times people will wedge that out and play safe, and they don’t put themselves in position to win. If you want to win tournaments against the best players in the world, you’ve got to take some chances. The weeks I’m able to pull them off I have a chance at winning, and the weeks that I don’t, I get ridiculed. But you have to take chances to win.” After his double bogey-bogey finish, Woodland said of his tee shot on the par-3, “I felt good about 17. It was a good number.” He had a perfectly flat stance, his ball was on a tee and he had only an 8-iron in his hands. He knew one more birdie would slam the door. He was playing to win, and he knew other contenders were playing the reachable par-5 16th, a hole he had just eagled. Of course, in hindsight, a par-par finish theoretically would have been enough to get it done. But I don’t fault Woodland for trying to put the tournament out of reach.

That I think is an underappreciated change in the game. Whereas consistency used to be prized, cashing a check each week, the game now seems more about a handful of bid weeks.  On the larger question of why that is, I'm not exactly sure.  As Kevin Kisner noted in a different context, 20th place pays pretty well.

More likely major winner this year: Scottie Scheffler or JT? @shea_verbush

Ooh, good one. It’s funny how quickly we’ve forgotten about Justin Thomas, who is, in fact, the defending champ at the Players this week. But he laid an egg in the ensuing majors, which too often has been the case since his breakthrough at the 2017 PGA Championship. Thomas (below) still has a ton of game, but he seems edgier and more fragile in the tournaments that matter the most. (Let us not forget his egregious triple bogey on the 13th hole of the third round to blow himself out of last year’s Masters.) Coming off his rousing win at Bay Hill and spectacular play at the Ryder Cup, Scheffler clearly has more momentum and more confidence. He seems to relish the big moments. Scottie is my answer to this question, but it would be folly to count out Thomas long-term.

the actual question doesn't much interest me, because right now I'm having trouble imaging JT winning the Antarctic Fourball.  Second most important question, what was Bones thinking?

What is better golf to watch: a sunny, beautiful Riviera or carnage at Bay Hill? (Based off this year.) @Jame5F

They were both wildly entertaining, but Riv offered much more interesting golf. Bay Hill asked the same question over and over: Can you fit your ball into this very narrow, proscribed opening? It demanded execution but left no room for imagination or improvisation, both of which are required at Riviera. There were no real decisions to make, and around the greens, the brutally thick rough negated talent and touch and forced players to play the same slashing shot over and over. So I loved watching the pros get their teeth kicked in at Bay Hill, but Riviera is more my cup of tea.

I think that rough at Bay Hill was nuts, but my basic answer is that it's good that we have both.  Florida golf is inherently limiting, but Riviera might just be the best track they play all year.  venues matter, and the Tour could use a whole bunch of upgrades in that department.

Who are you taking for the next 10 years?

1- Spieth and Thomas or

2- Viktor and Collin. @HighFades

Two.

Obviously Collin is a big game hunter, the poster child for that point about consistency above.  I'm still not sure about Viktor, though.  I can't remember a more suspect world ranking, as he's the No. 3 player in the world without a single top-ten in a major or Players Championship.  Maybe he'll fix those short-game weaknesses, but his wins have all been of the soft variety.  A point made in this later question:

Big talent, Viktor… but with that sand game no way he was going to the Saudi League. Zinger mentioned Viktor needs to change his coaching/technique—do you think he will? Or double down with his current team? @WayneOW66L67

Hovland is the rare Tour pro who has some self-awareness. His game is so rock-solid from tee-to-green, and he has been candid about his struggles with a wedge in his hands. Bay Hill has to be a tipping point for him to reassess everything. It’s clearly time for a fresh perspective.

He'll adapt to some extent, and he may not need more than a Tour-average short game, given the rest of his skill set.

I watched a lot of J.Y. Ko this week. Incredible back-nine charge to be sure, but am I crazy or did she just win with her C-game most of the week? Nelly (Korda) and Danielle (Kang)

and Lydia (Ko) can win with their A-games. But if J. Y. can win with her C-game they are all playing for second. @gmsolomon

Ko is the quintessence of a player who just appears to be puttering along and it feels like she shot 71… but it was actually a 66. She is so smooth and efficient she almost makes it look too easy. So what you think was her C-game might have been her B-game, or maybe even her A-game. But it’s hard to tell!

We have Tiger to thank for all this A-game and C-game nonsense.  Though I think it's silly to imply that Nelly can't win with her B-game as well.  Maybe J.Y. can win with her C-game, but maybe only when Nelly's not there.

But now we veer into siliness:

Not so much a question as a statement: J.Y. Ko would make the cut at the Masters and finish top 10….. discuss. @YGlyn

Augusta National is the wrong example because it’s 7,500-plus yards and rewards power like few other courses. But put Ko (above) in a U.S. Open field at, say, Pebble Beach—where precision, patience and finesse are rewarded—and she could hold her own against the guys.

There's a reason that Annika chose Colonial.  But, even there or Pebble, she wouldn't hold her own because, and I say this with love, she's a...<reducing voice to a whiusper>...woman.

More on those Bay Hill conditions:

I enjoy watching carnage like we saw at Bay Hill. Rory completely melts away on the weekend then whines about the setup. I can’t figure him out — has he gotten softer with time or was he just frustrated, or…..?? #Askalan @TheGhostofhogan

Yeah, it makes me pine for the halcyon days when Rory was complaining the European Tour setups are too easy. Frustration was certainly a factor, but McIlroy’s critique was also revealing: He has never won a tournament in which the winning score was single-digits under par. A firm, fast, fiery setup exposes his flaws a bit too much. We all love Rory’s candor, but sometimes he would be better served to hold it in. On Twitter, @MrEdwardLight reminded me of the great Peter Alliss’s thoughts about course setup: “This is the week’s exam paper. Don’t moan about the questions, try to figure out the answers.”

How similar were the conditions this weekend to those at Shinnecock in 2004? #AskAlan @GoranBarnes

Pretty close! The key difference is that Shinneock has much more wickedly sloped greens.

You're asking about the man that invented the back door top ten?   Did you not see his opening round at Portrush?  Alan's data point is very interesting, as Rory is clueless in wind and on firm surfaces.  It's always been thus, just sports writes aren't all that bright.

What’s the book you’d love to write next? #AskAlan @bowman_roberta

I have long harbored the fantasy of moving to Cruden Bay for a year, playing that wondrous links every morning and spending the rest of the day eating chocolate and working on the Great American Novel. My youngest kid is a little over four years from graduating from high school, so let’s revisit this in 2026. But I have another book coming out in September—I helped my friend Jack Grandcolas with a memoir about losing his pregnant college sweetheart, Lauren, aboard United 93. It’s called Like A River To The Sea, and it is a wrenching but beautiful story, honoring a wonderful woman who deserves to be remembered as an American hero. And the book has a happy ending, as Jack found love again and he and his new bride, Sarah, saved each other in a really profound way. I’m always looking for non-golf stories to tell. I will say that recently I got a phone call that I’ve craved for the past decade: Michael Bamberger announcing he’s finally ready to collaborate on a sequel to The Swinger. We had soooo much fun doing that novel, and I’ve been low-key badgering him ever since it came out to get back in the saddle. Seems likely the Will Martinsen character will get himself into some mischief this time around.

I did read The Swinger, which wasn't half bad.

That's a wrap.  Not sure we'll be wrapping anything much Monday morning, but I have record backlog in case it's needed.  Have a great weekend.

Midweek Musings - Powder Day Edition

We've got ten inches reported (and still snowing) and it's calling your humble blogger's name.  Will it be more of the dreaded dust on crust?  Inevitably, because it's 2022 and that's how we now roll....

Players' Championship Stuff - Another sign of Spring presents, as golf's championship[ season begins.  This event typically delivers the goods, so where shall we start?  Well, they're always touting the strength of the field, so perhaps that's where we should drop in.  Specifically with who's not here:

First, the artist formerly known as Lefty:

The PGA Tour released the official field for its flagship event on Friday afternoon and Mickelson

was not listed. The six-time major champion has been dealing with blowback from a November interview that went public in February. In that interview, he told golf writer Alan Shipnuck that he recruited lawyers to draft up the rumored Saudi-backed golf league as a leverage play against the PGA Tour, which he referred to as a "dictatorship." He also acknowledged the Saudi government are “scary mother****ers."

Scary Mofo's will have legs, but let's not forget that he accused the PGA Tour, the folks running this little tourney, of "obnoxious greed."  More on that awkwardness below....

So, when will we see Phil?  Simply has to be The Masters, no?  Poor Hideki, as his Champions' Dinner moment in the sun will be over-shadowed by Phil's coming out party.

Also MIA:

Bryson DeChambeau has withdrawn from the Players Championship, the PGA Tour released on

Sunday night shortly after the finish at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

No reason was given, but this is the second straight week in which DeChambeau had initially registered to compete on the PGA Tour only to then drop out of the tournament. DeChambeau was the defending champion at the API, but last Monday released a video on social media in which he stated that he was “just not ready yet.”

DeChambeau has been dealing with hip and hand injuries throughout much of 2022. He withdrew before the start of the Sony Open in January and withdrew after the first round of the Saudi International last month. He was also visible hobbled during the second round of the Farmers Insurance Open, a tournament in which he missed the cut by one shot.

Not getting a good vibe here, gang.  There's the seemingly obvious correlation of bulking up with chronic injuries, or am I just trafficking in fake news?   

But it's equally true that Bryson's commitment to the Tour seemed tepid compared to, say, Jon Rahm swearing fealty to Kubla Jay.  Hold that thought as we'll circle back down below.

Golf Digest has this interesting take on the venue, with which I only partially agree:

Players 2022: If you think TPC Sawgrass is hard for pros, wait till you see the stats for average golfers

Despite the lore and the gore of the Players Championship, the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass is not the toughest layout played on the PGA Tour. It’s only ranked in the top 15 once in the last decade, and it often trails other theoretically less fearsome Florida Swing venues like PGA National, Bay Hill and even Innisbrook.

But those are just numbers. The Stadium Course’s true ferocity lies in a place that statistics do not always adequately measure. It is in that dry mouth or accelerated heart rate, the deep breaths that fail to find calm or the deeper sighs of soul-crushing despair. The Stadium Course is the worst kind of torture chamber, the one that exists in your mind.

What’s truly beautiful about the menacing Stadium Course is that as a public venue that sees about 50,000 rounds a year, average golfers pay (mightily, at $600 per, not including caddie) for the privilege to be embarrassed 18 separate times. Moreover, what the average tour pro feels and experiences so, too, does the average Joe.

Here's the skinny on the average Joes: 

While the Stadium Course routinely plays over par for the Players Championship, it also brings out the worst in average golfers. That’s what the statistics say from the researchers at Arccos Golf, whose GPS sensors track every swing in a typical round. According to Arccos, the average score for players in the 5- to 15-handicap range is 89. That number is more than confirmed by those who’ve seen it in the flesh. Brandon Barfield is a 12-year veteran caddie at TPC Sawgrass and currently the assistant caddie master. He’s seen scores as high as 202 by a paying customer at the Stadium Course, and only once in over a thousand loops has a player shot even par.

“Most people who come out here, if they’re a 5- or 10-handicap, they’re going to score more like a 10- to 20-handicapper,” he said. “The course just plays 5-10 strokes harder. That might just be from their mentality coming out and knowing what they’re about to go through.

True enough, but I found the track surprisingly playable.  

Dye is a master of visual deception, and one aspect unaddressed is that some large percentage are playing the course for the first time.  There used to be a tiny, little pond short of the green on No. 8 that seems  to have disappeared at some point, making it the only hole without water (though, ironically the hardest of the Par-3's).  

But landing areas are generous and there's always a path to a comfortable bogey, with perhaps No. 17 being an exception.  Although, even there, it's a gigantic green and even the 20-handicappper will have a very short club in his or her hand.  Let me add that they also feature one of the best set of hybrid tees I've seen, eliminating forced carries for the shorter hitters.  

I think you're gonna make some big number your first few times around, and with all the water it's hard to completely avoid it.  But there are pars to be had for any level of golfer that can avoid being intimidated and, most importantly, the player will likely enjoy the shots he's presented.  I enjoyed it much more than I expected to (I played it a total of six times on two trips), and I think we should give Mr. Dye credit for that.

Tour Stuff - Mr. Monahan is in the building and the gloves have come off.  From his presser, leading with his opening statement:

Before I make some additional comments on THE PLAYERS Championship, I wanted to take a moment to address all of the news, discourse and conjecture lately about the world of professional golf.

I'd like to emphatically reiterate what I told our players at our mandatory player meeting two weeks ago at the Honda Classic.

The PGA TOUR is moving on. We have too much momentum and too much to accomplish to be consistently distracted by rumors of other golf leagues and their attempts to disrupt our players, our partners, and most importantly our fans from enjoying the TOUR and the game we all love so much.

I am grateful for the strong support our top players have shown recently and publicly, and I'm extremely proud that we've turned the conversation around to focus on what we do best: Delivering world-class golf tournaments with the best players to the best fans, all while positively impacting the communities in which we play. We are and we always will be focused on legacy, not leverage.

You saw it a few weeks back with Joaquin Neimann winning the Genesis Invitational, a historic venue in Riviera Country Club, huge crowds following his every move and Joaquin receiving the trophy from tournament host Tiger Woods, the player who literally inspired him to take up the game. Those are personal moments that cannot be replicated at any price.

History shows that the PGA TOUR is bigger than any one player. Arnold and Jack both expressed that thought throughout their careers, and Tiger echoed that very sentiment in December and at the Genesis Invitational when he said, the PGA TOUR will always be his home.

So there is no better place than at the home of the PGA TOUR to reiterate our focus and promise to our fans and our players. Let's move on.

OK, I think what he was going for here was that we should move on....What a shame that moveon.org was taken.

Here Jay gives us a predictable non-answer answer:

Q. When that player and investor group approached you in the fall about a streamlined team type series that essentially would have nixed the Saudi threat or infringement or

whatever you want to call it, what were your impressions of that idea, and why did the TOUR nix it? And just as a follow, do you see down the line the TOUR incorporating some team events into your schedule?

JAY MONAHAN: I always act in the best interests of the PGA TOUR, and in that instance and in many instances there are proposals that come our way that just don't make sense. That was one of them.

As it relates to how we move forward and whether or not we're going to incorporate team events, we have a team event in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. The two greatest franchises in team events are Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup. And as an organization, we're going to continue to challenge ourselves to make certain that we're evolving and developing our product to the benefit of our players, our fans and all of our constituents.

This was the proposal in which the Tour would have an  interest, but not control.  It's maybe the single most curious word used in this matter, but when a non-native speaker of English uses a word like "fealty", the cynic in me suspects that he was informed of that specific requirement.

You'll be anxious for the juicy stuff by now:

Q. Jay, you spoke in your opening remarks about wanting to move on from the controversy that no player is bigger than the TOUR. Could you at least -- from Phil's perspective, can you give me your take on how long you think this is going to last? Will this quickly be moved aside? Obviously it's going to be incumbent on Phil to bring the forgiveness that's necessary so that you can truly move on?

JAY MONAHAN: Yeah, I think that as it relates to Phil, you said it; the ball is in his court. He has said that he's stepping away and he wants time for reflection. That's something that I and we are going to respect and honor.

When he's ready to come back to the PGA TOUR, we're going to have that conversation. That's a conversation I look forward to.

I take him at his word that he's looking forward to it.  I'm just not sure that what he envisions meets the conventional definition of a conversation.

Q. Jay, have you spoken to Phil since all of this came out, and when he does return, does he need to do something first? Does he need to speak to you, or can he just show up at a tournament and tee it up again?

JAY MONAHAN: I have not talked to Phil since he made his comments and since he said that he was stepping away.

Like I said, I think the ball is in his court. I would welcome a phone call from him. But it's hard for me to talk about the different scenarios that could play out.

Listen, he's a player that's won 45 times on the PGA TOUR. He's had a Hall of Fame career. He's won here at THE PLAYERS Championship. He's inspired a lot of people and helped grow this Tour, his Tour.

So as difficult as it is to read some of the things that were said, ultimately a conversation will be had when he's ready to have it, and I will be ready to have it, as well.

How ridiculous is it that we don't know if he's been suspended?

I'm a bit tough on Rory's golf game for sure, but he's a first class young man.  Credit to him for these comments  that Jay is ducking:

Q. To follow up, Rory was just in here and said one of the things he'd like to see improved is transparency and he said specifically as it applied to disciplinary matters or even suspensions. Would you consider that, beyond the communication you have with players, would you consider making those things public?

JAY MONAHAN: He just said that?

Q. I can read you the quote, but one of the things -- he was asked to give you a report card, which was very good, by the way --

JAY MONAHAN: I would just say effective immediately, Rory McIlroy is suspended. (Laughter.)

No, listen, Rory is a member of our policy board. He's a player director. That's something that has been raised in the past, and if that's something that a member of our board feels strongly about, rest assured it's a conversation we'll have with our Player Advisory Council and ultimately our board. That's the way the system works.

It's a criticism that has been lobbied against the PGA TOUR through the years, and I think we always have to be open to evolving. That's something that we are open to.

Open to?  Gotta admit, the man has chutzpah!  

Let me interject a related point here.  Geoff has been blogging up a storm about the Tour embrace of legalized betting, though the good stuff is behind his Quad paywall.  But he picked up this bit in a Golf Channel piece that struck me as well, the common theme being an incredible lack of transparency:

Regarding disclosure, Gambuzza was asked by Rich Lerner in the post-feature discussion if player injury reports will be optional. It’s a good question given that other sports provide various ways for gamblers to have some sense who might be at less than 100% or even doubtful for a game. Golf is going to leave such information up to the players.

This is problematic since there are others (caddies, club reps, agents, range pickers) who have access to inside information that can be used to profit. As soon as gamblers know they were kept in the dark and it becomes the “product” lacks transparency, unwanted controversies are all but guaranteed.

Here is the feature under the title of “Golf betting emerging from shadows of sport”. Lerner voices what is said to look at “the impact sports gambling has had on professional leagues around the world and how that translates to golf,” but really is just a messy attempt to rationalize the hard push to capitalize on betting.

Yeah, gamblers love losing to those with better information....  I just don't see how this policy can be maintained, but why are they so locked down on it?  Unless, of course, they want to continue using faux Jet-ski accidents to cover suspensions.... 

Back to Jay:

JAY MONAHAN: Listen, I'm not going to comment -- we don't comment on disciplinary matters, and Phil has asked for some time to step away, and I'm not going to comment any further on that.

Q. From the time Phil's comments were published until five days later when he put out his statement saying he's going to take time away, did you ever feel like the ball would have been in your court to reach out to him?

JAY MONAHAN: No, I didn't.

Q. Why not?

JAY MONAHAN: I've had a lot of conversations with Phil, and my conversations with Phil will stay between the two of us. But I know the man well enough, and I've had enough conversations with him where that's not something that I thought at that point in time I should or needed to do. Certainly had my phone on.

Which leads to his rousing coda:

Q. As much as you talk about moving forward, do you still consider this to be a threat, and is there any part of you that still looks over your shoulder?

JAY MONAHAN: I think I've said this before. I wake up every day assuming someone is trying to take my lunch. That's the way I operate. That's the way we operate as a team.

But we're here at THE PLAYERS Championship. The best players in the world have told you how they feel. I mentioned our partners firmly behind this Tour. I see the possibilities for what we are going to become and how we're going to evolve. I see the incredible working relationship we have with our players.

So long as we focus on the things that we control, which is what I've always tried to do and what we've always tried to do as a team, I think we're going to win, we're going to grow, and I'm not looking over my shoulder, I'm looking forward. I'm excited about what's ahead of me and what's ahead of this organization, and if you're a young player and you're aspiring to play on the PGA TOUR, what's in store for you in the future.

Do guys running non-profits all worry about their lunch being eaten?  

Those excerpts were courtesy of Shack, though somehow this bit (in a piece speculating on whether or not Phil was suspended) got lost in the shuffle:

1. Discipline is still on the table but hasn’t yet been imposed.

Re-read Monahan’s choice of words: “We don’t comment on disciplinary matters, potential matters or actual matters. But every player is accountable for their actions out here.” That suggests that discipline is at least being considered. There are plenty of questions that Mickelson will face in order to return to the Tour. Is he still intending to leave and play the Saudi-backed breakaway league? Monahan has made it clear that players who leave won’t be welcomed back. So Mickelson might need a healthy dose of contrition and a little newfound loyalty, too, if he’s going to contend for title No. 46.

That's really rich.  Refusing to disclose disciplinary actions, even conspiring with players to create fictitious injuries as an alibi, is the opposite of accountability.  More importantly, I think t's counter-productive, as we have little choice but to assume that what they're hiding from us is really bad...

Though, if it would help Jay, I'd be prepared to offer up a short list of players due some of that accountability, hopefully the hot kind.  But it would be a short list, which to me is the whole point.  You're using the attractive nature of the players as a whole to protect those least deserving of it.

Fame, Another Diminished Commodity - Hall of Fames are dreary matters across the sports world, though our game's seems, how did that phrase go, lamer than most?

Anyway, this is the big news about tonight's induction ceremony:

After a stretch of memorable, golfy appearances alongside his son, Charlie, Tiger Woods is set to appear in the limelight alongside his daughter, Sam, Wednesday night: up on stage at the World

Golf Hall of Fame induction.

Sam Woods, 14, will unquestionably become the youngest speaker in WGHOF history when she introduces her 15-major winning father Wednesday evening in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.

Tiger is among the four figures being inducted into the Hall of Fame, joined by former PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem, 74, and women’s golf legends Susie Maxwell Berning, 80, and the late Marion Hollins. Maxwell Berning will be introduced by Judy Rankin, while Finchem will be introduced by Davis Love III. Both Rankin and Love III are fellow HOF members.

Forgive my lack of excitement about Tiger's induction, which couldn't be more awkwardly timed.  There's a reek of desperation in it, as he could well add to the numbers on the plaque.  Obviously golfers don't retire in the sense that baseball or football players do, but wouldn't age 50 make far more sense?

The background is quite a bit off as well.  For instance, when you see that commercial in which Gary Player tells you, "If You Love Golf, You Have to Go"?  Don't dawdle:

Maybe it’s how embarrassing it is they aren’t hosting this at the World Golf Village in St. Augustine. The Hall’s home that’ll be abandoned when the lease is up in 2023. Jay Monahan could not hide that fact very well when asked in is pre-Players presser Tuesday.

Lovers of golf history: please get to the St. Augustine facility before it becomes an Amazon warehouse.

Why is it embarrassing if the World Golf Village isn’t working? Happens all the time.

Maybe because the guy who pushed to put the Hall in a remote condo development also happens to be getting inducted this year. How truly bizarre for Finchem to going in the Hall he envisioned and billed to developers as another Robert Trent Jones Trail with IMAX, outlet malls and a PGA Tour store about to become a hipster church.

Well, I've been nursing (word choice intended) a chuckle over Tiger being forced to share the stage with....checking notes, Nurse Ratched.   Of course, the good nurse's sidebars with his successor should be amusing, comparing notes on a certain topless Aussie.  

But Geoff knows his history, and it's not one that makes me eager to watch his moment:

I shutter to think how much the World Golf Foundation and PGA Tour have pumped into making Finchem’s vision seem sustainable. The trajectory of the Hall looks like most things under his watch. Thankfully, the courses they built turned okay, the development is well done and seems like a really nice place to live. PGA Tour Entertainment is making use of the place for the time being. But few visitors stop through for the exhibits. Worse, current golfers and top players don’t seem to care that much about the Hall as a general concept. At least not enough to show up at the ceremonies.

For the incredible 2015 event inside St Andrews’ historic Younger Hall, every effort was made to make it easy for players to attend. Arnold Palmer and Peter Thomson made the journey when they probably shouldn’t have at that stage of their lives. But it’s who they were and why they’re legends. Other top players already in town for The Open? So many passed, including Tiger opting to not see his buddy Mark O’Meara go in.

And that's how Tiger treats his buddies.  If he can't be bothered, why should we?

Now, there is a reason to get excited, and that would be the two ladies involved, although there's something weird going on, per the press release:

World Golf Hall of Fame Announces Presenters for 2022 Inductee Class:

2022 Inductee, Susie Maxwell Berning (Judy Rankin)

2022 Inductee, Tim Finchem (Davis Love III)

2022 Inductee, Tiger Woods (Sam Woods)

Induction Ceremony to Air Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET (Live on Golf Channel) and

Feature New Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony Trophy Designed by Tiffany & Co.

Guys, aren't you missing someone?  Yanno, her:

 By virtue of being,, yanno, dead, she seems to be afforded second class status:

2022 inductee – Susie Maxwell Berning (Presenter: Judy Rankin, Hall of Fame member)

2022 inductee – Tim Finchem (Presenter: Davis Love III, Hall of Fame member)

2022 inductee – Tiger Woods (Presenter: Sam Woods, daughter)

*Marion Hollins will be recognized posthumously as the fourth member of the 2022 class*.

Does that mean she doesn't get an introduction and hagiography like the other three?  

Here's the blurb provided:

Marion Hollins (Contributor)

A visionary golf course developer/architect, Marion Hollins became a pioneer of the sport. A standout golfer who won the 1921 U.S. Women’s Amateur, she would shift her attention by contributing to the development of the Monterey Peninsula into a golf mecca. She made significant contributions to Cypress Point Club, and then founded and oversaw the development of Pasatiempo Golf Club. Later – in collaboration with Bobby Jones and Alister Mackenzie – she provided her influence on the development of Augusta National Golf Club.

Took them long enough....  All you really need to know is the esteem in which she was held by Alister Mackenzie and Bobby Jones.  Quite the diss, considering the nobodies enshrined before they remembered old Marion.

That's it for today, kids.  Tomorrow is a travel day, and then we'll catch up on the other side.