Tuesday Trifles

Really, I'd like to ignore LIV for a day, but that would entail not blogging....  Unless you stopped by for a Mayakoba preview....

I Saw It On TV - I left a couple of thoughts hanging, but let's use this exhaustive ESPN piece to dive back in, first with their use of last weeks team event to frame LIV's status:

The light-hearted banter seemed like a lot of fun, but it also was a microcosm of one of the biggest criticisms of LIV Golf during its inaugural season. While golf has indeed been (much) louder on the

tour being funded by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, with music blaring from speakers on the driving range and musical acts like Nelly, Snoop Dogg and The Chainsmokers entertaining fans at tournaments, how serious are LIV Golf's (very) highly paid players about the actual golf?

With $50 million, the largest purse in professional golf history, on the line at the inaugural team championship, the players displayed a jarring dose of levity during the news conference. Three years ago, while Koepka was trying to win a third straight PGA Championship or U.S. Open, his intensity might have burned holes through reporters who asked about his chances of winning. He once said other PGA Tour players didn't like him because of his confidence.

Louder?  Well, perhaps on site, but for something so loud, not many seem to be hearing it:

A recent survey of golf fans by Golf Datatech, which provides market research to the golf

industry, found that only 12% of respondents watched the LIV Golf event outside Chicago on Sept. 16-18. The poll found that 80% of the respondents, which included 641 "serious golfers" who averaged 70 rounds per year, hadn't watched any of the LIV events. The poll was conducted Sept. 20-25.

According to data obtained by ESPN, the LIV Golf tournament outside Boston in early September averaged 114,000 concurrent viewers on YouTube in the final round. The average dropped to 20,000 concurrent viewers for the final round of the Bangkok event and 26,000 for the tournament in Saudi Arabia. By comparison, the final round of PGA Tour events this past season, excluding the majors, averaged about 2.6 million viewers on network TV.

About 72,000 people were watching on YouTube when Johnson made a short putt to win the team championship Sunday.

I can't hear you....

So, where do things stand on that front... Well, they're talking to folks:

Various published reports have noted that LIV Golf was unable to secure a media rights deal with multiple TV networks and popular sports streaming platforms such as ESPN+, Apple TV+ or Peacock. The TV networks that have traditionally broadcast professional men's golf -- ESPN, CBS Sports and NBC Sports -- struck a nine-year, $6.1 billion deal with the PGA Tour in March 2020.

On Sept. 27, Golfweek reported LIV Golf was close to finalizing a deal with Fox Sports 1 to purchase airtime to broadcast its events in the U.S. Two weeks earlier, Norman told an ESPN radio station in Chicago that the circuit was still talking to four different networks. In a statement, LIV Golf called the Golfweek report "incomplete and inaccurate."

At the CAA World Congress of Sports in New York on Oct. 11, Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks told Sports Business Journal reporter John Ourand that there was "not a lot of heat" around a potential media rights deal with LIV Golf.

I've done a Google search and the words "heat" and golf" do not appear anywhere in proximity on the World Wide Web, which fact the Saudis might have learned had they done any basic due diligence.

But there's lots more on this subject, none of which leads this observer to think there's a pot of gold to be had:

Sources told ESPN that purchasing airtime on a cable sports network to broadcast a golf tournament on the weekend might cost as much as $900,000 per hour. That doesn't include production costs, which are considered some of the most expensive in sports because of the number of cameras and personnel required to broadcast 18 holes. Sorour, the Golf Saudi CEO, suggested to the New Yorker that LIV Golf would create its own network if it couldn't find a partner in the U.S.

"If it was up to me, I'd make it in-house," Sorour said.

Khosla told ESPN that LIV Golf was still having conversations with linear and non-linear TV and streaming outlets in the U.S., and that the process would play itself out over the next few months. DeChambeau said LIV Golf didn't yet have a broadcast partner because of "strategic reasons," but didn't detail why.

"By next year, I wholeheartedly believe we will have a television partner," DeChambeau said.

Don't ya love that non-linear bit?  But perhaps now we understand the importance of the shotgun start, because shortening that broadcast window saves them $900,000 an hour.   But if loud is their M.O., this will generate suitably loud guffaws:

"There's entities out there in the U.S. that had to pay for their broadcasting at first, and then it's grown into something," Watson said. "We can sit here and name the entities that have done that and we all know who they are. [LIV Golf] is broadcast in many countries; people are loving it. I think we'll get there."

In the past, there have been examples of brokered programming in sports, in which leagues paid a TV network for airtime, including Major League Soccer, various iterations of professional football leagues not named the NFL, auto racing and professional wrestling. But none of them were paying the exorbitant salaries LIV Golf is doling out -- or the enormous purses. During next year's 14-tournament schedule, LIV golfers will compete for $405 million, $150 million more than they did this season.

These guys are a riot.... To be fair, they are putting their money where their mouth is, following that USFL playbook faithfully.  Fortunately, they seem poised to win their antitrust lawsuit around, checking notes, 2034, whereupon they can collect their $1 in damages.... And really, who doesn't love that USFL call-out with Herschel Walker back in the news?

Sponsor This - Obviously, the world's most prestigious companies are lining up to have their names linked to the bonecutters:

As far as sponsorships, Khosla said LIV Golf has entertained various potential partners at its events. Up until this point, the circuit had just one presenting sponsor: ROSHN, Saudi Arabia's leading real estate developer, which is also largely funded by the Public Investment Fund. As part of the Saudi Vision 2030 campaign, which seeks to reduce the country's dependence on oil and diversify its economy, ROSHN hopes to bring home ownership to 70% of the population by 2030.

"It takes time to convince people that this is here to stay, which I believe we have done," Khosla said. "We are launching the league next year with 12 teams. Those are all fundamentals that we have to establish. And then I think brands come on board because they see what the product is."

Gee, the product is, checking notes, golf.  Strike that, the product is meaningless, exhibition golf, so the sky is the limit...

Econ 101 - They are spreading it around with alarming haste:

MONEY HAS BEEN flowing on the LIV Golf circuit this year. Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, which reportedly manages $620 billion in assets, was prepared to dump at least $784 million into its new sporting venture in its inaugural season, according to an LIV Golf news release earlier this year.

But LIV Golf president and COO Atul Khosla, a former executive with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, told ESPN that total expenditures have actually been much more than that. The $784 million total includes employee salaries, build-outs at tournaments and production costs for broadcasting LIV events on social media and its official website.

Haven't they spent more than that on just their broadcast team?  I mean, you think Feherty comes cheaply?

But the commitments dwarf that paltry sum:

That total does not include the guaranteed, multiyear contracts for players, which might be at least one-third of that. Along with DeChambeau's whopping contract, the PIF has reportedly bankrolled as much as $200 million for six-time major champion Phil Mickelson, at least $150 million for Johnson and at least $100 million for reigning Open Championship winner Cameron Smith. LIV Golf officials declined to provide details of the players' contracts.

Aside from the headliners, enough money was offered to lure former major championship winners Sergio Garcia, Reed and Louis Oosthuizen away from the PGA Tour. Chile's Joaquin Niemann and Mexico's Abraham Ancer were ranked among the top 25 players in the Official World Golf Ranking when they defected to LIV Golf.

Spending so much to lure players away from the PGA Tour was the cost of doing business, Khosla said.

"I'm not sure if everyone has sort of understood that when you have a startup, when you disrupt a space, it's no different than I would imagine, you know, decades ago, Amazon coming in and disrupting the book industry at that point in time, or Uber coming in and disrupting something else," Khosla said. "There is capital required. There's a burn rate required. There's a tenacity that's required to work through the first couple of years. That's what we are, that's what we're doing."

But this is all just business, right?

Khosla insists LIV Golf isn't some sort of college football NIL collective wildly spending millions of dollars for players with no financial concern. Majed Al Sorour, CEO of the Saudi Golf Federation and a high school friend of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, told The New Yorker that the PIF had funding for LIV Golf through 2025. At some point, Khosla knows, the Saudis will expect a return on their investment.

"We report into a board, and that's the expectation," Khosla said.

Yeah, and how do they ever see that?  

Obviously the reason there's little network or sponsor interest is that there's no return to be realized, a huge caution flag the Saudis are ignoring.  Although, before getting to their yield expectations, they actually go here:

Will the Saudis play with their new toy for a couple of years, lose interest and move on?

"I don't believe that at all," Khosla said. "You know, they are prudent investors. They've made investments all over the world, many in the United States, with great American companies. We are clearly viewed in that lens."

Oh yeah, even more amusing than their fever dream is that the ESPN reporter added this little nugget:

Just in August, the Public Investment Fund spent another $7.6 billion on shares in U.S. companies like Amazon, Home Depot, Microsoft and Zoom.

Oh, I get it, LIV is just like Amazon.  

The Payoff -  The financial delusions are laugh-out-loud funny, as back here on Planet Earth we deal with economic reality as we find it.  I don't think you need my financial acumen to instinctively realize that you can't pay a 50-something year old Phil Mickelson $200 million large and generate a return on that investment.  Maybe if he was producing porn, but certainly nothing that involves a golf club in his hands will accomplish that.

So, what financial alchemy do they contemplate?

LIV GOLF'S VISION for 2023 and beyond is as bold as Saudi Arabia's. LIV Golf will transform into a league next year and play a 14-tournament schedule. The league will be built on a franchise model, in which top players will own 25% of their teams and the league will keep 75%. It will be the captain's responsibility to sell sponsorships for his team, while LIV Golf will also be seeking leaguewide partnerships with advertisers and sponsors of its own. Starting next season, LIV's teams will operate as independent entities, with LIV Golf providing some support for their operations, but teams will be responsible for their travel, lodging, physical trainers, coaches and other expenses. Teams can also generate revenue through their own merchandise sales and apparel deals.

Watson said he plans to build his team like a franchise in any other sport. He'll have a president, general manager and support team in place. Watson already plans to change the name of his team, which is currently being called the Niblicks, after the early golf clubs that were the equivalent of modern-day wedges or 9-irons.

The author is named Mark Schlaback, unknown to your humble blogger, but seems actually to be on the Saudi's payroll with that lede above.  Because that bold Saudi vision seems to still include mass beheadings and a deepening alliance with the Russinas.

But maybe I'm selling these guys short, because this is clearly some next-gen thinking from a noted visionary:

"We're gonna just start making a team," Watson said. "We're gonna start having our own logo, like the Yankees [and] the Lakers, all the teams that we're used to seeing with that logo. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to create a league just like the NBA, just like Major League Baseball, just like the NFL."

Watson, 43, also envisions a day when he'll step away from his franchise, sell his stakes and turn it over to another golfer.

OMG!  A logo?  Well, that changes everything....

And not just that visionary is on board:

DeChambeau has an even bigger vision for his franchise, which is currently called Crushers GC. His long-term plans include junior golf academies, fitness and sports complexes, and maybe even his own golf course. He believes having Anirban Lahiri on his team will open opportunities in India that he otherwise wouldn't have.

"One of the reasons why I picked Anirban is he's a huge player in the Indian market, and we want to help go over there and grow golf-build driving ranges, maybe even golf courses," DeChambeau said. "The real estate over there is very difficult to acquire because of how jampacked it is. There's opportunities to not only take certain players but utilize them in a positive way in their area of the globe."

I see no downside to Bryson fully committing to that Indian golf market, because no one ever thought of that.

Settling Scores - Everything old is new again, but it's always helpful to remind ourselves of who these guys are.  I'm simply going to excerpt this story from 1994:

It's not the first time the 67-year-old Australian, widely known as the "Shark," has attempted to convince golfers to break away from the PGA Tour. Before the Shark Shootout at Sherwood

Country Club in Thousand Oaks, California, in November 1994, Norman invited the tour's top players to a closed-door meeting to hear his plans for an eight-tournament circuit that would begin play the next year. Fox Network had signed a 10-year deal with a management company to stage eight tournaments, in which 30 to 40 players would compete for $3 million purses.

Jacobsen, a seven-time winner on the PGA Tour, was among what he believes were 15 to 18 players in the meeting that day.

"My partner was Arnold Palmer," Jacobsen said.

"When we got up there, [Norman] presented us with a schedule of events around the world. Tournaments in places like Singapore and Hong Kong and Montreal and Johannesburg, places all around the world. He was talking about this series of tournaments and how we were all invited to play."

Jacobsen remembers someone -- but doesn't remember who, nearly 28 years later -- asking Norman how they were going to secure releases from the PGA Tour to play.

"Maybe you misunderstand, we're going to renounce our PGA Tour membership and join this tour," Norman told the players in the room, according to Jacobsen.

"The temperature in the room dropped by around 15 degrees," Jacobsen said.

Palmer, who won 62 times on tour, including seven majors, was the next person to speak up.

"How many times do you think we were offered the opportunity to leave the tour and create our own?" Palmer asked Norman.

"Probably quite a few times," Norman replied.

"And do you know why we didn't?" Palmer asked him. "It's bad for golf, bad for the players and I don't want anything to do with it."

According to Jacobsen, Palmer got up and walked out.

The obvious difference this time being the Saudi's willingness to fund all that guaranteed money.  Funny thing is that that same Peter Jacobson had this astute observation earlier in the piece:

"The world of golf is way overreacting to this LIV thing," said former PGA Tour player Peter Jacobsen, now a commentator for NBC Sports and Golf Channel.

"It's not a threat to the PGA Tour. It's a threat to the players' careers that are leaving. It's almost like they're retiring from golf. They're highly paid and highly skilled -- and the outcome is of no consequence."

Well, it's a bit of a threat to the ecosystem, though I agree with his competitive assessment.

Predictions Are Hard - Really, only the ones about the future.... So, whither LIV?

This guys isn't exactly an impartial observer:

When former U.S. President Donald Trump walked off the 18th green during Thursday's LIV Golf Pro-Am at a golf course he owned, he complimented the Saudis for what they're doing in men's professional golf.

"It's big time and it's big-time money," Trump said. "It's unlimited money."

Trump also suggested LIV Golf wasn't done luring away top PGA Tour players. He hosted LIV Golf's third event at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. There's also speculation another one of his courses, Trump National outside Washington, D.C., will join the LIV Golf schedule next season.

"A lot of other people are coming over," Trump said. "Big names, they're coming over. The star system is very important in sports. If you don't have the star system, you're not going to be successful."

I understand it's going to be YUUUGE!  But, are a lot of folks heading that way?  If the money is truly unlimited they just might, though there's a bit of a logjam, no?  

Even if true, and the rumor mill has bene fairly quiet, their best case scenario seems problematic for a few reasons:

• A few more $100 million contracts just pushes that return on investment further down the road;
• Can you say "relegation"?  I thought you could, but that 48 player cap gets awkward as well.

What I think we'll find is that certain players, can you hear me Phil, will have contracts that preclude relegation, and that will further undermine any sense of competitive relevance to their events.  There's all sorts of happy talk about relegation and transfer windows and the like, but just give me enough notice to have the corn popped when Sergio gets relegated....

Eamon Lynch has his own predictions, and Nostradamus' reputation isn't theratened:

Lynch: As LIV Golf's season winds down, the propaganda war is just getting started

You're way out on that limb here, Eamon.  He has some easy fun with the hostage videos:

Friday brought a deluge of social media posts by players declaring their happiness, excitement,

gratitude and amazement at LIV’s growth and game-changing impact. Their dispatches bore all the spontaneity and authenticity of hostage tapes, albeit from willing and well-compensated captives.

“What an amazing year it’s been. Game-changing,” wrote Sergio Garcia.

“Incredible to see LIV grow the sport,” added Louis Oosthuizen.

“This was an amazing year and can’t wait for the next years to come. I’m super honored to be part of Fireballs.” That from Eugenio Lopez-Chacarra. Fireballs refers to his team and not to the missiles his employer has been raining upon Yemeni civilians since the Spaniard was 14 years old.

I'm old enough to remember when this was one of the good guys out there:

“Making the jump into a start up product like LIV and seeing it grow so much, so quickly has been exciting and rewarding to be part of,” wrote Graeme McDowell. His followers seemed unconvinced. “Are they literally standing over you with the sabre when ‘you’ write this crap?” one replied.

 No, that's the great thing, seeing how easily these guys can be bought.  

Anyway, Eamon keeps dishing:

The worldwide viewing audience for LIV events is often comparable to the number of Super Bowl viewers who might die of natural causes before the halftime show, and that in turn is a multiple of the number of spectators on site. Tickets to the game-changing event that’s growing the sport this weekend in Miami were being sold—or, more accurately, were available—for $4 on the secondary market. There’s no TV deal, despite LIV negotiating to buy time on Fox Sports for its product, and no major sponsors eager to don a hazmat suit and climb aboard the Good Ship Shark. Those touting LIV as a rousing success are paid by LIV, or aspire to be. Beyond that congregation, believers are harder to come by.

A day may arrive when LIV becomes the success that its paid endorsers and would-be bootlickers claim it already is. But for now, the only storyline it has is money. That grants LIV staying power—so long as it suits the whims of its isolated, mercurial benefactor—but sports fans tend not to grant allegiance to cash-centric enterprises (Jay Monahan would be advised to note that this is as true of FedEx Cup payouts as it is of LIV purses).

I think Eamon actually tripped himself up there.   The FedEx Cup is a hot mess and deserving of Eamon's vitriol, but the target really is the guaranteed money.  As incoherent and silly as the FedEx is (and LIV's events as well), at least it's actually earned on the golf course.

But one could almost get the sense that Eamon isn't a fan of the Wahabis:

This weekend’s conclusion of the LIV season won’t herald an interval in the accompanying theatrics. Expect rumors of fresh defections, more threats of litigation, increased bluster, more frequent claims of conspiracies. But there will also be a steady drumbeat for a deal to end the rancor. It won’t emanate only from those with no stomach for a fight and who want an exit ramp to easy street, but also from industry figures who sense an opportunity to suction Saudi money and who need to first position their avarice as an act of conciliation for the good of the sport.

Beware the approaching troupe of ethical acrobats who try to convince us that long-term commerce can’t be hostage to short-term concerns, like bonesaw murders and rights abuses. They represent the final push of Saudi propaganda, outwardly respectable moral ciphers whose aim is to exhaust doubters and critics to a point where accommodations can be reached and checks cashed. A long winter lies ahead.

And what happens when they tire of their new toy?  has anyone asked Phil?

LIV/Not LIV - An awkward segue to a non-LIV item, though of course it's LIV-influenced:

PGA Tour is looking at quicker routes for elite college players to reach the big leagues

I won't have time to do it justice, but one of the long-term grievances I have with Ponte Vedra Beach is the negative effect the Tour has had on the amateur game.  Most notably, the elimination of PGA Tour Q-School (what I've called indentured servitude on the Korn Ferry Tour), has pushed young players to turn professional earlier in the year, severely diminishing the U.S. Amateur most notably.

The reality doesn't quite live up to the header, because they're structuring this to have only the most limited impact:

In the first scenario, the No. 1 player in the final PGA Tour University Ranking, which identifies the top seniors in each class, would be eligible, following the NCAA Championship in June, to receive membership on the PGA Tour. He would be placed at the end of the Korn Ferry Tour category and be subject to reshuffle. The memo said the “benefits would commence this season with the class of 2023 with access for 2024 and beyond to be evaluated with the PAC and Player Directors.”

In the second proposal, which seeks to “ensure that a unique talent has an accelerated pathway to the PGA Tour,” top underclassmen could advance by achieving key benchmarks in the college, amateur and professional ranks. Points would be accumulated based on top collegiate awards, amateur wins, career-best World Amateur Golf Rankings position, and performance in PGA Tour events, including majors.

To provide context in its memo, the tour said that, since 2010, three underclassmen would have qualified via the second pathway. The tour did not identify the three golfers.

Sheesh!  Given that they just offered ten Tour cards to keep Keith Pelley's ragtag crew in the fold, this seems quite chintzy.

Splitsville -  No, not a Tom and Giselle story, but I thought those days were behind her:

Lydia Ko parted ways last month with instructor Sean Foley. The former world No. 1 took to Instagram to make the announcement, noting that they decided to go their own ways as a coach

and player for “logistical reasons,” but that Foley will always remain a close friend and mentor.

“When I first met Sean, I was in a place where I didn’t have a lot of confidence in myself and in my game,” Ko wrote. “Over the past two years he has helped me evolve as a better player and person. Our time together was full of so much learning, laughter.”

Ko, 25, recently won at the BMW Ladies Championship in South Korea for her 18th career title, calling this her most consistent year yet. A two-time winner this season, Ko leads the LPGA in scoring, and she leads the Rolex Player of the Year race with 11 top-5 finishes in 20 starts.

Currently No. 3 in the world, Ko was ranked outside the top 50 when she began working with Foley during the summer of 2020.

Weird timing, eh?  She went through that period of firing everybody, though that seemed to be when things weren't going well.  But why now, and what the heck does "logistical reasons' mean?

So, just a brief history of her swing instructors:

Now, with a chance to become No. 1 again for the first time since 2017, she continues a new chapter with only a handful of events left in the season. Ko’s sister and manager Sura told Golfweek that Ko has been casually working with instructor Ted Oh again, but nothing is yet full time. Ko first started working with Oh ahead of the 2018 season.

Ko worked with Jorge Parada prior to Foley. Her list of former instructors also includes David Whelan, Gary Gilchrist and David Leadbetter. As an amateur, she worked with New Zealand’s Guy Wilson.

Perhaps it would have been easier to list those with whom she hasn't worked?  To be hired by Lydia merely starts the clock ticking towards your dismissal, but that seems to go for caddies, managers and pretty much everyone in Lydia's life.

So, perhaps I'm too cynical, but there was this news a few months back:

Speculation has swirled for about a month, but Lydia Ko has finally confirmed that she had gotten engaged. Golfweek’s Beth Ann Nichols saw that Ko spoke about her engagement during a press conference at a Ladies Asian Tour event in Indonesia.

The 25-year-old from New Zealand is set to marry Chung Jun, according to The Korean Herald. His father is vice chairman of Hyundai Card, a major credit-card company.

Mr. Jun, you should consider the position temporary.....

I'll catch you later in the week, although I'm not exactly sure when.  To be safe, check back early and often... 

Weekend Wrap

That sound you hear in the background is the Fairview greens being punched.... Tough time of year for us all so, I think you'll agree, let it snow.

The Bad & The Ugly - One thing on which all right-minded folks can agree is that the PGA Tour wore a short skirt and had it coming, just for the crime of holding events such as the Butterfield Bermuda Whatever...  I'll just say, though, that if the preeminent tour in golf wants to hold events with only one top 50 player in the field, you might as well let that lucky soul win:

The World No. 48 survived rough conditions on the back nine at Port Royal Golf Course to post a final round 70 to capture the Butterfield Bermuda Championship by one stroke for his second PGA Tour win.

“I’m absolutely over the moon,” he said after the round. “The first one was amazing but to be able to win again, it’s fantastic. I get whatever, it’s pretty much a three-year exemption and all the kind of cool things that come with it. It’s just you’re kind of so proud and it’s amazing to be able to do it again.”

He found himself in quite the fortunate spot, grabbing the "W" while we're still pretending that these events are every bit as important as, sat Riviera.... 

It took a characteristic collapse from a young player to allow chalk to prevail:

However, Griffin, who was trying to complete a fairy tale comeback after giving up pro golf for a time last year, collapsed in the strong winds on the back nine Sunday. He birdied 10 and 11 but followed it with bogeys at 12-15 and a double at difficult par-3 16th to give up the lead to Power.

“Not how I wanted to, but it was playing tough out there,” Griffin said. “Those are some of the toughest holes coming down the stretch, especially trying to win a PGA Tour event.”

Ben Griffin is the full name, and he took his learning experience with sufficient grace that we'd be pleased to see him make some noise down the road.

This is the stuff of bloated schedules and product dilution, so Nurse Ratched should take a bow.  Take away the FedEx Cup points (and, more importantly, the ever-present promos) and this could be a respectable event for the journeymen of the Tour to improve their status.  It just falls flat when its status dwarfs the strength of its field, and I suspect the TV ratings will indicate mass indifference.  The only remaining mystery is whether a discernable audience was detected.  Your humble blogger is going with the Under....

But, that miserable field of strength wasn't the most humiliating part of the weekend for Ponte Vedra Beach.  Faced with a miserable field, they asked themselves, what can we do to make this more of a clown show?  Shockingly, they came up with two very strong answers.

The first is captured in this tweet:

If you consider yourself the best golf Tour in the world, you cannot allow a 65 year old who hasn't played on a Tour since 1982 to compete in a full fedex cup point event. There has to be a minimum level of play for sponsor exemptions. You cannot have 65 year olds shooting 89. pic.twitter.com/r5whh4cqER

— Andy Johnson 🍳 (@AndyTFE) October 27, 2022

The name is Kim Swan and I believe that he's a Bermuda native, but he shot 89-81 and missed the cut by 114 shots.... OK, I might have made up that last number, but you'll take my point.

Even more humiliating was the presence of John Daly in the field.  Daly beat Kim by some 23 strokes, yet didn't so much as as sniff the cut line.  But I'm actually happy to have John Daly in the news, because he's an object lesson for us all, a tired act that simply refuses to go away.  But do we think PReed reads my blog?  Back in the day, Daly made the unforced error of suing a journalist, with the predictable result that his Tour disciplinary file was publicly released.  Talk abut a page-turner

The PGA Tour ordered John Daly to undergo counseling or enter alcohol rehabilitation centers seven times, once disciplined him for hitting golf shots off the top of a beer can during a pro-am and cited him 21 times for "failure to give best efforts," during Tour events.

Daly has also been accused of nearly hitting an Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent after failing to stop his car at a security checkpoint at the 2005 U.S. Open in Pinehurst, N.C., and of launching golf balls over the heads of spectators who were sitting in the bleachers during a 1993 golf clinic, according to the PGA Tour's confidential personnel file on Daly.

The Tour's initial disciplinary action against Daly was for an incident on April 17, 1991, in Hattiesburg, Miss., when he cursed a playing partner during a Tour event there. That was four months before Daly burst onto the golf scene by winning the PGA Championship.

Eventually, his personnel file at the PGA Tour swelled to 456 pages, with incidents covering 18 years, through the fall of 2008. Daly was fined nearly $100,000 during that span, suspended from the Tour five times, placed on probation six times, cited 11 times for "conduct unbecoming a professional" and 21 times for "failure to give best efforts."

Begging the question, what exactly does one need to do to be excluded from the PGA Tour?  Rape?  Murder?

So, if I were a sports book, I'd have a prop bet for the over-under on the PReed disciplinary file at, say 456 pages.  So, do we like the over or the under? 

LIVing The Life - The first season of LIV concluded with a rousing coda, as the favored 4Aces hung on for a dramatic victory watched by million s of golf fans..... OK, I made most of that up, although I think the 4Aces actually did win.

I think this headline writer has it about right:

LIV Golf’s season is over, but the question remains: Do you care?

I do actually care that it's over.... does that count?

Sean Zak sums up their first season thusly:

After eight events in five months, it should be pretty clear what LIV Golf is all about. It is a

league backed entirely by the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. It’s a plaintiff and counter-defendant in a major antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour. It has paid huge sums of money to pluck some of the best golfers in the world as well as some of the best young talent on the planet. It does not have Tiger Woods’ support but it has all of Phil Mickelson’s. It has reiterated good intentions for entering the global golf ecosystem, but that hasn’t totally manifested in reality. Its entire first season was streamed on YouTube to disappointing viewership numbers, depending on your analyst for that information. It’s been available on television in other countries around the world — ask your analyst for the value of that, too. It has staunch support in some corners of the internet and even stronger detractors in others. But now it’s even more clear — it is not going away.

We frequently see examples of headlines totally disconnected from the article below, most recently with that WSJ article on the Justice Department antitrust investigation.  But here we have a paragraph in which the conclusion seems equally disconnected from that which comes above, partially caused by the use of imaginative language to distort reality.  Because, Sean's use of the term "some" is the giveaway, no?  It is a sufficiently vague term that is used correctly, but the more accurate reporter might have been tempted to instead use the more specific term "two,", which is precisely how many of both they're acquired.

But the contention that LIV is "not going away" might prove true or untrue, but the only factor identified in that paragraph that supports that contention is  the first bit, its support from the Saudi Public Investment Fund.  I'd like Sean to commit an actual act of journalism and explain what the Saudis are getting for their money and why that leads him to expect continued support, but that's above Sean's pay grade.

Sean does fill in some color, which doesn't seem to help their cause:

What fans found at LIV Miami what exactly what we’ve come to recognize from the breakaway tour. On Day 1, spectators were greeted by a lady on stilts in a hot pink, bedazzled uniform wearing a flamingo hat and blowing bubbles into the air. Twenty yards away a unicyclist wove

through the crowd juggling bowling pins, nearly crashing when one hit the pavement. There’s a reason why some people call LIV Golf a circus. In some ways it is so different than the pro golf we’ve known that you stop to look around and wonder where you really are. But then a pro golfer and his caddie walk by to remind us of the sports event we’re attending.

Rather than a tense weekend filled with smack talk, what played out at Doral was something more akin to golf camp. Many players stayed on-site at the lavish resort on the edge of Miami. If you were too, you’d see Anirban Lahiri and his family walking to breakfast. You’d pass Louis Oosthuizen in his flip-flops or run into Sergio Garcia in the Sam Snead Villa. When four of the 12 teams had first-round byes, they played practice rounds together at the other course on campus. Each opponent selection show was a cozy affair between friends that mostly resulted in laughter. Teams that lost hung around all weekend to watch. Joaquin Niemann’s season ended Friday but he received a haircut from Cam Smith Sunday morning in front of dozens of fans. LIV golfers are by no means rivaling each other, and when asked about how tension between teams could be created, the four remaining captains Saturday night could barely muster up an example.

They've acquired a reputation for hosting exhibitions, which was only enhanced by the golf camp vibe of the week.  Clearly the guys are enjoying themselves, though your humble bloggers remains mystified as to why the Wahabis, a grim lot indeed, think self-satisfied golfers yucking it up  will appeal to the rest of us.  I'm glad Pat Perez has found happiness, but I don't feel any sense that he's earned it, do you?

Many made jokes and quips (this writer included) throughout LIV Golf’s inaugural season, but it was Pat Perez who got the last laugh.

Often the odd-score-out for his loaded 4Aces team that features Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed and Talor Gooch, the 46-year-old veteran couldn’t be happier after a final-round 2-under 70 at Trump National Doral – which tied Johnson and Reed for their team’s low score of the day – at the LIV Golf Team Championship.

How exactly did Pat Perez get that "last laugh"?  In that traditional LIUV way, for sure:

“All the push-back, all the negative comments, everything we’ve gotten, at this point I really don’t care. I mean, I don’t care. I’m paid. I don’t give a damn,” Perez said with a laugh

See, we've found common ground.  Nothing grows the game of golf quite like Pat Perez getting paid... 

So, LIV's not going away, but where exactly is it going?  We've heard about their plans to hold fourteen events, but there's news in this short 'graph:

As LIV executives explained Saturday morning to the press, LIV will begin its 14-event schedule in February, hoping to file in gingerly around the major championships and “heritage events” on the PGA Tour. Its operating purpose for the next three months is to commercialize its teams, even if your Saturday foursome doesn’t know exactly who is playing for the Niblicks. LIV dreams of a day where each team is sponsored, with its own operating budgets and staff. Making a Torque GC Instagram account is one thing. Convincing a Fortune 500 company of team valuations is another.

That bit about avoiding the PGA Tour's "heritage events is new to your humble blogger, but also add in this bit from elsewhere:

But next year, LIV will be renamed the LIV Golf League and will have 12 teams contesting a 14-event global schedule—nine in the U.S. and five overseas. It is set to run from late February to September.

It all perhaps depends upon your definition of "heritage events", but finding those fourteen weeks won't be the easiest exercise, though the most important word in the 'graph might be September.  Because, while Greg Norman blathers on about creating a global tour and growing the game, not even the Saudis are stupid enough to take on the NFL.  Combined with the surprise success of the CJ Cup (caused by being forced to hold it in the U.S.), seems to indicate that the death match will be played as a home game for Jay Monahan.

I simply can't have a conversation with anyone on the topic of LIV without the suggestion that they "have to do a deal".  To which I typically respond, "Sure, but tell me what that deal looks like", because I sure don't see it.  Jay doesn't know what to do with the Fall, so it's up for grabs, but Greg and his Saudi paymasters want it all, which they might get but only by continuing to overpay in perpetuity.

There's lots of happy talk about monetizing their teams and the like:

“Our goals are to transition to the league, have 12 teams established and get them off the ground,

and clearly build on the on-course and fan experience we are seeing and the engagement we are seeing," Khosla said. “We have to start commercializing the product. Get on TV. [We] need to find corporate partners. Those are milestones we need to hit going into next year."

The league will also grow to 60 players, given that each of the 12 teams will add a substitute player who can only be used if one of the teammates becomes injured or can’t play in a certain week. Teams will be made up of a “principal” player—the captain—selected by LIV’s board, as well as two seeded players determined by the top 24 on the points standings from this inaugural season. The fourth member of the team will be a wildcard chosen by the captain, and the team will be rounded out by the substitute.

LIV also has future plans for a 60-day transfer window similar to that in English soccer. Officials said Saturday that was already happening in an informal manner and that several players would be on new teams before the 2023 season begins in late February.

I for one have acquired a deep supply of popcorn, and eagerly await those milestones falling fast.

Shall we see what our Tour Confidential panel thought of it all?  I think so, then I'll need to wrap our wrappage:

1. LIV Golf ended its inaugural year on Sunday with the finale of its $50 team championship event at Trump Doral. Days earlier, Phil Mickelson said “it’s pretty remarkable how far LIV Golf has come in the last six, seven months” and that it’s “a force in the game that’s not going away.” Now that we can put a bow on the controversial league’s inaugural season, how would you assess it? How have your feelings about it changed over the past year? What worked? Or didn’t? What surprised you?

Josh Sens: A year ago, most of us on this forum would have said LIV had little chance of taking shape at all. And even less chance after Mickelson’s ‘scary mofos’ comment in February. That it not only exists but has drawn a bunch of green jackets, a former world No. 1, the reigning Open/Players champ, etc., counts as a surprising success. What LIV has failed to do is offer a compelling product — though I’m not sure that’s so much a flaw in LIV as it is a feature of modern professional golf. Many of us started saying this long before Rory brought it up. But what the world needs isn’t more pro golf on TV but less of it. The game should pack it in for a while each year. Let people miss it. LIV came into being partly by exploiting a weakness in the PGA Tour — too many snooze-fest events that too few fans care about. But what LIV is offering as an alternative are snooze-fest events that too few fans care about. LIV’s problem is the Tour’s problem, writ large: Enriching players is not the same as rewarding fans. Sure, the lack of a TV deal doesn’t help. But even my 83-year-old luddite mother knows how to click on YouTube. If tons of people were interested, they’d be watching. And they’re not.

Josh hits at one of my recurring points, which is that golf is a really bad fit for sportswashing.  It's just so damn boring and no one cares, which we might have reinforced by the coming World Cup.

We had the point made recently that the LIV effort should best be understood in the context of the cold (well, Jamal Kashoggi wouldn't consider it cold)  in the Sunni Arab world.  But my guess is that the Qataris will get much better value from their World Cup, so we'll see how that plays in the Kingdom.

Sean Zak: I wanted LIV to exist for strict chaos purposes. I saw the potential it could inject into the ecosystem for change on the PGA Tour. Unfortunately, I think it all has gone a bit too far. Who is to blame? A lot of folks. How much time do you have? Greg Norman did not work as a frontman. At least not as a speaking frontman. The team championship worked, which was good because it had been hyped up constantly. But the team formation didn’t work. The only brand I can really think of is the 4 Aces, mainly because they were the best players and they solidified from the second event. At this point, I’m sad that there wasn’t a bit of cooperation between the two sides, but I don’t actually care to blame Jay Monahan. If you give LIV an inch, it’ll want to take a mile. So perhaps we were always going to end up right here. I look forward to breaking down the lawsuit. Or rather, lawsuits.

I think the chaos only seemed appealing, mostly because the Tour's product has become so dreadfully boring.  Problem is that the reactions  to LIV will make the Tour less attractive going forward.

Dylan Dethier: I think the biggest story of LIV this season is that its future is … to be continued. LIV has signed enough players and built a successful enough infrastructure that it’s guaranteed to be around next year. That means next year will really serve as its first full season. A league with less determined backers than LIV might have waffled after its mixed bag of results and muted popularity. But these fellas have a long runway, which means they will have every chance to succeed.

Sure, as long as the Saudis want to continue to be duped....

2. The team of Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Talor Gooch and Pat Perez won LIV’s team championship, which used a unique format of stroke play, match play and alternate shot (not to mention picking your opponent) to decide its winner. Now that we got to see it all unfold, what did you think of the format for the season-ending event?

Sens: The format was fresh but — for reasons mentioned above — it was still a snooze of an event. When it comes down to it, I just don’t know that there’s an answer to be found in the format. We’ve seen it over and over. You can throw as much money — and wrinkles — at the problem as you want. Meaningless events are still meaningless events, whether it’s on the Tour or on the LIV circuit. Most people would rather watch guinea pig TikToks. At least they take up less time.

Zak: Match play worked well, and with a full season perhaps there will be a sense of rivalry built up. But you won’t get any rivalry until you get certain teams taking food off of other teams’ plates. That didn’t happen once during the regular season, but it did Friday, and Harold Varner was annoyed. His season ended early, just as he beat the brakes off Brooks Koepka. Some strife is really good. I’d love LIV to create a bit more strife next season.

Dethier: A lot of the format stuff LIV is trying is fun — especially when taken in a vacuum. But I think what LIV lacks is context. Wins on its tour are worth a boatload of money, but thus far none of this means anything, and sports fans crave context and meaning. For LIV, establishing that meaning might just take time or it might an un-clearable hurdle. I don’t think there’s any way to know. But thus far LIV garnered its attention through curiosity, disruption, politicization and money rather than the format itself.

A series of golf exhibitions were boring?  geez, you'd have to be Nostradamus to see that one coming....But, if you're going to have a team event and not use a team match play format, you kind of get what you deserve.

Bt this is a strange question:

3. Rory McIlroy told the Guardian he felt betrayed by his European Ryder Cup teammates who left for LIV Golf, although Ian Poulter countered by saying as far as he’s aware they can still qualify for the team. Recently Jon Rahm said LIV players should be allowed, while Shane Lowry was among those who said they should not be. In truth, we don’t know the official answer yet for the European squad, so we have two questions: Will LIV players be allowed on Team Europe? And should they be?

Sens: I don’t think they’ll be playing, but I wouldn’t mind seeing them in the mix. The Ryder Cup is already shot through with partisan divides. What’s a little more tension in the exhibition? It would be only fitting. The teams could even serve as an example, so badly needed these days, that you can disagree with someone’s politics and actions without having to treat them as mortal enemies. As a practical matter, though, it almost seems like a moot point. Aside from Sergio, the now-LIV golfers who played for Europe in the last Cup at Whistling Straits were non-factors. If you really want to win, are you taking any of them at this point? Time for new blood on the team, anyway.

Zak: I think they’ll be allowed AND banned. Shadow-banned, that is. I think they’ll be able to qualify automatically, but will only really be able to do so via majors and DP World Tour events, which they’ll need to work around their LIV schedule. And with half the team decided by captain’s picks, they’ll have to plead to captain Luke Donald and shadow captain Rory McIlroy. It ain’t happening.

Dethier: I’ll endorse Zak’s shadow-banned prediction. These guys may not be outright banned, but it’ll take some strong play in the majors to get them there. The more relevant conversation, to me, isn’t actually who can play on Team Europe but instead who could serve as future captains. LIV swiped the entire lot of ‘em!

The more I game play the situation, the more Europe figures prominently.  But these guys stop short of the ultimate nightmare scenario, to wit, that there might not be a Ryder Cup.  I'm not predicting it, but I can see two obvious scenarios under which Jay will have little choice but to not send his boys (he could do that because it's Seth Waugh's event).

I'm out of time, so let's hold that upbeat thought for tomorrow. 

Your Friday Frisson

Tough time of year as those last few grains of sand descend to the bottom of the hourglass.  Our place is closed next week for aeration, so I guess winter is on for real....

The Shadow Game - Lots of public bloviation on the subject, we'll get to a bit of that below.  But do you remember your President going to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and fist-bumping the Crown Prince?  Yes, apparently Americans still use carbon-based energy products, and our Prez begged for the equivalent of a payday loan.

His doltish press secretary assured us that the trip wasn't about oil..... though you might wonder what one talks about with the Saudis if oil isn't on the agenda.... perhaps golf?  Concurrent with this trip, the Biden Justice Department took precious time away from their core responsibilities of designating parents domestic terrorists and and hold January 6th trespassers in solitary confinement to open an antitrust investigation into the PGA Tour, which reasonable people understood to be merely coincidental. In that, "Who ya gonna believe, me or your lyin' eyes" kind of way.

You might think that going hat-in-hand to the Wahabis is a bad look, though I was reliably informed to the contrary, as POTUS put down his ice cream cone and beat his chest:

President Biden: “No one fucks with a Biden.”

If by no one you mean everyone....

SAUDIS SOUGHT OIL PRODUCTION CUT SO DEEP IT SURPRISED EVEN RUSSIA

OPEC+ slashed oil production following a Saudi pressure campaign that experts say aims to hurt Democrats in the midterms.

To review the bidding, the Saudis had announced production cuts of 1 million barrels per day.  Based upon Biden's request to prop up his tottering regime by opening the spigot, MBS increased the production cuts to 2 million barrels.  Remember Obama's warning about Joe?

Of course, I'm sure it wasn't personal:

Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman mocked Biden in private questioned mental state: report

People inside the Saudi government said Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was unimpressed with Biden and favored former President Trump

So, why the deep dive on this subject?  Silly me, having been publicly humiliated by guys wearing towels on their head, I assumed that that Justice Department investigation would quietly close up shop.  Because, while Biden is no stranger to corrupt bargains with foreign governments (you do remember that Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Hunter that Joe got fired, right?) the big guy gets his 10% or there's no deal.  

 So, imagine my surprise when this broke:

I totally get it... they've been using predatory pricing to corner the pimento-cheese sandwich market for decades....

But is Augusta National "under investigation"?  This is where things get kind of interesting, especially if you're among those that naively think the Wall Street Journal is much different than Pravda.... Geoff does good work here (and we need him in this case, because the WSJ item is behind a paywall):

In another Wall Street Journal story featuring an exaggerated headline, the outlet cites “people familiar with the matter” claiming Augusta National Golf Club is “under investigation” in a Department of Justice antitrust probe of the PGA Tour (another story originally revealed by the Journal).

The latest piece is filed by Louise Radnofsky and Andrew Beaton and never uses the same tone as the headline. Nor is it very substantive. The lede:

The Justice Department’s antitrust investigation into professional golf includes the powerhouse bodies Augusta National Golf Club and the United States Golf Association, in addition to the PGA Tour, according to people familiar with the matter.

This seems much different than “under investigation.” Particularly given court proceedings in Northern California where LIV Golf is aggressively trying to draw in the major championship organizations (more below). Yet the Journal casts the “under investigation” net over the other organizations as part of a possible anti-trust case against the PGA Tour.

Yeah, this is a recurring phenomenon in our lame media, where the headlines seem utterly disconnected  from the article they head.  

The DOJ investigation, however, is wider than was previously known, extending to some of the other most important bodies in golf. People familiar with the matter said those groups include Augusta National, which oversees the iconic Masters tournament each spring. The famously secretive club has produced documents for the Justice Department probe, these people said.

Producing documents seems quite a bit different than under investigation.

Yes, but those incendiary headlines unsupported by the reporting is just another form of journalistic malpractice.  They do it because the header will be picked up by other outlets which will tell their readers that the WSJ has reported that Augusta National is under investigation, whereas it has in reality done nothing more than write an unsubstantiated header.  This si what they now teach in J-School, kids....

It's really very curious in two aspects, but first this reminder from Geoff that the WSJ has taken potshots at the Tour previously:

As noted here, the Wall Street Journal has taken an interest of late in all things LIV and the PGA Tour. They posted a thorough deep dive into Jay Monahan’s jet usage, published a silly Greg Norman op-ed and shared a very straightforward primer on the official world rankings headlined, “The Secretive Body at the Center of the Fight for Golf’s Future.”

Fact is that the Journal's news pages are indistinguishable form those at the NY Times or WaPo, and should not be trusted to accurately convey the correct day of the week.

But it raises two quite obvious questions:

1. Why is the news operation of the WSJ carrying water for the Saudis?
2. Perhaps more importantly, why is the Justice Department carrying water for the Saudis?

Stay Tuned.

Reality Bites - Wow, the guys can be so surprisingly touchy.  I mean, guys try to destroy the Tour on which they earned their fortunes and reputations, and those left behind have harsh words.  Really, who could have seen that coming?

As noted earlier in the week, I think Rory would benefit from some message discipline, but I don't think there was much surprise in these comments:

“It’s a weird thing,” McIlroy says. “I think it is the first time in my life that I have felt betrayal, in a way. It’s an unfamiliar feeling to me. You build bonds with these people through Ryder Cups

and other things. Them knowing that what they are about to do is going to jeopardise them from being a part of that ever again? There was a great opportunity for GMac to maybe be the captain at Adare in 2027. Most of Sergio’s legacy is Ryder Cup-based, same with Poulter, Westwood.

“I feel like the place where they have been able to build their legacy and build their brand, they have just left behind. You could make the same argument about me, I started in Europe and went to America but I have always been supportive of the traditional system. If people felt so aggrieved about some things, I’d rather be trying to make those changes from inside the walls than trying to go outside and be disruptive.”

Disruptive?  That's an awfully polite word for their actions, no?

Ian Poulter isn't taking this lying down:

“We can still qualify for the team as far as I am aware,” he said ahead of the rebel tour’s Team Championship in Miami.

“Unless we have been told we can’t qualify I am still ready to play as much as I can and try and make that team.

“My commitment to the Ryder Cup goes before me. I don’t think that should ever come into question.

You've also been told that Jay Monahan can't suspend you.... How's that working out?

But what does that "goes before me" comment even mean?  Your commitment to the Ryder Cup goes before you, but does not survive contact with a large check....  Noted.

Also bloviating is our former POTUS, and likely not to any great effect.  Here I think he gets his cause-and-effect backwards:

Trump spoke with reporters beside the 18th green at the Blue Monster course, which from 1962 to 2016 hosted a PGA Tour event won by the likes LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman, Tiger Woods

and Phil Mickelson. The tour left Trump’s Doral property in 2017 for a new venue and sponsor in Mexico, which the former president viewed as an insult. This is the second LIV event hosted by a Trump-owned course; the first came at Trump National Bedminster in July.

“The tour mishandled it so badly,” Trump said. “The people at the top … something should happen with them. They mishandled it so badly. They not only had an advantage, they are dealing with very good people [Saudi investors] with unlimited money. They’re good people with unlimited money. And something could have been worked out very easily.”

On the one hand, I completely understood why the Tour and other golfing organizations didn't want Trump hogging the limelight.  But the flip side was that they unnecessarily discarded a Tour legacy (1962) and created an enemy that is now returning the favor.  

That said, the failure to cut a deal falls mostly on the Saudis, it seems evident to this observer.  They seem to have thought they could drink Jay's milkshake without a strong response, though that's not Trump's fault.

This mornings e-mail included a link to this from John Coupland:

Donald Trump has claimed The Open's organisers want to bring the tournament back to his

Turnberry course on the Ayrshire coast.

The championship, organised by the R&A, has not been staged there since Stewart Cink's victory over Tom Watson in 2009.

The former US president bought the resort in 2014 and invested hundreds of millions of pounds renovating the hotel and redesigning the course.

"I can tell you they want to come back," Trump told reporters after playing the pro-am at the LIV Golf Team Championship being held at the Trump Doral resort here in Miami.

"The Open wants to come back. I think this will have to be sorted out first," he added, referring to the ongoing disputes over the breakaway LIV Golf tour.

"It is rated the number one course in Europe now. We did a big surgery on Turnberry and it has gotten great reviews, even from people who hate me.

Shockingly, much of that is true, though with an asterisk the size of the state of Texas.  The renovation of Turnberry has garnered great reviews, and it's our misfortune to not have a chance to see it. But you don't need me to tell you that the R&A isn't headed back there as long as it's under its current ownership.

But Trump is no different than everyone else to whom I speak on this subject.  Each and every person is certain that a deal must be and will be struck, though none have been able to furnish even a cursory outline of what said deal might look like.

As longs as we're on Trump, there's one other open tab of relevance:

Golfweek's Best 2021: Top 50 Modern Courses in Great Britain and Ireland

This is its own interesting subject, because the purist's love of links is typically tied to their longevity and the manner in which they fit into their surroundings.   The reason I mention this list now is because the medalist will have heads exploding:

1. Trump International Scotland 7.90

Balmedie, Scotland; Martin Hawtree (2012)

2. Kingsbarns 7.86

St. Andrews, Scotland; Kyle Phillips (2000)

3. Loch Lomond 7.66

Dunbartonshire, Scotland; Jay Morrish, Tom Weiskopf (1993)

4. Castle Stuart 7.64

Inverness, Scotland; Gil Hanse, Mark Parsinen (2009)

5. Waterville 7.53

Waterville, Ireland; Eddie Hackett (1973)

6. Old Head of Kinsale 7.41

Kinsale, Ireland; Eddie Hackett, Joe Carr, Ron Kirby, Paddy Merrigan, Liam Higgins (1997)

7. Queenwood 7.28

Ottershaw, England; David McLay Kidd (2001)

8. Renaissance Club at Archerfield 7.25

Dirleton, Scotland; Tom Doak (2008)

9. Hogs Head 7.19

Waterville, Ireland; Robert Trent Jones Jr. (2018)

10. The European Club 7.18

Brittas Bay, Ireland; Pat Ruddy (1992)

In a perfect world I'd link you to my review of the course, but a quick Google search came up empty.  It's a fascinating golf course he built, but no one will confuse it with a traditional links.  Like Trump himself, it's just so over-the-top, not least because of the wide range of tees available to the player.

To me, much as I respect places like Castle Stuart and Kingsbarns, which are both well conceived and execute, I would have Waterville topping my list, just because it feels like it's been there forever.  

 The second ten includes some really fine links that are far more characteristic:

11. Tralee 7.01

Tralee, Ireland; Arnold Palmer (1984)

12. Enniscrone 6.90

Enniscrone, Ireland; Eddie Hackett, Donald Steel (1974)

T13. Hillside 6.80

Southport, England; Fred Hawtree (1967)

T13. Carne 6.80

Belmullet, Ireland; Eddie Hackett (1992)

All worthy creations, with that back nine at Hillside being perhaps the best nine holes in linksdom....at the very least, the most underrated.

Also good to see thos eplaces we've hunkered down get a mention:

17. Ballyliffin (Glashedy) 6.68

Ballyliffin, Ireland; Pat Ruddy, Tom Craddock (1995)32. Crail (Craighead) 6.20

Crail, Scotland; Gil Hanse (1998)

Crail, Scotland; Gil Hanse (1998)

Good stuff.

Alas, that will be as far as I can go today.  Have a great weekend and I'll see you on Monday.