Thursday, January 4, 2024

Midweek Musings - Back To Kapalua Edition

OK, I typically save that header for Wednesday posts, but in my defense I did actually begin this post on a Wednesday, so I've got you on a technicality....  But you'll have live golf with Pacific Ocean eye candy available this evening, so light a fire and see if the Tour still holds any interest for you. 

Wither LIV/PIF - Another fine mess that Ollie has gotten us into, but we'll lede with this from Jay Monahan's memo to his players late last week:

A memo sent to the membership on Sunday from PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan covered three primary points as the Tour continues to negotiate with both parties. From the Tour:

    •  First, Monahan noted that “we have made meaningful progress” in negotiations with SSG and are currently working toward finalization of terms and drafting necessary documents.
    • Secondly, with just hours until the Dec. 31 expiration date for the Framework Agreement with the PIF and DP World Tour, the memo spoke to an effort to extend the deadline into the new year based on the progress made to date. Monahan categorized the PIF and DP World Tour discussions as “active and productive.”
    • Finally, the memo restated the Tour’s goal relative to all negotiations, which is to bring SSG, PIF and the DP World Tour on board as minority co-investors in PGA Tour Enterprises in 2024. Monahan said, “These partnerships will allow us to unify, innovate and invest in the game for the benefit of the players, fans and sponsors.”
The word that should jump out at us is the M-word.  In their D-Day announcement, Saudi Arabia was expected to become the PGA Tour's major commercial sponsor, whereas they seem currently to be relegated to minority-investor status, which perhaps isn't what Al-Rumayyan thinks he negotiated.  

With talks bleeding into 2024, Adam Woodward has this on how the parties might be affected:

Though he ends at the start with this, which only shows Woodward's misunderstanding of that Framework Agreement:

Should we even take the framework agreement seriously anymore?

It’s been surprising to see how quiet LIV and the PIF have been with regard to the framework agreement over the last few months given the interest from outside investors. The Tour has controlled the messaging with its updates to players and has been upfront by making more information public to fans, which shouldn’t come as a shock given the fallout from the surprise announcement of the agreement and the backroom dealings that took place to produce it.

But at this point, it’d be naïve to view the framework agreement as gospel given the material change in negotiations with the inclusion of outside investors. It was initially vague for a reason, and while that might help the powers that be, it’s causing headaches for those of us who just want to watch the best golfers in the world compete against each other.

We should take it as seriously as we took it on June 6th.  Even in the shock of that day a couple of things were obvious, first that their term sheet was almost completely devoid of actual terms, rendering any attempt to understand their agreement fruitless.  Interestingly, there were only two binding provisions, the withdrawal of the antitrust lawsuit and the non-disparagement clause.

So, how seriously should we have taken a non-binding term sheet?  Plenty seriously as far as intent was concerned, but the absence of detail seemed almost intentional.

This to me is where the rubber meets the road:

The role of outside investors

But if the PIF is so rich with its billions of dollars, why bring more cooks into the kitchen?

For a few reasons. First, follow the money. Rich people often enjoy doing business with other rich people because it usually means they’re going to make more money. What’s better than $3
billion? $7 billion, which is how much money could be involved according to ESPN.

An optimist could argue that bringing in outside investors is a way to make the deal more palatable given the U.S. government’s various questions. On the flip side, a pessimist could view the move as a way for the Tour to have its cake and eat it, too, by pushing the Saudis out after ending the litigation. The former seems more realistic and would be a step towards reuniting the game, while the latter would be another pivot from the Tour that would only lead to more battles with LIV.

There's also speculation that diluting the Saudi's investment helps with antitrust approval, all good as long as Yasir and Jay are on the same page.  Which seems to be the case, unless you think about that Jon Rahm signing...

While there's not much here, Woodward is the first I've seen to even pose this rather obvious query:

What will PGA Tour Enterprises even look like?

This is the multi-billion-dollar question. Integrating the LIV and Tour schedules as is won’t be
easy, and concessions will need to be made on both sides. In the memo sent to players on New Year’s Eve, Monahan said, “These partnerships will allow us to unify, innovate and invest in the game for the benefit of the players, fans and sponsors.”

That all sounds great. But how will that be achieved?

Given LIV’s struggles to run a smooth operation and the Tour’s inability to manage its interests between top players and rank-and-file members, should we have confidence that the two sides can work together to create something the fans want to watch? Some parts of LIV have been good, but the concept hasn’t caught on as quickly as organizers would’ve hoped. The TGL was supposed to be a big step for the Tour, but it ended up as a faceplant.

Missing the Dec. 31 deadline could have a significant impact on when PGA Tour Enterprises gets off the ground, as well. Let’s say an agreement had been reached, that would have given LIV another full year to prove its worth and the powers that be plenty of time to iron out what the future of the tours and PGA Tour Enterprises would look like. The longer the negotiations take, the worse off we all will be. A divided game overshadowed by uncertainty isn’t good for anyone.

At the time of the announcement, the Tour indicated that it would continue to operate as a not-for-profit, leading me to initially conclude that the actual tournaments would not be part of the for-profit entity.  Woodward clearly assumes otherwise, though that is a level of complexity above my pay grade.

TGL is an asset one expects to be in the for-profit entity, and no doubt they can convince themselves to value it exuberantly, but that doesn't sniff at justifying the $3-7 billion of fresh capital contemplated.

Wither The Tour - Not diving too deep into the predictions for the coming season, but Sean Zak did lay down some markers of interest, and also accrues valuable bonus points for sharing last year's projections, which did include a LIV player winning a major.  So, 2024?

1. PGA Tour-Saudi PIF deal makes us all yearn for 2025

It’s not particularly exciting to begin a 2024 predictions post with an immediate look to 2025, but that’s what the initial takeaway will be when the two sides ultimately strike a deal. Golf things are just easier when they work on a calendar that begins in January, and the PGA Tour-PIF pact will be no different. Jon Rahm will be allowed to defend his AmEx title in January 2025 as the first LIV golfer to return to play in PGA Tour events. Until then, we’ll be treating 2024 as a bit of a gap year. It’ll make golf fans a bit antsy as a result, especially without a Ryder Cup in the fall. How much patience do we have?

Yeah, that seems a stretch, though certainly those four majors look pretty fine....

Now it seems he's just trying to piss me off:

2. Patrick Cantlay, Masters champion

At one point in recent memory, Cantlay was beloved by a sizable group of PGA Tour fans, christened “Patty Ice” when he out-putted Bryson DeChambeau at the 2021 BMW Championship. That feels like decades ago in Tour Politics Years, now that Cantlay has become a bit of a lightning rod for pace-of-play, pay-for-play and Tour governance issues. In 2024, he’ll earn plenty of fans back with a stone-cold, four-shot victory at Augusta National. Why? Well, he’s slowly crept toward contention at the Masters, and was quietly just five shots off the lead entering the final round in 2023. Also, this’ll be his first Masters with Joe LaCava on the bag. That can only help at ANGC, where LaCava has looped for multiple green-jacket winners.

And just when I was getting excited about those majors.....

6. Your favorite event will be the Women’s Open

Forget all those major championship winners discussed above. The major we’ll care about the most will come in August: the Women’s Open at the Old Course. In a year where the men’s major championship courses leave a bit to be desired on the excitement scale, thank goodness for the women taking on St. Andrews. One thing we might learn: In its current form, the Old Course might be a better tournament site for the women than for the men. And given the Open will take place the same week as the men’s BMW Championship, it’s the perfect starter to a full day of golf-couch lounging.

Yeah, you'd be hard-pressed to design a drearier set of major venues for the guys.  The positives are Pinehurst and that, being forced to go back to Louisville, that it's May instead of August.  But who thought that when we returned to Troon that both protagonists from the last visit would be in the witness protection program?

The Tour Confidential panel had a couple of forward-looking bits that we might as well grab:

What’s your 2024 storyline to watch that no one is talking about. (Yes, this excludes the potential of the aforementioned merger, which everyone is talking about.)

Colgan: Who the hell is going to be in the booth for NBC at the U.S. Open?! It’s been close to 40 years since the peacock entered a PGA Tour season with an element of uncertainty about who was going to be in the lead analyst chair for its biggest events. The fact the network is sticking to an apparent “tryout” for the job represents one of the weirdest subplots of the early Tour season.

This actually seems to bother some folks, whereas I take comfort that we're not stuck with whatever bozo is abusing my eardrums.

Berhow: The Olympics are back! But will golfers care this time? In Brazil in 2016 there was the Zika virus, and in Tokyo in 2020 there was Covid. And if those things didn’t scare professional golfers away, their own general indifference to Olympic competition did. Will they care in Paris this summer?

When does the issue of LIVsters in the Olympics rear its ugly head?   I'd send Patrick Reed and Phil, just to give them one last chance to find a fairway at Le Golf National.

Zak: It’s high time that some of the biggest names in the game win a major or another major. HIGH time. Nelly Korda should have more than one. Lexi Thompson should have more than one. Xander Schauffele should have one. Rory McIlroy, damn it, it’s high time! When a year passes with breakout victories like Wyndham Clark, Brian Harman or Lilia Vu, it’s great. But I’m looking for some legacy-building stuff and we got that from Rahm and Koepka, but I’m growing impatient at not seeing it from some others.

Lexi?  Heh, that's a good one!  Nelly is an interesting case, for sure, but I'll take the under on those other guys.

And the major-less player to nab their first in 2024 is…?

Colgan: Viktor Hovland! And he’s going to do it in Augusta.

Berhow: Hard to bet against Viktor with how he played the last few months. Another option: Patrick Cantlay. A dark horse: Ludvig Aberg.

Zak: Xander Schauffele and Linn Grant. It’s time.

Linn Grant is getting a lot of good press, though I view Cantlay and X-Man as being very much on the clock.  It's actually a little shocking how little those two have done in the majors.  And while I don't quibble about Aberg's talent, a major still seems a big ask, if only so soon.   

The Caddie Shuffle - I don't know what to make of this, but in the last year we saw longstanding caddie relationships ended so that experienced loopers could pick up the bags of young studs such as Tom Kim (Rickie Fowler's longtime looper Joe Skovron) and Cameron Young.  So what to make of the fact that the music played on?

Ludvig Aberg has a new caddie.

Aberg’s new caddie is Joe Skovron, who you’ll know as Rickie Fowler’s longtime caddie and, more recently, Tom Kim’s caddie. Aberg has played less than one full season on the PGA Tour but has already generated sky-high expectations after winning on the PGA and DP World Tours and impressing as a part of Team Europe at the Ryder Cup.

Skovron’s appearance was no surprise; we learned of the partnership a few weeks ago as Aberg sought a veteran caddie with big-pressure experience and let looper Jack Clarke go.

As well as:

Cameron Young has a new caddie.

Cameron Young and Paul Tesori have parted ways to start the year. The veteran caddie had joined Young’s team last March, which drew significant attention at the time given Tesori’s success on the bag of Webb Simpson.

In some ways the Young-Tesori partnership mirrored that of Skovron and Kim; both involved rising stars leaning on successful caddie vets. The pair got off to a promising start with a runner-up finish at the WGC-Match Play and a T7 at the Masters. But the rest of the season was below Young’s lofty standards.

I'm old enough to remember when Joe LaCava went to work for Dustin Johnson for all of an hour-and-a-half.  When LaCava jumped elsewhere (to be fair, it was for Tiger's bag) I was a lonely voice speculating that Joe hadn't liked what he saw from DJ.  Similarly, and admittedly both of those guys are on a down cycle, should these moves be viewed as commentary on the players they dumped?

Of course, we should keep our powder dry and see how long Joe himself stays with that perfect penis.... 

Loose Ends - A few bits in open browser tabs to clean up, first this requiring an intervention for Shane Ryan:

Shane's blinding insight is to use importance as one axis of his graph, the genius being bleakness/wholesomeness being the second axis.  The fun is in looking at the full spectrum, though the problem is that it doesn't copy in a form that you'll be able to readily read.

Shane provides larger images of each of the four quadrants, but I'll leave you to view those on your own.


It's a time suck, so you've been forewarned....

You already know that Eamon Lynch is very much old school, though we'll wish him luck in preaching about the importance of punctuation to today's screen-addicted kids:

Tour WAG of the Year?   Alex Myers has dubbed Jessica Hadwin as the Queen of Golf Twitter, and it's quite the worthy nomination.  If you're looking for the anti-Justine-Reed, look no further, beginning with this modest little tweak:

That's gonna leave a mark..... But that made me go an find this fun bit, reminding me that these two should teach a master class in staying normal:

First, that is just the perfect skewering of that tedious "Play Better" trope about which your humble blogger is always ranting, but to link it to "get tackled harder" is just comedic genius.   I assume y'all remember him being tackled after Nick Taylor sunk that snake to win the Canadian, But his bride of the year also had this back at the time:

Luckily, Hadwin wasn’t injured among the confusion, which Jessica confirmed in another tweet: “Sorry to leave ya’ll hanging, had to get the toddler ready for bed. I’m thrilled to report that @ahadwingolf is still among the land of the living and in true Canadian form, apologized to the security guard for being tackled.”

Even better was this with those contractors:


That'll be all for today and likely the week.  Enjoy Kapalua (coverage starts at 6:00 p.m. EST) and your weekend snow, and we'll p[ick things up early next week.

 

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Tuesday, January 2, 2024

Weekend Wrap - Annus Horribilis Edition

It's been a while, so thanks to all my patient readers for allowing me to recharge my batteries over the holiday break.  Of course, that has mostly entailed obsessing over uncooperative snow forecasts, resulting in my not posting this from Unplayable Lies' Western HQ.  

We'll use this post to catch up on the state of our little game, then we'll head to Kapalua as a first plunge into our Brave New World of Elevated Designated Events.  I will note that in 2022 I used this time to speculate as to whether Jon Rahm could separate himself from the pack, noting ironically that he accomplished that through other means this year.

Of course, speaking of ironies, the annus horribilis designation could prove to be a similarly early call....Anyone out there thinking we'll enjoy '24 any more than '23?   

Dylan Dethier has been working through the holidays and we'll lede with this recent update attempt:

Inside the PGA Tour-PIF negotiations: What does LIV’s future hold?

I consulted my Magic 8-Ball, which indicated that the outlook is cloudy....

Dylan ledes with an obvious contradiction:

It was Fox News’ 6 o’clock hour when Jon Rahm, clad in a black LIV letterman jacket and a sheepish smile, made his shocking departure from the PGA Tour official. In doing so he sent two conclusions swiftly cascading through the golf world.

The first conclusion was that LIV had solidified its future. The nine-figure, multi-year Rahm signing showed that the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) was willing to cross its would-be-allies at the PGA Tour by stealing the Masters champion and World No. 3 just as their negotiation was nearing its deadline. Could it have been a leverage play meant to demonstrate Saudi seriousness and bulk up its bargaining power? Yes! But it seemed to be more than that, too. LIV had been trying to make other behind-the-scenes moves, including (thus far unsuccessful) plays at young stars like Viktor Hovland and Ludvig Aberg. The league had already set its 2024 schedule and had begun signing contracts for 2025. They’d doubled down. The Rahm signing made it official. The show was going on.

The second conclusion of Rahm’s departure was, well, the opposite: the PGA Tour (and its partners at the DP World Tour) now knew its future, too. With Rahm at LIV, it was time for the Tour and the PIF to finish off the deal initially sketched out in their framework agreement. Surely the latest mega-contract would remind the Tour of the PIF’s raw power. Surely now the Tour would cut the Saudis in on their new for-profit enterprise. LIV already had several of golf’s most popular players; now it had the defending green-jacket holder at the peak of his powers. A talent split in a niche sport is good for nobody. With the Rahm signing, a deal became inevitable.

But there was a problem: The conclusions were fundamentally incompatible. LIV cannot exist in its current form and also fold into the PGA Tour, because LIV has too many events for pros to bounce between both tours and loses too much money for anyone besides its current operator to run it. (I’ll say this a bunch: at least for now.) Something has to give — in a big way.

Both things can't be true, though Dylan seems not to have considered that they both can, and likely are, false....

Dylan the proceeds to take us through an elaborate analysis of dubious value, from which I'll pluck a few quasi-random bits:

I. THE ATTENTION ECONOMY

Who’s watching the PGA Tour vs. LIV — and why?

Why such a massive advantage for the PGA Tour? After all, LIV plucked some of golf’s biggest names and highest-profile stars from the PGA Tour, including Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson and Cameron Smith. One TV executive I spoke with laid out a helpful framework for thinking about what makes a sports product work.

A media asset has value, he said, when it has star players in a meaningful event at a storied venue. Layering those attributes on top of each other — the players and the event and the place — combines to give an audience an incentive to watch. In recent months we’ve heard talk about how the PGA Tour is the players, and that’s true, but that’s probably discounting the institutional advantages built around those players, including decades-old events held at famed courses like Riviera and Pebble Beach.

Why have LIV viewers been lukewarm? I won’t pretend to have a complete understanding, but a combination of factors seems likely. Some fans are turned off by LIV’s Saudi funding, sure. But others just haven’t bought into the product. LIV’s format is new and golf on the CW is new and LIV’s tournaments are new and many of its venues and players are unfamiliar. In the sports TV business, that’s generally not a good recipe.

LIV tournaments are fun-focused and fan-centric on the ground, and the league deserves credit for trying different things — but its events still feel like exhibitions, and viewers don’t care much about exhibitions, certainly not on a recurring basis.

A lot of pixels to support as point we could have made far more tersely, those watching the PGA are those that have always watched the PGA.   Those watching LIV are, well, perhaps I'm out on a limb here, because there really weren't any.

II. ‘PRODUCT VS. PRODUCT’

One year later, how viable is each league?

So, after a year of head-to-head competition, where do the products stand?

The Tour’s financial future is pretty stable. (And again I say: so far!) As Monahan likes to point out, the Tour has $10 billion in contracted revenue through 2030. Half of that comes from $5 billion in media rights contracts with CBS, NBC, Warner Bros. Discovery and ESPN. The other half comes from $5 billion in sponsorship deals with big-time corporations like FedEx, AT&T and Mastercard. These deals aren’t immune to change — more on that in a bit — but there’s some big-time revenue lined up for a proven business.

LIV, by contrast, has very little revenue stacked up against its significant costs. LIV’s own attorneys admitted the league had “virtually zero” revenue for its inaugural 2022 season, while Sports Illustrated reported costs of $784 million. The league was expected to spend another $1 billion in 2023, and that was before Rahm’s sizable signing bonus. (Per the New York Times, LIV’s initial bankroll was $2 billion, a number the league has at least approached if not exceeded.) While some sponsors have come through the door for some teams, like 4 Aces clothing outfitter Extracurricular or Fireballs sponsor Mexico Infrastructure Partners, it’s not clear that the league has secured a considerable investment from sponsors other than those connected directly to the Saudi government or its investment fund. (And, if such an investment has cleared, it hasn’t come from the kind of Fortune 500 partner that most pro sports leagues chase after.) Sources told GOLF that total revenue for the 2023 LIV season was under $100 million — not even enough to offset Rahm’s guaranteed money.

OK, but Dylan seems to have expunged all memories of Jay's whining of financial unsustainability.... Somehow $15 million in legal fees was the tipping point.... But, repetitive as it is, LIV doesn't really have a product, but they do have lots of attitude and there is that checkbook...

Again, saying the same thing over and over....

III. WHERE THE PLAYERS PLAY

Who’s got ‘em?

For all the talk of stability and legacy, there’s undeniably a tipping point where the PGA Tour’s brand plummets due to lack of talent. Rahm’s signing means we’re closer to that point than we’ve ever been. Take a peek at a list of recent major winners and you’ll note that LIV has a whole bunch of ‘em. There are plenty of LIV pros playing well, too: The last month has reminded us that LIV pros are perfectly capable of winning non-LIV events, with Joaquin Niemann winning in Australia and Dean Burmester and Louis Oosthuizen combining for four DP World Tour wins in South Africa.

That tipping point would come when the value sponsors get from attaching themselves to PGA Tour events is less than the cost of their sponsorship — and there is some concern that the Tour is approaching that point. The event formerly known as Honda Classic just lost its title sponsor after 42 years, one casualty of a too-crowded schedule. The Wells Fargo Championship, a well-attended Signature Event in Charlotte, N.C., is losing its title sponsor, too, after a massive purse increase led to a hike in sponsor expense that Wells Fargo wasn’t interested in.

Among the long list of things your humble blogger didn't see coming, was that the Tour would react to the LIV threat by screwing their sponsors to an even greater extent, an eventuality I couldn't even see the possibility of.   

But in all these things the conclusion is the same, LIV has done enough to inflict terrible damage on the Tour, but not close to enough to make themselves viable.

So, if you're sensing an impasse, Dylan has this:

Could LIV press on without the PGA Tour? Sure. There’s a world in which the PIF unleashes several billion dollars more to spend on any Tour pro willing to take their calls, demonstrating PIF governor and LIV chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan’s absolute determination to make LIV work at any cost. Perhaps that allows LIV to strike a deal with a big-time network or streamer like, say, Greg Norman’s old friends at Fox. A bigger audience could create more legitimacy and a more engaged fan base, in turn boosting the value of each team franchise. That’s the most optimistic blueprint. But it’s a risky and expensive proposition that requires doubling and tripling down on a product that doesn’t yet work. Would the PIF continue funding new contracts while re-upping the bulky fees promised to its existing stars without seeing any legitimate ROI? Al-Rumayyan didn’t get this far by throwing good money after bad.

On the other side, could the PGA Tour press on without the PIF involved in the deal? It could. Despite the news cycle and the LIV defections, the Tour still has the stronger product, the stronger players and a strong institutional advantage — plus it has all but secured a major investment from the SSG. Still, shutting out the PIF would mean making the bet that the Saudis wouldn’t double (or triple, or quintuple) their investment in an effort to crush the existing pro game. Is that a bet the Tour feels comfortable making? Would you want to play a game of chicken with one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world?

I would say that Yasir has answered that first question with his signing of Jon Rahm.  But what is this ROI you speak of, Dylan?  No one looking for a return gives Phil $200 million, so I think we can dispense with that.

But that second 'graph is interesting because it seems bass-ackward.  The Tour may not "need" the PIF with SSG ready to pour in $3 billion large, but the larger question is whether they're really willing to do that with PIF assassins still operating from the grassy knoll.

V. THE DEAL

What could the future look like?

Some have speculated that Al-Rumayyan loves LIV too much to shutter it. I won’t pretend to know that whether that is true. But even if striking a deal with the Tour meant collapsing LIV’s vision, Al-Rumayyan could still claim a massive win. Getting in business with the PGA Tour? Getting a seat at the table? Potentially increasing the Tour’s investment in team golf? Increasing the legitimacy of Saudi investment in big-time sports? And doing all of that in, like, three years? That’s head-spinning stuff.

Through that lens, the PIF doesn’t stand to benefit from wrecking the Tour because it needs the Tour. It needs the Tour’s legitimacy, its infrastructure, its broadcast partners and blue-chip, big-money sponsors. Meanwhile, the Tour — or at least several powerful constituencies within the Tour — wants the PIF on its side so it can get back some of its biggest names and, most important, eliminate the threat of player poaching.

Yeah, there's that, but there's also a small cadre of elite players that think they haven't gotten theirs yet, and having learned that Saudi money is now as pure as the driven snow, they will not rest until reparations have been made.

 Dylan does work in this note, which touches on something that seems to still be misunderstood at this rather late date:

Any deal will need the approval of the players on the PGA Tour’s Policy Board, a shrewd group that includes Tiger Woods, Jordan Spieth and Patrick Cantlay. They’ve made it clear they won’t be left out of the decision-making process again. They’ve also made it clear they’re interested in the best deal for the players, though they’ve stayed understandably mum on the specifics. Thus far, publicly, they’ve presented a unified front. Time will tell what they’ll approve behind closed doors.

Shrewd, Dylan?  They just got sandbagged by Jay Monahan, so is this shrewdness recently acquired?

But, more importantly, when you say the deal requires player approval, that's the buried lede (and I acknowledge that Dylan noted the Policy Board, but note that Peter Malnati seemingly isn't among the shrewd....Because this seems naïve:

2023 was the year PGA Tour players took control of their tour

 Whereas, Eamon Lynch seems to get it:

Lynch: The power flex by star players could reshape more than just the PGA Tour

It's Eamon, so pull up a chair as he explains why a deal isn't such a lay-up:

The decay of golf media notwithstanding, comma-heavy contracts that grab headlines tell us only the rough cost of weapons, not what the landscape will look like after the truce. For all of the uncertainties in the sport as we pull the shutters on 2023, ’24 will go a long way toward revealing its future shape, which will largely be defined by a number that’s unarousingly small: 25, or thereabouts — approximately the number of weeks that elite players are willing to work each year.

Everything intended to leverage the presence of top players — major championships, signature events, team competitions — must be shoehorned into that couple dozen weeks, which is why negotiations between the PGA Tour and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia are focused more on matters of practicality than philosophy. Those familiar with the thinking of PIF’s governor Yasir al-Rumayyan say that his ‘baby’ is team golf in general (rather than LIV in particular), and he’s insistent it be a significant part of the future. Whatever structure that eventually emerges will by necessity be global, making stops with every stakeholder, including Saudi Arabia. Al-Rumayyan isn’t paying to be bypassed and will need a show-and-tell for the Crown Prince, who isn’t a chap that courtiers are casual about displeasing.

And 25 might actually be a little high for how often they actually want to play....  But lest you think those four families aren't affected....

A sense of entitlement allied to actual power might convince them that they have the muscle to reshape majors and demand a much greater share of that revenue too. Multiple sources say that
one leading player told Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley last year that the Masters needed to cough up more coin to its competitors. Nor is it wholly implausible that a new entity flush with capital could acquire the Ryder Cup from the penurious PGA of America, just as the DP World Tour is doing with the legacy associations that are part-owners on that side of the pond. The Ryder Cup is the only important asset Europe brings to the deal being forged. Adding ownership of the American half would be hugely attractive since the guys likely to see equity in the new joint venture are the same guys who comprise the teams. The festering dispute about whether team members should be paid for laboring in the Cup could be moot if the players decide they deserve an ownership stake instead.

It’s needlessly generous to assume that al-Rumayyan’s endgame is mere acceptance, a seat at golf’s head table. If players continue to assert their newfound power, bankrolled by his billions, al-Rumayyan may end up with a meaningful stake in every significant event.

The power dynamic in men’s professional golf has shifted profoundly and irreversibly. The coming months will bring more specifics on how things will be structured, but we know with certainty that it will be to the liking of the game’s dominant players right now. At some stage, it might be worth considering whether that is actually a positive development.

 It so happens that I know a blogger who's been trying to warn folks that this won't be for the better.... Amazingly, CTRL:F: Cantlay yields zero results in Eamon's piece....

We have a Tour Confidential panel touching on these issues, shall we sample a bit?

The PGA Tour and Saudi Public Investment Fund failed to reach a definitive agreement on a potential merger by Sunday’s deadline, and the target date for a new agreement has now been extended into 2024. Is this an ominous sign that a deal might not be completed at all? What’s your takeaway here?

James Colgan: I don’t know if it’s ominous so much as it is disappointing. The Tour and PIF had the opportunity to put the complete disaster of the last two years in professional golf behind us by reaching an agreement. I’d appreciate it if the people who gave themselves a deadline stuck to it, and I think a not-insignificant number of golf fans feel the same.

Josh Berhow: In a perfect world the PGA Tour could have put a bow on the merger and entered 2024 with a clean slate (but with still lots to figure out). Now, as James said, it’s a distraction a little while longer. It does make you wonder how much the latest developments (the Tour’s increased talks with the Strategic Sports Group and Jon Rahm leaving for LIV) influenced the delay, or, more importantly, the pending result.

Sean Zak: Yeah, James seems to be striking a familiar tune to what I keep hearing from golf fans. They’re ready for it to be done. Jon Rahm’s departure was another eye roll for the many people who love watching him compete on the biggest stage. I still anticipate a deal getting done, but each week we get closer to the Masters without a resolution of sorts is just another annoying week for people who care deeply about pro golf.

I simply don't know which is funnier, that Colgan thinks a deal will put these issues behind us, or just his sense of outrage at these folks missing what was always an unrealistic target.  And, by the way, has anyone broken it to James that there will be an interminable antitrust review once there is an announcement?

It’s the final day of 2023, and while the framework agreement between the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and Saudi PIF dominated golf headlines, there was plenty more that happened in the past 12 months. Who, or what, do you think won 2023?

Colgan: I think, oddly, Phil Mickelson won 2023. Not that he did very much on the course outside of his brilliant, turn-back-the-clock runner-up effort at the Masters. But the developments
of the merger, the legitimization of LIV, the eventual coup of his pal Jon Rahm — all of it pointed to Phil finding a level of vindication I didn’t quite think possible when his “scary MF” word-vomit first dropped. Considering what he went through to reach this point both personally and professionally, I hope it was worth it for him.

Berhow: Phil is a good one. You could argue Rahm is a winner for the pile of checks he is about to cash. But as a prisoner of the moment, I’m going to say LIV Golf won 2023. Forget modest TV ratings, LIV got a (pending) deal with the PGA Tour, Yasir Al-Rumayyan — perhaps now the most powerful man in golf — will be the chairman of the newly formed body, and LIV even landed a parting blow at the end of the calendar year, signing Rahm away from the Tour. That last one really had to sting.

Zak: Both good answers. And mine won’t be very different. But Yasir Al-Rumayyan won 2023. He convinced the PGA Tour that his money was good money. He appeared on CNBC alongside the Tour commissioner. He’s very likely to gain a seat on the Tour’s board of directors. He has Martin Slumbers at the R&A considering him a newfound ally. His football club advanced to the Champions League. FIFA is essentially set to bring a World Cup to Saudi Arabia. He’s steamrolled a way for the country to become a global sports monolith. And very importantly, he avoided deposition multiple times.

And we thought Colgan's first answer was silly....  I certainly thought Yasir had won 2023 as of June 6th, but things seem a bit murkier at present.  I'm not sure anyone actually won 2023, though I've a long list of those that ruined it...

I'll link to this one, just to cheer you up for a moment:

 

On the one hand, they both certainly have it coming.  But Norman has never mattered in this mess, leaving the sniping by Rory and Tiger at him one of those unexplained incidents where they seem to have known what was coming.  Monahan matters now only to the extent of discerning whose interests are served by leaving him in place.

So, who does matter?  Well, recently we were told that a certain hatless guy is in charge, and Dylan Dethier scored an interview with the Dark Knight:

I. YEAR IN REVIEW

How’d it go?
Cantlay did play some actual golf in 2023. Before we get to the juicy stuff we may as well start there. He played to an exceptionally high level, in fact, well enough to start and finish the year ranked inside the world’s top five. He racked up big-time finishes in the PGA Tour’s biggest events, logging top-fives at Riviera and Bay Hill and Harbour Town and the Travelers and the FedEx St. Jude Championship. He contended in the majors, too, playing in the penultimate group at the Masters and finishing T9 at the PGA Championship and T14 at the U.S. Open. It was a solid season. But he’s well aware there was something missing.

“At least a little disappointing,” Cantlay says, asked to assess his year. “Because I felt like I had multiple opportunities to win. And I didn’t win at all. And that’s always the goal.”


Dylan might be confusing us with folks that care, but Cantlay's potential continues to dwarf his actual achievements.  Dylan seems to be grading on a curve especially as concerns his major play, as I don't recall him being a threat in that Masters, and Dylan seems to have intentionally elided his poor Sunday play.

At another time we might have credited Dylan for going here:

II. PAT’S PACE

Why the slow pace?

He’s talked about this part before. He knows his reputation. But does he believe what they say? Is Patrick Cantlay a slow player?

“I do think I take a very methodical approach to golf,” he says. “Well, and to life in general. But my goal out there is to be as efficient and thorough as I possibly can to shoot the lowest scores possible.”

I give him a modicum of credit for being willing to discuss, though he's obviously not changing his routines until he's forced to.  Though I'm not sure we can blame him there....

If only:

III. PAT TO LIV?!

What’s up with the rumors?

Early in LIV’s existence, players on each side made big-time declarations. Some signed contracts with LIV. Others declared their allegiance to the PGA Tour. Cantlay? He followed his own instincts. I talked to him about the possibility of joining LIV in the fall of 2022 and then again in early 2023, and each time he said that while he didn’t anticipate joining LIV, he didn’t see the point in shutting down the idea, either. Why would it be in any player’s best interest to make a hard commitment in such an uncertain climate?

That seems to me to be peak Cantlay, no?  At a time when the game and his home Tour were facing an existential threat, Pat thinks only of keeping his own options open.  Obviously a statement form Cantlay would have been helpful in staunching the defections, but this profile in courage is now one of six Player Directors.  One can only assume that he took that position to ensure that Patrick gets paid...

IV. POLITICIAN PAT

Is Cantlay “in control”?

In just a few months, Cantlay was the subject of a pair of explosive — and conflicting — rumors. The first, that he was defecting to LIV, seemed inherently incompatible with the second, that he was chief architect of a PGA Tour coup d’etat. And yet, in early December, a report from Sports Illustrated carried a shocking headline: “Patrick Cantlay is in Control.”

In control of what? Let’s back up.

2023 marked Cantlay’s first year as a member of the Tour’s policy board. That’s always been an important position, but never more than it is right now, with the future of the Tour hanging in the balance.

Given travel, sponsor and practice schedules, it’s always been interesting to see which players are willing to join the board. I point that out to Cantlay. For a guy as focused as he is on eliminating inefficiencies to help maximize his golf game, joining seemed like a serious time suck and a fairly thankless task. Why do it?

“I care a lot about the PGA Tour. I grew up wanting to play on the PGA Tour and win tournaments on the PGA Tour, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have done that,” he says. “So when I joined the board, I viewed that as a responsibility. It was important for me to take that very seriously and I have taken that very seriously.”

Yeah, just another selfless public servant, eh?  At the risk of being repetitive, when the Tour could have used a public statement of commitment, Patrick wasn't interested in limiting his own options...

But see if you buy this:

He hammers these points home in the minutes that follow. No, he didn’t know the scope of what he was signing up for — how could he have? But he takes his responsibility incredibly seriously. He sees it as his duty to represent every player. And he emphasizes cohesion among the player directors.

“And I think it’s important to take it seriously,” he adds. “My goal, being on the PGA Tour Policy Board, is to represent all the members, both current and future, to the best of my ability. And so that’s what I’ve been trying to do. That’s what all the player directors have been trying to do. And we’ve been working really closely together over the last many months as a unit to make the best collective decisions that represent the interests of all the members.”

And what is the nature of those collective decisions, Patty?  Forget what I think, guys like Lanto Griffin and Grayson Murray seem to think you're screwing them royally, so I'm not sure you've correctly read the room.

Unfortunately, this represents journalistic malpractice on the part of Dylan, because he allows such assertions from Cantlay without any apparent rebuttal.  In fact, he allows all sorts of "friend-of-the-court briefs to be filed by fellow elites, without even acknowledging those that feel abandoned.

Pat is also allowed to rebut that Sports Illustrated piece, specifically this assertion:

What has happened since should outrage the Tour’s rank and file. It is a story of political maneuvering and bruised egos obstructing common sense, with Patrick Cantlay seizing control and somehow turning himself into arguably the most powerful person on the PGA Tour, including the commissioner. Cantlay has formed an alliance with fellow Tour Policy Board members Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth, and that group, along with Colin Neville of Raine Capital, is now driving the Tour’s negotiations with PIF and other investors.

 Nothing to see here, according to Patty and Dylan:

The SI report accused Cantlay of fighting for the PGA Tour’s upper crust; he denies that characterization, insisting again that his job is to represent every member.

“With a membership as wide-ranging as the PGA Tour it’s to be expected that there are different perspectives,” he says. “Right now we’re fortunate to have a nice mix of player directors that represent different factions of the Tour. And that’s why it’s been so important for us to work so closely together and have those conversations so we can come to the best decision for all members, collectively, both current and future.”

As for that particularly juicy bit — the idea that he’s seized control? That he had become “arguably the most powerful person on the PGA Tour, including the commissioner”? What does Cantlay make of that?

“I think if you just look at the facts that are out there, it would be impossible for any one player to take control,” he said. “I mean, it would be impossible for all the players together to take control; we only have half the seats on the board, and any major vote around any of the things we’ve been talking about requires a two-thirds majority. And also, considering that the Tour has hired [the titan investment bank] Allen and Co., and given the Tour has been driving discussions since even before the framework agreement was announced, I mean, given that set of facts it’s just impossible for that to be the case.”

That seems quite literal and pretty much besides the point....  Perhaps he's being accused of supporting the upper crust because every single measure taken in reaction to LIV has enriched the upper crust and disenfranchised the rank and file....

On hatgate Dylan is similarly a passive receptacle for Pat's alternative history:

“I love those events,” Cantlay says, wanting to make this part clear. “I love representing the other guys and the captains that are on the team. They’re some of my favorite weeks and some of my favorite memories in golf and I care a ton about the Ryder Cup and a ton about trying to win the Ryder Cup for the United States. And when I’m over there the only thing I’m trying to do is work with the guys, have fun and bring the cup home.”

But he’s dismayed that the report made it past that weekend.

“There was zero divide,” he says. “I think if you asked all the assistant captains, the captain, the players, they would tell you it’s one of the closest locker rooms they’ve been a part of.”

There’s more, of course. He dismisses the idea that the decision to bar Netflix cameras from the U.S. team room came from him, a sticking point in the run-up to the event.

“We all came to a unanimous decision that it would probably be best for the locker room to stay a sanctuary for the players during a high-stress environment like the Ryder Cup,” he says.

But apparently you don't those weeks enough to invest in a scouting trip....   he wants us to believe that there was unanimity about Netflix, but only the two guys got themselves temporarily kicked off the team.  He's not in control, though he always seems to get his way, no?

As for the issue of players getting paid?

“The money issue was not talked about, at all, leading up to the Ryder Cup or during the week of the Ryder Cup,” he says.

He himself brought it up on the first tee, but Dylan seems t be quite in the bag for Patty....  I guess we see the cost of access.

I shall leave you here with my best wishes for the New Year.  Not sure of my short-term schedule for wither blogging or skiing, but I'll get back to more consistent visits to the keyboard, especially as news breaks.

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Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Tuesday Tidbits - Dogs Days of December Edition

A brief update from the Wasatch Range, where warm, dry conditions seem to have settled in for the duration.  Winding down a four-day visit from my nephew and a college buddy, which has becomes a bit of a family tradition.

Utah has actually been favored with snow this year, as Little Cottonwood Canyon, home to Snowbird and Alta, shows some 135-145" thus far, very respectable in total.  The issue being that there hasn't been anything fresh in more than ten days.  No matter how deep the base, the absence of fresh snow is always fatal, especially with warm conditions creating a thaw and freeze cycle each day.

Because of the dearth of white stuff, I've passed on a family gathering in Sun Valley and will head home a few days early, Thursday to be specific.  So, let's try to quickly catch up on stuff, then we'll pick up the thread from home next week.

We'll just dive into the LIV/PGA mess without straining myself over clever subtitles, then hit other bits as time permits.  A bit of a shotgun approach, leading with yesterdays Tour Confidential panel's opening Q&A, a sort of where the hell are we query:

1. As the Dec. 31 deadline for the PGA Tour/PIF/DP World Tour merger looms, there’s still much uncertainty on what the future of the PGA Tour, and pro golf, will look like. And,
after LIV Golf snagged Jon Rahm from the PGA Tour, the PIF seems to be in the driver’s seat. Look into your crystal ball and predict what might be the most likely outcome from this potential merger.

Jessica Marksbury: With a big name like Rahm now playing for the other team, LIV seems here to stay — at least for the time being! One thing I expect to see from the merger is a defined pathway back for Tour defectors. I also think there have to be some joint tournaments in the future, right?

Say what?  I had been reliably informed that it was Jay alone who would decide the future of LIV, so Jess seems to be looking at some other deal. 

Alan Bastable: I think some kind of deal will be inked by the stated deadline or soon thereafter. LIV, as the Rahm signing reminded us, has too much juice/capital for the Tour not to agree to some kind of truce. Also, no one — the Tour, the players and most of all the fans — want to see things continuing on their current trajectory, with men’s pro golf essentially cannibalizing itself. It’s time to find some middle ground and let the best players in the world compete against one another more than four times a year. Ultimately, I think we land in a place where LIV players get world ranking points (with LIV agreeing to a format change), and as Jess said, with at least some degree of fluidity between the two tours. That feels like the only way forward.

Marksbury: Yes, Alan. Definitely feel like world-ranking points have to be a priority for LIV.

Yanno, the first answer wasn't sufficiently profound that we want to start with the follow-up bit, but talk about your swing-and-misses.  World ranking points have been a priority for LIV for some time, although amusingly not during their planning process.  The question, jess, might be what they're prepared to change to make that happen... 

Sean Zak: Best guesstimate is a Definitive Agreement of investment is finalized in January. LIV Golf launches the same week as a Signature Event at Pebble. Everyone will be happy, knowing that Jon Rahm could be back competing against them in 2025. LIV Golf runs through 2024 and after that serves as part of a team golf series, embedded within the greater Tour schedule moving forward.

That's at least a possible scenario, although back by '25 seems a stretch at this point.

But it gets a little more interesting with their second Q&A:

2. ESPN reported on Friday that a multibillion-dollar deal between the PGA Tour and the Strategic Sports Group, which consists of well-known billionaire team owners, is imminent, which would infuse more than $3 billion into the Tour. Let’s get to the nuts and bolts of this: If this deal or a similar one goes through with an entity not named the Saudi PIF, what does that mean exactly for the Tour and its future?

That ESPN report is worthy of a digression, containing few deals but bits of interest as well.  It's basic news content is as follows:

A multibillion-dollar deal between a group of well-known U.S. sports team owners and the PGA Tour is imminent, as the tour still hopes to reach a similar agreement with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, sources told ESPN on Friday.

The agreement with Strategic Sports Group, a consortium of billionaire team owners that includes Tom Werner and John Henry (Boston Red Sox), Arthur Blank (Atlanta Falcons) and Wyc Grousbeck (Boston Celtics), would infuse more than $3 billion into a new for-profit entity, PGA Tour Enterprises, the sources said.

The PGA Tour is also continuing talks with officials from the PIF, which is financing the rival LIV Golf League. If a deal is reached with both Strategic Sports Group and the PIF, more than $7 billion might be infused into PGA Tour Enterprises, which would combine the commercial assets of the PGA Tour, PIF and DP World Tour.

A deal with Strategic Sports Group might be announced before the end of the year. The PGA Tour, DP World Tour and PIF signed a framework agreement to form a partnership on June 6. The agreement is set to expire Dec. 31, although sources have told ESPN it would likely be extended if progress is being made.

Above and beyond a properly-sized hat for Patrick Cantlay, it remains opaque what assets will be in the new for-profit entity and the return available to these investors.  But where it does get interesting is this spicy quote from an unnamed source:

There is an increased urgency to get the deals done, after the LIV Golf League signed another PGA Tour star, Spain's Jon Rahm, on Dec. 7. Sources told ESPN that Rahm, the reigning Masters champion, agreed to a multiyear contract worth more than $300 million to jump to the LIV Golf League.

"It was nothing more than a shot across the bow," said a source familiar with the negotiations. "It was a f--- you by PIF to the tour that they can grab anyone, even the guy who was adamant about not joining. Three hundred million dollars is a rounding error to the Saudis. Their message was: 'You want to keep fighting with us, really? You want to keep talking to everyone and box us out? Good luck with that.' That's their message."

Translated from Arabic into English, that equates to "Nice little tour you have there.  Sure would be a shame if anything happened to it."  Why it's almost like these guys are an organized crime family... has anyone ever noted what scary mofos these guys are?  Really, and yet he still took the money....

Bastable: As mentioned, I think the PIF deal will go forward and, who knows, maybe even a third investor also comes in, which means the Tour will be absolutely flush with cash. The surge of investment will mean the Tour and its new board-room partners will have big decisions to make about how to best spend and reinvest those dollars. Already swelling purses and bonuses and other revenue streams seem likely to further swell, though the Tour’s biggest challenge will be re-engaging fans. Over the past couple of years, the endless hand-wringing over players getting their financial due has been a huge turnoff. Moving forward, every decision the Tour and its new partners make should be made with fans top of mind.

Marksbury: It’s a good time to be a pro golfer, that’s for sure! More partners equals more billions, and as Alan mentioned, more eye-popping sums for the world’s best players. But in the event a deal goes through without the PIF, I think it makes things even more precarious. The Jon Rahm signing made it clear that even LIV’s staunchest opponents can still be bought, and waging a financial battle will not end well for the Tour. But with Tiger Woods’ involvement on the PGA Tour policy board, it’s also clear that the players will have more of a voice than they did previously, so whatever Tour decisions are made, they’ll at least be presented with a more unified front than what we’ve seen thus far.

Zak: If the PIF isn’t involved, then don’t expect team golf to exist much on the PGA Tour. That’s one of three things the PIF brings: team golf, billions of dollars, and some of the best golfers in the world. Without that, the Tour’s future looks worse. The sport’s future looks divided. The pathways to greater investment change for the women’s game. It is a major domino that would trickle down in ways we can’t even quite imagine. I’d guess the policy board realizes that.

Obviously golf writers can't be expected to be financial geniuses, but they don't seem to even acknowledge that these savvy financial players will be looking for a return on said investment.  

Dylan Dethier, in his last Monday Finish column of the year, does better but still comes up a bit short:

Sources tell the Monday Finish that there are some pretty clear benefits to the Saudi PIF being in business (and having direct access to) the high-powered investors involved with the SSG. And some portion of the SSG investors are intrigued by the possibility of having direct access to the PIF. There is a good chance that this would help some of the savviest (and wealthiest) investors in the world get more and better investments.

Okay, you probably didn’t need sources to tell you that. Power players like this value being connected with each other. And most weeks, it turns out, are good for billionaires. Consider this one of ’em.

Fair enough, and there's also the bit about hanging with celebrity professional golfers, but $3-7 billion is still a huge boatload of money....

This comments I hadn't seen, but we've got some spiciness from Viktor Hovland that fits nicely here as well:

3. In the aftermath of the Jon Rahm-to-LIV Golf news, Jordan Spieth told the Associated Press: “I don’t think for him it was the money. I believe he saw two places that neither one was in a great situation right now, and he said, ‘May as well have the money.’” Do you agree with Spieth?

Bastable: Uh, well, of course, the money was the tipping point, but I think what Spieth was driving at was that other factors were at work, and that Rahm didn’t go just for the money. Clearly, Rahm wasn’t thrilled with the state of the Tour and presumably also was still sour, as were so many of his peers, about the secrecy of the June 6 Tour-LIV pact. I think the toughest pill for Rahm to swallow will be LIV’s format, which he is on the record as saying is inadequate. But as mentioned above, I could see changes coming to LIV in that regard so Rahm’s quandary might be short-lived.

Marksbury: With the merger looming, I think Rahm saw a way to cash in in a massive way, while still feeling confident that he could likely eventually return to the Tour one day if he wanted. His major exemptions are secure for years to come, so he probably didn’t feel he had really anything to lose by jumping.

Zak: People might forget when you said something, but they don’t forget what you said. And more than anyone not named McIlroy, Woods, or maybe Horschel, Rahm was steadfast in his disinterest with LIV Golf. That he was so comfortable flipping on his recent opinions was a reminder on how opinions change. To me, it’s not about agreeing with Spieth or not. It’s about Rahm telling himself, It’s okay that I’ve done the opposite of what I’ve said. I don’t think people will forget that.

Jordan is now a Player Director, so needs to be judicious with his words.  But, when you're entire defense is based on the Saudi's depravity, then you suddenly find them not so depraved, folks are gonna notice.

Of course Jon Rahm made some of the best substantive arguments against LIV, now moot, but have you met Viktor Hovland?

In a professional golfing world defined by the PGA Tour vs. LIV, it’s somewhat refreshing to hear a golfer just go ahead and shred both of ’em. Last week, Viktor Hovland had once again found his name in the is-he-going-to-LIV rumor mill, and in the wake of World No. 3 Jon Rahm leaving, the potential departure of World No. 4 raised eyebrows. But Hovland confirmed to the FORE! podcast, hosted by Norway’s Espen Blaker, that he’s sticking with the superior competition on the PGA Tour — at least for now.

“I don’t think their product is that great,” he said of LIV. (The podcast was translated from Norwegian, so take specific word choice with a grain of salt.) “For example, I’m not such a fan of playing without a cut. You need the competition with 150 players and a cut and if you don’t play well enough, you’re out. There is something about it that makes your game a little sharper. If I had gone to LIV, I don’t think I would have become a better golfer.”

Does he read Unplayable Lies?  Because I've been playing that tune since Day One.  The best events should have the best fields for competitive reasons, but Patrick doesn't want the riffraff diluting his winnings.

Of course, it's a pox on both houses per the Norwegian:

That, Hovland said, was the “end of the discussion.” But it wasn’t, really. The reason he considered LIV in the first place, Hovland said, is because of what he considered PGA Tour mismanagement’s “damn bad job.”

“To be clear: I’m not complaining about the position I’m in, and I’m very grateful for everything. But the management has not done a good job,” Hovland said. “They almost see the players as labor, and not as part of the membership. After all, we are the PGA Tour. Without the players, there is nothing.

“When you get to see what happens behind closed doors, how the management actually makes decisions, which are not in the players’ best interest, but best for themselves and what they think is best … they are businessmen who say that, ‘No, it should look like this and that.’ There is a great deal of arrogance behind it all.”

The Tour is hardly the first large organization to lose its mandate, so it's nothing we haven't seen before.  But, while I have no affection for Jay Monahan, Viktor is painting with quite the broad brush.

If there's one insight that I'd urge upon folks, it's that we should never speak of "The Players" as some sort of coherent voting bloc, because the last two years can be viewed as an attack on the rabbit class by the top 20-30 players.  So, when Viktor speaks of wanting the Tour to treat the players as members, I'm inclined to ask which players?

Already on the clock, so let's hit some udder stuff:

They Had Quite The Run - No doubt you've heard the rumors that Tiger might be swooshless soon.  Dylan Dethier had this typically Tigeresque bit from his presser:

Word on the Orlando streets seemed to be that this could be Tiger Woods‘ final week as a Nike Golf athlete. How strange is that?! Woods used to wear Nike shoes and head-to-toe clothes while playing Nike clubs and Nike balls. Even now, after the discontinuation of their hard goods line, we’ve gotten so used to the swoosh on his shirt that it’s hard to picture Woods wearing anything else.

Asked about the chatter surrounding Woods’ Nike deal, he offered a terse reply.

There’s been a lot of chatter the last month or so on your relationship with Nike, and where that’s going. Can you give any clarity to that?

Woods: “I’m still wearing their product.”

Is this the end of it, coming up?

Woods: “I’m still wearing their product.”

So, there’s that.

Readers know that I've never been the biggest fan of Tiger as an individual, and this certainly isn't the worst of his obfuscations over the years.  That said, aren't there better ways to duck the question?  

Of course, while Tiger was repeating this mantra, Charlie was ricking Greyson apparel, so don't we kind of know where this going?  Especially since BFF Justin Thomas is a Greyson staffer....

That said, I'd love to know how much money Phil Knight lost on Tiger and golf over the years.  Because it's expensive to run a golf equipment company just for the one player....  I'll always remember that, when Nike announced they were exiting the equipment business, one of their staff players said that he had never had a Pro-Am partner show up playing Nike gear.  Kind of reminds one of the LIV business model, no?

Screenshots - The usual newsmakers of the year features are rolling out, but Golf Digest has a clever alternative year-in-review piece:

This one could be a caption contest for sure:

 


It all felt better in that moment than it does now...

Not sure I ever saw this from Phoenix at the time, but it's not like you can't see the same thing in a Senate Hearing Room:


Yanno, sir, you can leave the pin in these days....

You won't be shocked that this is my fave:

Doing the job that Tour rules officials won't do.....

This one is pretty good as well, although the video captures it better:

That's two minutes for cross-checking, dude!

We certainly didn't want the dude to go, but now I'm eagerly awaiting his first LIV meltdown:

That'll be it for today.  I'll wish everyone a Merry Christmas and we'll catch up next week.  Thanks, as always, for reading.

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