Tuesday, June 14, 2022

Tuesday Tastings

With travel plans and blogging uncertainty ahead, I'm determined to flood the zone before our Wednesday departure.

Employee No. 2 and I are off to Portland, OR to visit her family, then to Bozeman, MT for R&R, including Big Sky and Yellowstone National Park.  So, this comes as little surprise:

Because, of course.  

Shall we discuss the Open?  It's actually hard to find much in the way of preview pieces, folks being obsessed by you-know-what.

Dateline: Brookline, MA - I assume you've read The Greatest Game Ever Played because, well, it was the greatest friggin' game ever played.  The movie wasn't terrible, but the best part of the book, one the movie could only scratch the surface of, was the schism between the amateur and professional games, which Mark Frost does a good job of explicating.

In the freebie portion of a Quad post, Shack files an interview with Mike Trostel, whose C.V includes the following:

Mike Trostel is the USGA’s Director of Championship Content and a former Ouimet Scholar

Shall we?

GS: Is Francis Ouimet the most important figure in the history of American golf?

MT: In terms of growing the game and broadening its reach, three individuals stand out: Francis
Ouimet, Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods. Ouimet’s 1913 U.S. Open victory placed golf on the front page of many American newspapers for the first time and inspired a generation of golfers who would become the best in the country and eventually the world. He was America’s first golf hero. At the same time, his humility and working-class roots helped erode the perception that golf was an activity only for the elite. The win jump-started a national interest in the game of golf at a time when public courses didn't exist. Over the next decade, the number of American golf courses doubled and number of golfers increased from 350,000 in 1913 to over 2 million.

All that and more...  It put American golf on the map in a shocking and appealing manner.  I'm always amused when a more recant event is characterized as the greatest upset ever, because that title was retired more than a century ago.

But Ouimet wasn't just a guy that caught lightning in a bottle, he was himself quite the appealing character:

GS: Is he absurdly modest about the details of the 1913 U.S. Open playoff?

MT: Ha! Ouimet had a modest personality, which helps explain the understated way he describes
the 1913 U.S. Open and the playoff. There’s a reason that a movie was made based on The Greatest Game Ever Played, but not A Game of Golf, right? Ouimet let others chime in with accolades, but he didn’t want to be the one gloating about his own accomplishments. It’s pretty telling when you read his autobiography that he devotes just 10 pages to the 1913 U.S. Open – a championship we’re discussing as one of the most significant in American golf history more than a century later.

Those are the golf balls used by Ouimet, Vardon and Ray in the playoff, though it's unclear if they were Vardon Flyers.

But Francis Ouimet as gearhead?

GS: Ouimet talks about the golf ball a lot and hearing a story recently that he helped Perry Maxwell pick out his first full set of clubs, makes me think he was a gearhead before his time?

MT: Not only was he a caddie at The Country Club in his youth, getting an up-close look at all sorts of equipment, but the caddiemaster there was Dan McNamara, a strong amateur golfer whose brother, Tom, was a three-time runner-up in the U.S. Open. In Ouimet’s 20s he worked as a sales clerk at Wright & Ditson Sporting Goods, a store which imported and sold golf clubs. So he certainly had an opportunity to inspect and try out a lot of equipment when he was young.

And they touch on one of my favorite moments:

GS: What’s the story behind this video the USGA recently posted of Eddie Lowery and Ouimet reuniting?

MT: That video is from the 1963 U.S. Open highlight film. Not surprisingly, part of the reason The Country Club was awarded the 1963 championship was because it was the 50th anniversary of Ouimet’s win. Both Ouimet and Lowery were brought back as special guests and were honored throughout the week. Ouimet was part of the trophy presentation to Julius Boros as well. (Here’s the full version 38 minute version.)

I had to go into my photo archives for that one.... But Lowery created his own role in golf history through his sponsorship of amateur golfers in the Bay Area, and for the promotion of a certain exhibition match that captured our imagination, at least once we became aware of it long after the fact.

The strange (perhaps it should be Strange, given 1988) thing is that the USGA had seemingly abandoned The Country Club by the 21st century, hence the Open was at Merion in 2013, the hundredth anniversary.  They did bring the Amateur here that year, won by Matthew Fitzpatrick, but an unforced error in my book.

Does 246 Clyde Street ring any bells for you?  Perhaps the most famous address in golf history, or at least in American golf history:

When Francis Ouimet was starting grade school, his father moved the family from a thinly populated section of Brookline to a modest house he had bought across the street from The Country Club. Mr. Ouimet was a workingman with no interest in golf, and had it not been for the proximity of the course his sons might have emptied their childhood enthusiasm in other channels. HERBERT WARREN WIND

Shack has much in that post on how the Ouimet miracle came about, including a great section on the purchase of the house to preserve it as part of our game's history.  Well worth your time if the Ouimet story is of interest.

Shack also posts an interview with Fred Waterman, Club Historian, that deals with the issue most on your mind:

GS: Let’s get the most important question out the way: why is the clubhouse yellow, has it always been that color, and what do we call this shade of yellow?

FW: The Country Club’s colors are "Primrose Yellow" and green, so it’s appropriate that the clubhouse is yellow with green shutters. The color must have a certain appeal because when the film The Greatest Game Ever Played, about Francis Ouimet and the 1913 U.S. Open was filmed at Kanawaki Golf Club in Canada, the producers painted the clubhouse yellow for the filming, with the promise of returning it to its original afterward, but the club liked the yellow so much, it decided to keep it after the cameras stopped rolling (a Hollywood cliché; no longer true, but it sounds good).

 Fred throws a boatload of history into a couple of 'graphs:

GS: Few clubs have more to document and celebrate but TCC’s evolution might surprise some?

FW: History, if not cared for, becomes distorted, lost, and finally just assumptions of what might have been. No club in America has a richer history than The Country Club, and I’ve enjoyed learning about all the parts of the club’s history, from the name “country club” being from a social club in Shanghai, China, to the club being established primarily for horse racing and horse-riding, and with golf not arriving until 11 years later, in 1893, when three members who had never seen a true golf course laid out the first six holes.

And learning about the life-long humility and constant kindnesses of Francis Ouimet; about John Shippen having played in the 1913 Open, his sixth U.S. Open (a black man did not play in another U.S. Open until Ted Rhodes in 1948 at Riviera); how Jess Sweetser, winner of the 1922 Amateur at TCC hid from the officials at the 1926 British Amateur because his opponent in the final had been delayed by car trouble, and Sweetser didn’t want to be awarded the championship (when his opponent arrived, Sweetser emerged and won); and how Kelli Kuehne wore an insulin pump while winning the 1995 U.S. Women’s Amateur at TCC.

Lots of good stuff and nice to have golf news which doesn't leave us feeling like we need a shower....Don't worry, we've got some of that below.

The Tour Confidential panel had some thoughts on the week as well:

1. Well, that was a week. But let’s begin with the week ahead. The U.S. Open — you might remember! — begins Thursday at The Country Club, in Brookline, Mass. Of the storylines swirling around the event, which one most has your attention?

Nick Piastowski: The storyline is Phil and the LIVers, but I’m very interested in The Country Club. Olllld school. Blind shots. Ups and downs and lefts and rights. Trouble everywhere. Which Phil will no doubt find.

Josh Sens: I can’t argue with that. It’s been more than 30 years since the event was here. The course has been renovated to rave reviews. People I’ve talked to about it say the conditioning is pretty much perfect for the event — the rough especially juicy and the greens heading toward crusty. The better the course, the more interesting the golf. That rule should apply here

Claire Rogers: Phil vs. The Crowd. I’m extremely curious to see how Mickelson is received on home soil this week at our national championship! Will they cheer? Will they boo him? Will they put all the LIV stuff aside and just hope he hits bombs? This feels like a reality TV show unfolding right before our eyes, and I am here for it.

Dylan Dethier: Rory McIlroy (and Justin Thomas) have planted their PGA Tour flags. I’m fascinated to see the dynamics between players in their camp and pros who have made the jump to LIV. How will it be with McIlroy and Mickelson? Will they even see each other? Will they be paired together? And, of course, who is going to make the leap next?

Dylan, glad you asked, because the Thursday-Friday pairings have been released, and it seems that the USGA has gone to great lengths to keep the Bloods and the Crips away from each other.

Here's Geoff on that topic:

The USGA announced groupings Monday afternoon.

You can view them here and search for profound links or sadistic meaning. Sadly, the days of &^%$% pairings are supposedly over, so the natural inclination this week is to search for LIV groupings. I spotted a couple of maybes though, but that’s what happens when you go right to Billy Horschel’s name.

The traditional grouping of the reigning Open (Colin Morikawa), U.S. Amateur (James Piot) and U.S. Open champion (Jon Rahm) is again in place, with Piot expected to be sporting spoils of his new endorsement arrangement with LIV Golf.

Tellingly, Francis Ouimet did not turn up at the 1914 U.S. Open in the gear of a rogue tour bankrolled by sleazebags, sources say.

 Geoff includes this curated list:

Not exactly the names we're looking for... Phil was paired with fellow insurgent King Louis and Shane Lowry, though admittedly I don't know where the latter stands on the issues of the day.  DJ, who might also hear some things this week, is with noted nice guys Webb Simpson and Matthew Fitzpatrick.  Kevin Na is also coddled by being paired with Sergio, with Tyrell Hatton filling out the threesome.

Although Na might not be as pleased with his locke3r assignment:

Full history of that manspat can be found here.

 So, ready to turn to the dark side?

LIVing The Dream - I highly recommend viewing the tape of Phil's Monday presser at the Open, as neither a transcript nor my trenchant descriptions can capture the alternatively defensive and passive-aggressive nature of the manner in which Phil presented.  The obvious thought is that, having cashed a nine-figure check, you'd think he's be, yanno, happier.

Shack has the reviews, first from Kyle Porter of CBS:

Phil Mickelson -- one of the most decorated champions and greatest characters in the modern sports era and someone who has always treated pride and competitiveness as a currency in which he deals -- appeared ashamed of himself.

Yes, when he wasn't looking angry...

Joel Beall of Golf Digest:

It is truly jarring to see a golfer who has famously embraced the brazen be reduced to anything but.

Peter May of Pravda:

For someone with a reputation as a gambler, on and off the golf course, Phil Mickelson played it as straight as a Ben Hogan 1-iron on Monday.

I don't know about straight.  It was more an Ali rope-a-dope to me...

Peter Rosenberger of SI won't be getting any exclusives from Phil:

Monday was the first time he did so as an employee of the ruthless Saudi Arabian government. That is what he is. He can duck it, soften it, or change the topic, but that is what he is.

Lastly, Ryan Lavner:

The smartest guy in the room, the swashbuckler who never saw a shot he couldn’t take on, Mickelson on Monday wasn’t about to take on any unnecessary risks in this setting, the TV cameras rolling. He finally played it safe – and said nothing at all.

This did make me laugh, apparently Phil picked a bad week to give up boneaws:

To me, the telling moment was the look on his face when asked about the letter from the 9/11 families.  Shack had this on his fave:

Mickelson admirably turned up at 1 p.m. and wheeled out a mellow acoustic set of new material. Sure, he tried to play a few hits but the good times aren’t rolling when you’re having to reiterate pain for 9/11 victims, get easily irritated at multi-part questions, and use your wife to shield from even more awkwardness.

That sniping about multi-part questions was really awkward, but the seething hostility was there from start to finish.  Eamon Lynch, shockingly, had some criticisms:

BROOKLINE, Mass. – Over three decades, fans of Phil Mickelson have become accustomed to
his shortcomings at the U.S. Open. There’ve been three solo second-place finishes, a trio of ties for second, and a couple fourths, each failed tilt at the National Open—30, in all—making its own fibrous contribution to his scar tissue. Not since the rain-plagued 109th Open at Bethpage Black has Mickelson authored one of his disappointments on a Monday, but he got it out of the way at the 122nd Open before most fans were even on the grounds at The Country Club.


OK, but I'm not sure Phil himself was at all disappointed... 

When a reporter raised the highly critical letter sent to him and other Saudi-allied players by the families of victims of the September 11 attacks, Mickelson cut her short. “I’ve read all that. Is there a question in there?” he snapped.

There was: “How do you explain to them—not to us, to them—what you have decided to do?”

“I have deep, deep empathy for them,” was all he could muster.

Yes, and he expressed that "deep empathy" multiple times, each successive one less convincing than the prior lifeless version.   

I actually found him most unctuous when discussing the "grow the game" nonsense:

Twice Mickelson did offer rationales on how LIV will be “transformative.” One was the team format, which drew tens of (non-paying) spectators at the Centurion Club near London last week, and not many more to the livestream. The other was geographic. “I believe moving tournaments throughout the world and bringing that type of championship golf to different parts of the world is going to have a very positive effect globally on the sport,” he said.

In just the last 20 years, the PGA Tour staged 98 tournaments outside the domestic U.S. in 13 countries. Mickelson competed in barely a quarter of them. His unconvincing attempt to position himself as a missionary for the game merely exposed him as a mercenary.

Wow, transformative.  Quick, can anyone tell me who won that transformative team competition?

But, perhaps more importantly, who authorized Phil to transform our game?

 Eamon does make a good point that, much like the Clintons, there's quite a high body count involved:

Mickelson has now cheapened two consecutive majors—the PGA Championship, by not defending his title and instead using it as a tease to build anticipation for his eventual return a few weeks later for the Saudis, and now the U.S. Open, reduced to a platform for normalizing sportswashers. For him, the majors are just collateral damage, something his Saudi benefactors are familiar with as a cost of doing business, whether launching a hostile takeover of golf or missiles at Yemeni civilians. Mickelson is also clearly establishing himself as the most likely plaintiff in whatever future legal action the Saudis finance over his suspension from the Tour or any potential sanction by the majors. His lifetime Tour membership and exempt status into all majors for several more years explains his value to MBS and his minions.

But I've been reliably informed that he's doing it for the children....

I'm going to exit on an interesting John Huggan piece:

HUGGAN: LIV GOLF V THE PGA TOUR – THE BATTLE, PRO GOLF NEEDS TO HAVE

 Huggan, a Brit as far as I know, actually writes this piece from an Aussie perspective:

Then there is the treatment the PGA Tour routinely metes out to every other Tour in golf. Take Australia. Over the years, that wonderful country has produced any number of truly great players.
Peter Thomson, Greg Norman (yes, him) and Karrie Webb are merely the best on a long list of those who have travelled far from home to take on and beat the best. Which is no surprise given the training grounds available Down Under. Royal Melbourne is, of course, the best layout in the southern hemisphere. But the likes of Kingston Heath, Victoria, Barnbougle Dunes and Lost Farm are not far behind.

And yet, despite all of the above, the Australasian Tour is, at best, second-rate. Maybe even third-rate. There are a few reasons for that sorry state of affairs. The economy is one. But so is the callousness of a PGA Tour that insists on an almost year-long schedule that keeps many of the Aussies away from home in the month before Christmas. A kindly soul might see that as mere thoughtlessness, but the PGA Tour doesn’t do that. Behind the smiles and the boasts of charitable donations, there lurks a cold business brain. Despite the endless protestations of doing what is “good for golf,” almost without exception the PGA Tour – yet again – does what is best for the PGA Tour, the game be damned.

Yes, the PGA Tour has destroyed (or at least has contributed to it) the rather great Aussie Championship season, though that which they've done to the amateur game might be more objectionable.

I love that Huggan digs deeply enough to cite Bobby Locke's treatment, but I'm just not buying this:

While no right-thinking person is hailing the oil-rich Saudis as a force for good in the wider world, in the little part of the planet occupied by golf their elite power-grab might, at least in one way, actually turn out to be just what Old Tom’s game needs in the long run. For too long now, the PGA Tour has been golf’s Goliath, a selfish, insular bully whose every action betrayed a lack of desire to do what is best for the sport on a global basis.

I'm sure that if John and your humble blogger shared a beer, we'd find much common ground.   

But, and this is the crux of what I've been arguing since this issue presented, Phil's involvement with the Saudis makes the kind of positive change we desire less likely and harder to achieve.  Just look at Jay's reaction to the threat, notably the legalized bribery of the PIP program ( I think the current scorecard is that three of those ten did not stay bribed for very long).  has he expressed any need to improve the actual product?  

These guys have gotten their payday, but in doing so have weakened the underlying financials of the PGA Tour.  We don't know the ramifications of that, but that "grow the game" mantra should be challenged at every turn.

That's all for today.  I will hopefully see you tomorrow as well.

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Monday, June 13, 2022

Weekend Wrap

So, anything of interest happen over the weekend?  Not sure we can do it justice, but let's start closer to home in...well, Canada.

The Empire Strikes Back - If ever they needed to put on a good, old-timey show, it was this week, and the man in pink came through:

Come Sunday, the Tour had its absolute dream scenario. Its two unofficial spokesmen, Thomas and McIlroy, were in the day’s final group alongside fan-favorite and mega-talent Tony Finau. LIV had
wrapped up on Saturday without much fanfare; Mickelson fell outside the top 30 while journeyman (and former Masters champ) Charl Schwartzel emerged the new owner of $4.75 million. The stage was cleared for Canadian chaos.

St. George’s proved the perfect site for daytime fireworks. McIlroy birdied the first hole of the day. Thomas and Finau birdied the second. That set the tone for what was to come. Thomas nearly made an ace at the par-3 6th; McIlroy followed with a chip-in and a fist-pump, celebrating a stolen stroke. The two of them went out in five-under 29; Finau shot 31.

Up ahead, Justin Rose was on 59 watch. He’d holed out at No. 1 and proceeded two make two more eagles throughout the day. He reached 11 under on the par-70 layout with three holes to play. The top-heavy leaderboard featured other top-tier talent, too: Sam Burns lurked at the edge of the top five, with Shane Lowry and Matthew Fitzpatrick not far behind. Tension built and storylines developed, as happens on the Tour’s best Sundays.

As you've likely heard, Rory dinged The Great White Pilot Fish in his post-round comments, though said ding went over most folks' heads (unless, of course, your humble blogger has lost all feel for the zeitgeist), but is that thumbs-up in the photo above a dig at He Who Cannot Be Named?

I caught the last 4-5 holes yesterday and almost nothing prior in the week, but the Tour will of course trumpet the strong leaderboard, the more impressive because it's the week before the U.S. Open, when many of the alpha dogs stay home.  But the bigger contrast might be the crowds, which were deep and enthusiastic, and may have actually paid to watch the action.

Here's the background on his shot at Norman:

“It’s incredible,” McIlroy said. “Playing with Tony and JT, and all of us playing the way we did, I
think the worst round was 6 under, this is a day I will always remember. My 21st PGA Tour win, one more than somebody else, that gave me a little extra incentive today and I’m happy to get it done.”

That somebody else would be Greg Norman, who is the commissioner of LIV Golf, a rival league backed by Saudi Arabia that played its first event this week outside of London. McIlroy has been critical of the league.

“I had extra motivation of what’s going on across the pond,” he said. “The guy that’s spearheading that (league) has 20 wins on the PGA Tour and I was tied with him and I wanted to get one ahead of him. And I did. So that was really cool for me, just a little sense of pride on that one.”

The play of that final group certainly helped the cause, though that diss likely just gave Norman more airtime than is wise.  Besides, the stronger point would be that you have him 4-2 in majors, although you both have the second Tuesday evening in April free...

The more interesting bits might have come in the CBS booth, and when have you ever heard that from me?  On Saturday the broadcast opened with a cri de coeur that was most interesting for its use of the B-word:

Nick Faldo, Jim Nantz and CBS started its intro into its PGA Tour coverage with kind words about its leaderboard and the golf course they were on.

They then talked for three minutes, mostly in blunt fashion, about “a story that is also out there.”

In CBS’ first televised comments about the upstart, Saudi-backed LIV Invitational Series — which finished its first event on Saturday about an hour before the broadcast of the Canadian Open — Nantz noted the world rank (126th) and lack of recent success of Charl Schwartzel (no wins in six years), the event’s champion, then Faldo took swings at the format and the players, and Nantz said he felt ‘betrayal.” The tone could be considered both surprising, given the network’s previous silence, and anticipated, considering CBS’ long relationship with the Tour, which Nantz did disclose.

 I haven't bothered to watch the video, but this gives the appearance that Sir Mumbles was able to get a couple of coherent thoughts out, presumably because it was preescripted:

“No. 1, you saw those faces, you can’t feel good being a major champion to be suspended from the Tour,” Faldo said. “We’ve got two totally different golf tournaments. One, we play for tournaments and national championships over here. And the LIV Tour is what, 54 holes and no cut, shotgun start, you know, sounds crazy.

“And the other thing that is very noticeable is the players that have left. Obviously they’re in mid-40s, they’ve been out here on Tour, they’ve been battling away and they probably know they can’t win out here against these youngsters. So they’re taking the easy option to go over and try and win a boatload of cash.”

Of course using an extremely loose definition of "coherent."   For instance, that last sentence is quite the doozy, given that the LIV purses, as super-sized as it is, would seem less important than the nine-figure guarantees reportedly being paid to DJ and Bryson.  

On Sunday, Jay Monahan spent a few moments with Jim Nantz and made an important point, though that doesn't mean he made it especially well:

When asked by CBS’ Jim Nantz why players can’t play both, Monahan responded quickly and
decisively.

“Why do they need us so badly? Because those players have chosen to sign multi-year lucrative contracts to play in a series of exhibition matches against the same players over and over again,” Monahan said. “You look at that versus what we see here today, and that’s why they need us so badly. You’ve got true, pure competition. The best players in the world are here at the RBC Canadian Open, with millions of fans watching, and in this game, it’s true and pure competition that creates the profile in the presence of the world’s greatest players.

“And that’s why they need us. That’s what we do. But we’re not going to allow players to freeride off of our loyal members, the best players in the world.”

Again, no mention of the guaranteed money.  He's not wrong to call it an exhibition, but wouldn't it be stronger to emphasize that the guys have been paid before they peg it...

Here I think he makes weak contact as well:

“It’s been an unfortunate week that was created by some unfortunate decisions, those decisions being players choosing to violate our tournament regulations,” Monahan said. “It’s my job to protect, defend, and celebrate our loyal PGA Tour members, our partners and our fans. And that’s exactly what I did. And I don’t think it was a surprise to anybody. Given how clear I had been about how we were going to handle this situation.

“We made a decision last week to suspend those players, and they’re no longer eligible for tournament play. And that at this point is all we’re prepared to talk to. We’ll see how things continue to develop as we go down the road here.”

They're at the Canadian Open, which is obviously sponsored by RBC, which also sponsors a large stable of players individually.  DJ and Graeme McDowell have quite obviously violated the terms of their sponsorship contracts, and I'm curious as to why no one seems to have a problem with that.  This seems to me the clearest impact of those defections, which is the easy answer to the ubiquitous, "You can't blame them for taking the money" reactions.  I do think you can blame them, because they're enriching themselves to the detriment of the remaining universe of players.  Which is an odd way to grow the game, no?

And on the source of that funding:

“It’s not an issue for me, because I don’t work for the Saudi Arabian government,” Monahan said, a veiled dig at the notion of being a free agent. “But it probably is an issue for players who chose to go and take that money. I think you have to ask yourself a question: Why.

“Why is this group spending so much money — billions of dollars — recruiting players and chasing a concept with no possibility of a return?” he said. “At the same time, there’s been a lot of questions, a lot of comments, about the growth of the game. And I ask, ‘How is this good for the game?’”

Here Jay is partially hoisted on his own petard, because he's as likely as anyone to fall into that trap of assuming that professional golf is the game of golf.  But, more importantly, do you also wonder what a petard is?

pe·tard
/pəˈtärd/
noun
HISTORICAL
a small bomb made of a metal or wooden box filled with powder, used to blast down a door or to make a hole in a wall.
a kind of firework that explodes with a sharp report.

 Come for the trenchant golf insights, stay for the vocabulary lesson...

The Tour seemingly put on a good show in Canada, yet probably ends the week in a less favorable position than that in which they started the week.  The coming week can't be a good one for Jay, as that plane from Heathrow has arrived at Logan with Phil, DJ and the other turncoats.

As we've covered over the years, U.S. Open pairings have a rich history.  Notwithstanding the organization's stodginess, they have actually amused with their groupings.  For years, the parlor game was to discern the a*****e group, until Rory Sabbatini retired that Championship Belt.  Then there was that epic fat boy group at Pinehurst, putting new meaning into the concept of anchor sites.

So, how would you like to be responsible for the pairings this week?  A group of former PGA Championship winners seems logical, say Rory, JT and Phil?  Or perhaps this is the moment for the long-anticipated Brooksie-Bryson pairing?  There are likely to be some testy first-tee handshakes, no?

LIV Long And Prosper - Quite the week, the golf being the least of it.  But let's start with that actual tournament exhibition, first from the Tour Confidential panel:

2. OK, let’s talk LIV. The controversial, Saudi-backed league began play last week at the Centurion Club in London; there were bells and whistles with a team draft, shotgun starts and gigantic purses, and golf was played, with Charl Schwartzel claiming the crown. We’ll ask a few questions here. First, your biggest takeaway from the week?

Piastowski: The golf was lifeless. I’ll just leave it at that.

Sens: That whatever you think about the league, it has gained far greater traction that any of us predicted in this space. Also, as I said last week: the divided opinions over it are mirror of our own deeply split politics. The anger and accusations in both directions are a depressing reminder of problems far more important than golf.

Rogers: A LOT of people are involved. And I’m not just talking about the golfers. Jessie J performed, trumpets were played on the first tee and Dennis Quaid narrated a hype video. The whole thing felt kind of like Coachella … with a golf tournament. It was a huge production that was clearly well-planned, so I’m curious to see what else they have in store.

Dethier: It’s definitely not going away! And — as with everything — opinions on the matter are getting increasingly polarized and political. That will continue. I think the PGA Tour needs a response that includes upgrading its own product to make sure that the Tour’s biggest events are the envy of the golfing world. Thus far they’ve mostly stuck to the status quo.

Dylan packs a punch into his answer, so let's spend a little time here.  That "not going away" I think requires some clarification.  No question they were able to fill a couple of news cycles with new names jumping on board so they're not going away soon might be the better way to put it.  We all understand that the Saudi's have the scratch to fund this in perpetuity if they want to, but we have little understanding of how long that commitment might last.

This to me hints at the killer response to Phil's "grow the game" nonsense.  The business model is to build a new golf ecosystem entirely dependent on a noxious regime over-paying by orders of magnitude to distract folks from those bonecutters in the back room.  Phil, you used to know some folks at KPMG.... would they sign off on that business plan?  And the other guys were reasonably honest about this, making it clear that they're simply taking the money and not worrying about the consequences that ensure later.

But perhaps the more interesting aspect of Dylan's comments are to consider how the Tour got here, which brings us back to the reign of Nurse Ratched.  The biggest impediment to that which Dylan craves is none other than FedEx, whose season-long points race has calcified the Tour into an endless succession of mind-numbing, interchangeable events.  This is probably worth a deeper dive, but today is not the time for it.  But ironies abound, because the dreadful FedEx Cup is a direct result of the Tour not controlling those four events that do actually matter, but their commitments to Memphis make any changes that much more difficult to enact.

Alan Shipnuck survived his encounter with those two goons without necks and filed a couple of reports from on site, which Jay will not find pleasant reading:

HEMEL HEMPSTEAD, England — On Saturday evening, along the rolling countryside outside
London, at a private club that is a bastion for the Anglo elite, former Masters champion Charl Schwartzel tapped in for a final par to win $4.75 million at the inaugural LIV Golf tournament, ushering in golf’s age of cognitive dissonance. For Schwartzel, 37, this was his first worldwide “victory” since 2016 — he was also part of the winning four-man squad in LIV’s concurrent team competition — but his potential reemergence as a big-time player was relegated to a minor footnote amid the preceding days’ political brinkmanship that is threatening golf’s world order. Pressing flesh at the glitzy trophy ceremony was Yasir bin Othman Al-Rumayyan, a top official from the Saudi Arabian government. It is the Saudis and their vast reserves of oil money that launched LIV. Al-Rumayyan’s preppy Western clothes and impeccable manners did not hint at the atrocities his government repeatedly has committed. Acting as emcee at the ceremony was LIV frontman Greg Norman, who has taken to spouting empty cliches about modernism and inclusivity but only two days earlier looked on impassively as tournament security goons strong-armed a reporter out of a press conference without cause. All this messiness lurked beneath the surface, like a turgid shark, as the feeling at the trophy ceremony was celebratory. Fueled by excellent food and beer offered at reasonable prices in the spectator village, the fans were loud and rowdy. (The final round was billed as a sellout, though free tickets had been available before the tournament.)

In a cute touch, Liv gave out trophies to the top three finishers in both the individual and team competitions, and the assembled players radiated Christmas morning giddiness and exchanged incredulous looks that could be interpreted as holy shit—this actually worked! Taking it all in was disorienting, a reminder that in this complicated moment for professional golf many things can true at once: It is impressive what LIV has built from scratch in a short period of time; the Saudi money and palpable player greed is distasteful in the extreme; a 54-hole tournament with a shotgun start feels weird, but it is still a pleasure to watch accomplished golfers tussle with a challenging course with something at stake; in the space of a week, LIV has seized most of the leverage in the battle for golf’s future, some three decades after Norman first floated the idea of an independent world tour; the monolithic and monopolistic PGA Tour is somehow now the underdog.

The off-course stuff seemed more interesting than the actual comp, but reinforcements are on the way.  Here's Alan's take on that:

As was the case throughout tournament week, the on-course action was overshadowed by larger developments. Schwartzel had a commanding five-stroke lead at the turn of the final round,
making it easier to focus on the breaking news that Patrick Reed and Pat Perez are the latest players to leave the PGA Tour to join LIV. This followed Bryson DeChambeau’s similar announcement from the day before. LIV has now acquired a critical mass of Hall of Famers (Phil Mickelson and, someday, Dustin Johnson), major championship winners (Schwartzel, DeChambeau, Reed, Sergio Garcia, Martin Kaymer, Graeme McDowell and Louis Oosthuizen) and spiky personalities who generate conversation (Perez, Ian Poulter, Kevin Na and Lee Westwood). Rumors are flying that Harold Varner III and Jason Kokrak are next; they’re not stars but this kind of established veteran is important for filling out the 48-man fields and bumping some of the unknowns who dented LIV’s credibility in its opening event. The Pat Perezes of the world also bring respectable World Ranking positions, making it increasingly difficult for the OWGR folks to continue to deny points to LIV events. (This is a key point, as World Ranking is the key metric for players earning access into the major championships.) More players are sure to jump as good word-of-mouth spreads among their peers.

The OWGR will be a critical front in this war, one that the existing powers seemingly control.  Then again, the Maginot Line was a seemingly effective perimeter defense...

I've been a LIV sceptic, but a couple of those signings have me agape.  Pat Perez has outsized impact to me because he was one of the harshest critics of Phil as this story started unfolding.  But the one that has me agape is HVIII, a man who was considered the conscience of the Tour back in 2020.  It's never pretty when our heroes expose themselves, but I will never care what he has to say again.

 Back to the TC gang:

3. Considering all elements of the event — the play, the format, the players, the promotion — what most surprised you?

Piastowski: I actually didn’t mind the team concept. If the players invest in it. Our Sean Zak reported that the winning team — don’t ask me the team name because good lord — was rigged to get certain players on it, so there’s that. But I like the idea. If there were actual franchises, and players huddling around the last player on the last green and such, there could maybe be something there.

Sens: I wasn’t expecting a conventional event or broadcast. But the busy-ness of the graphics and carnival aspect of the promotional stuff around it—that was all more intense than I expected

Rogers: There was so much money and talent involved in the event, yet the team names and logos reminded me of a local little league baseball tournament. I was expecting more in that department.

Dethier: I was thinking “Backyard Baseball,” Claire — I don’t think your local Rotary Club could afford to sponsor the Fireballs. What most surprised me is how quickly they seemed to pull off some of these last-minute signings. There is cash available and it is available now. DeChambeau was out and then, poof, he was in. Ditto with Patrick Reed and Pat Perez. More will follow. Who will they be?

 Who wants to break it to Nick that the teams will change every week?  

4. Soon after the event began, the PGA Tour suspended its members who were playing in London and said it would do the same to players who might follow. Two questions: What do you make of this move? And with one week of LIV in the books, what the Tour’s next best move, in terms of protecting its turf?

Piastowski: The Tour had to do the move, but without buy-in from the majors, it’s kind of meaningless. It sounds like some of the LIVers are upset over it all, but a few mil should tide them over. As for the Tour’s next best move, sit down your stars, listen and act upon what they want, receive some sort of commitment and invest and promote them heavily. Do they want fewer tournaments? Cool. Do they want alternative events? Cool. Whatever it is, do it. LIV won’t win with the 45-and-older set, but they could if they continue to gobble up players like Bryson DeChambeau and Talor Gooch.

Sens: I’m not sure what other response the Tour could make to the players at this point. In terms of protecting its turf, it’s all about the majors and the other four of the Five Families of golf that run them. The Tour will need their backing if it wants to stave off more defections.

Rogers: I think the Tour had no choice but to suspend players. They were kind of cornered into the decision, but I do wonder if they’re going to have to compromise at some point down the road. They lost a lot of players to LIV this week. I think the Tour’s next best move is a) adjusting their schedule to give players more of an off-season and b) working with the best amateurs in the game to ensure the Tour remains the place that they have always dreamed of playing. That means highlighting legacy and tradition more than money.

Dethier: I mentioned this above, but the Tour needs some sort of super-series so that fans know when they need to pay attention and when they’ll see all the top dogs. That means 12-18 events (including the majors and the Players) with elevated purses, creative format tweaks, franchises, team aspects and all the best players going head to head. The best move for the Tour to protect its own turf is to flex its existing rights deals and give people the best golf TV product they’ve ever seen.

So, Dylan, you mean a super-series like the FedEx Cup and WGCs?  How'd those work out?

Obviously, as Nick notes, Jay will have to placate his alpha dogs, but that's not going to be pretty.  We've already seen it with the PIP program, where he didn't get much of a return from the big check paid to Phil (although one assumes Phil didn't get the second installment).

More importantly, what do the big guys want?  To the extent that there's any coherence, it's pretty clear that they primarily want more zeroes on their checks.  The only other consistent theme is that they want to play less, which is understandable (especially for those Euros maintaining membership on two tours).  Jay certainly has some flexibility there, but we shouldn't ignore that that's a pretty important structural support for the ecosystem.  Sponsors and the networks have made commitments based upon the top players appearing regularly, and any relaxation of these requirements has significant ramifications.

Joel Beall seems one of the first to make a point that I've been emphasizing, that this is a horrible vision for our game:

LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman has said he does not want a schism; he envisions LIV to be additive
to the sport. Norman is also rolling out a field in London this week that, with a few notable exceptions, is composed of has-beens and never-wases competing for ungodly sums of money under the misguided notion that it will somehow help a maligned government sportswash its image. How that is additive to the sport, how that is interesting to golf fans, remains unclear. In a related note, tickets remain widely available.

If that’s all that LIV Golf could be this wouldn’t be a discussion. Theoretically it could help the PGA Tour and DP World Tour, cleansing them of those stuck in the purgatory between relevance and the Champions circuit and making way for fledgling stars. But for all that it hasn’t been, LIV has shown just enough of what it could be—and the chaos it could impel—and that’s the problem.

As if siphoning off the top 48 players from the PGA Tour for 10-15 years could ever be "additive"!  But the issue cuts deeper:

There’s the problem of the disruptor in question, the series being funded by the Saudi Arabian government, for it is driving this discussion and its direction seems aimless. Perhaps the issue begins with the vehicle itself. There is a fundamental fault with the competition that LIV Golf is creating, and for a second put aside the problematic strings to this venture and focus on that competition. At its heart, golf is appreciated for being the purest rendition of meritocracy, where spots aren’t given and you only make what you earn. LIV Golf is the antithesis of this spirit. It offers signing bonuses and no-cut guaranteed paydays to players most fans would not pay to see. Aside from the general curiosity surrounding its Thursday debut and a better-than-expected production, the LIV Golf presentation had no appeal. There was nothing on the line, no reason for these guys to be playing aside from the chance to line their pockets no matter how they finish. It is a glorified exhibition, a televised member-guest, and nothing more.

Golf has always had a bifurcated compensation structure, where the big names have guaranteed money in the form of endorsements.   But the Tour itself, at least until the PIP, was a rigid meritocracy with nothing given and everything earned.  Which I would argue is the nature of our game...

Graeme McDowell, in comments I keep returning to, said it best, LIV is golf without the grind.  Which is quite nice for Graeme, but not all that interesting to the rest of us.

Joel gets in some cheap shots, which are fun but transitory:

Norman and the LIV Golf team also seem incapable of taking a step forward without stepping on their own foot. LIV Golf’s entire existence has been marked by incompetence and parody, a sentiment encapsulated by this week’s London event. There was the drama of a reporter tossed out of a press conference; schadenfreude at the series’ logos that appeared lifted from a kindergarten classroom; bewilderment at the appearance of Phil Mickelson, who ended his months-long sabbatical, showing up to a draft party in stubble and an all-leather ensemble that can only be described as mid-life crisis mixed with Top Gun cosplay. James Piot, who is a professional, is listed as an amateur while Hudson Swafford was listed as Swafford Hudson on the LIV website. The drawing party accidentally revealed “Patrick Reed” on the board a day before reports of Reed joining LIV trickled out. Comical as these missteps can be, they are less comical when understanding these knuckleheads can alter the fate of the sport.
 

Norman's a boob, but a boob with a couple of billion to spread around.   And how's that PIp working out?

This should serve as an intervention for the tour. It bet hard on legacy and lost. By its own popularity rankings, the No. 2, No. 5 and No. 7 players in its Player Impact Program have left. Or, framed in another light, the tour gifted Mickelson, DeChambeau and Johnson a collective $12.5 million to incentivize them to stay … and were trumped by roughly $400 million from LIV Golf. That’s not including Bubba Watson, who finished 10th in the PIP and was accidentally featured in a LIV promotional video Thursday morning amid rumors he, too, is leaving. There are bigger purses, bigger bonus pools, bigger FedEx Cup bonanzas coming to the tour, but they don’t have the resources to engage in an arms race, and legacy won’t be enough.

That Bubba bit goes both ways.  There was a promo hyping the event's work with kids on yesterday's CBS broadcast, featuring HVIII.  Yeah, he'll be scrubbed out, but who is safe to Photoshop in?

We'll finish with Joel's rousing coda:

And a product that now raises a question of morality. Fans tune into sports to forget about the real world. Instead, LIV Golf brings the real world issues front and center, funded by a government accused of human-rights atrocities. Worse, fans are watching a considerable amount of stars they follow willing to barter their goodwill to be a puppet for a regime that couldn't care less about the sport they allegedly love.

That sounds mawkish, and professional sports has long revealed its dark sides. Conversely, sports remain one of the few forums with the ability to bring this ever-divided culture together. In our neck of the woods, that is golf. One of the things that holds our attention are the players in the arena, and when you invest as much time and emotion as being a fan requires it’s understandable to develop certain feelings towards them. To see that love means nothing can breach even the most hardened of hearts.

So, yes, this is all a trainwreck. Sorry, we meant reality show. Whatever it is, it is no good.

Irony alert: For years the Tour has kept disciplinary actins under wraps, assuring us that these guys are all gentlemen.   The most egregious example of this was to allow one player to concoct a fake jet-ski accident to cover up for a failed drug test.  Can anyone name that player?  Yup, none other than DJ, who turns out to be a self-centered jerk.  But Nurse Ratched assured me that he's a gentleman who would never do anything to harm the game.  

So, the Tour has it coming to it... but unfortunately we're going along for the ride.

I am out of time, and you'll notice we've barely mentioned that it's US. Open week.  It'

s even worse than that, because Employee No. 2 and I are off on a trip Thursday.  I'll make sure to fill you in further before we leave, and even hopefully preview the events in Boston.  No promises about blogging the Open while away, as it'll be a game time decision as to whether or not the laptop makes the trip.  

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Friday, June 10, 2022

LIV Friday

 Did the Earth move for you?

No?  All that innovation and guys doing what's best for their families?  What's wrong with you?

C'mon, this doesn't excite you, perhaps golf isn't the game for you:

1. Charl Schwartzel -5
2. Hennie Du Plessis -4
T3. Scott Vincent -3
T3. Phachara Khongwatmai -3
T5. Branden Grace -2
T5. Justin Harding -2
T7. Dustin Johnson -1
T7. Phil Mickelson -1
T7. Sam Horsfield -1
T7. Laurie Canter -1
T11. Chase Koepka E
T11. Oliver Bekker E
T11. Peter Uihlein E
T11. Adrian Otaegui E
T11. Hideto Tanihara E
T16. Sergio Garcia +1
T16. Talor Gooch +1
T16. Wade Ormsby +1
T16. Ian Snyman +1
T16. James Piot +1
T16. Viraj Madappa +1
T22. Pablo Larrazabal +2
T22. Louis Oosthuizen +2
T24. Richard Bland +3
T24. Ratchanon Chantananuwat (a) +3
T24. Ryosuke Kinoshita +3
T24. Jediah Morgan +3
T24. Oliver Fisher +3
T24. Kevin Yuan +3
T24. Jinichiro Kozuma +3
T24. JC Ritchie +3
T24. Shaun Norris +3
T24. Kevin Na +3
T34. Graeme McDowell +4
T34. David Puig (a) +4
T34. Martin Kaymer +4
T34. Matt Jones +4
T38. Turk Pettit +5
T38. Travis Smyth +5
T38. Lee Westwood +5
T38. Ian Poulter +5
T42. Sadom Kaewkanjana +6
T42. Itthipat Buranatanyarat +6
T44. Hudson Swafford +7
T44. Bernd Wiesberger +7
T46. Blake Windred +8
T46. Sihwan Kim +8
48. Andy Ogletree +12

I have been reliably informed that there was no grind in Graeme McDowell's +4, so that sound you hear is golf growing.

Lots of reports from on the ground, including this from Sean Zak:

Nothing about this was normal for a pro golf tournament. But most things surrounding it were. Around 11:30 a.m., players began to take their typical formations on the range. Mickelson was among the first, soon joined by Ian Poulter and Kevin Na. The team aspect of the event — which isn’t as organic as it’s being advertised — could be seen in the driving range placards and the bibs worn by caddies, but not on the players. Mickelson wore all black for the second straight day, adding a new logo Thursday: Augusta National’s, on his vest.

That they could accommodate all 48 players on the range is newsworthy, but I just Googled LIV team results and came up with squat.  So, while Mr. Norman promised it would be just like the Ryder Cup...

In the parking lot next door, players began filing into black taxi cabs, a cheeky if contrived ode to London, the host city. Poulter refused to enter his cab, for sake of staying loose. He crouched in
the parking lot, working out his lower back, as a dozen photographers leaned in for pictures. He was set to drive to the 18th tee box in the back of a tight cab, but couldn’t leave until Louis Oosthuizen showed up. “Is Louis walking?” Poulter asked his caddie. No one knew where Oosthuizen was. No one knew where Shaun Norris was, either. (He decided to walk to the 15th tee, shirking the cabs.)

The cabs have plenty of space, until you start to fill them with multiple bags, multiple caddies, multiple players and their significant others. Martin Kaymer and his partner wanted to ride together out to his starting hole, but had to split up. The confusion was understandable, on some level. Just minutes earlier, the leader of the taxi division had changed plans: No more waiting for players to tee off before returning to the staging area. Drop them off and get outta the way. From the draft to the media training to the literal placement of bodies on the 1st tee, organizers are making up the rules as they go.

“We don’t want media on the 1st tee,” we were told around 2 p.m., ushered to the side. They were expecting more important people shortly. Namely, the CEO, Greg Norman, and Majed Al Souror, a club director of Newcastle United Football Club.

Good thing Poults stayed loose, otherwise he might have ended in Ogletree territory.

John Huggan posts his own version, including this bit on the field:

In its own publicity, this event boasts that 18 members of the 48-strong field are inside the top-100 in the World Ranking. Which also means that 30 are ranked lower than that arbitrary figure. And only four are inside the top 50. Significantly too, only 20 players are younger than 30, while 10 have already passed their 40th birthdays. So this gathering is neither top-heavy nor youthful.

Nor competitively relevant....

Just before the 2:15 p.m. local time shotgun start to Round 1, the last man on the range was the
familiar figure of Phil Mickelson. That made sense given that the six-time major champion was due to start from the nearby first tee alongside Scott Vincent and Dustin Johnson. No cab ride for those guys.

Logo-less in all black attire (only those with 20-20 vision would notice the blacked-out Masters emblem on his vest) the six-time major champion warmed up in preparation for the tee shot that would soon enough see the PGA Tour suspend him and 16 other players. “Vindictive” LIV Golf called it in a prompt rebuttal.

Trust me, John, everyone noticed the blacked-out Masters logo.

 It appears that Phil changed black vests which insinuates that he *wanted* the ANGC logo visible when he hit the first tee shot in a rebel league he apparently helped create. Which I have to say, in a week full of weird activity, is quite possibly the weirdest. pic.twitter.com/xwfKVBLTy2

It is weird.  If you believe, as Eamon Lynch speculated, that this will all end up at the feet of Fred Ridley, seems an odd choice to show him your middle finger.  Of course, more on that later.

About Those Suspensions - No point to waiting:

Among the biggest questions associated with LIV’s debut was how and when the PGA Tour would respond to players officially teeing it up in an unsanctioned, unapproved event.

They didn’t have to wait long. A release from PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan came through as the pros were on their second holes on Thursday and Monahan didn’t mince words: The Tour players in the LIV field were immediately suspended from participating in any PGA Tour events. The duration of their suspensions was not immediately clear.

“These players have made their choice for their own financial-based reasons,” the statement reads. “I know you are with us, and vice versa. Our partners are with us, too. The fact that your former TOUR colleagues can’t say the same should be telling.”

Geoff, in the freebie portion of a Quad post, comes down hard on the Ponte Vedra mafia:

For years the PGA Tour’s arrogance grew as a brain-drain in Ponte Vedra People shipped out those with enough golf, legal and business savvy—tinged with absurdly conformist ways to match Commissioner Farquaad’s desires—and swapped them out despite holding things together through recessions and insurrections by rugged individualists in Sansabelts.

The brainpower has been swapped out mostly for marketers who might or might not like golf and spend half their days burnishing LinkedIn profiles. So Thursday when the PGA Tour faced a
complicated, existential threat years in the making, it became apparent that Cult Ponte Vedra never imagined the same players they’d lionized suddenly giving them the bird. Or that an entity would come along with advances so great that players could shrug off lost blue chip endorsement deals. Or that the longtime Titleist CEO’s son would be helping to lead the charge after the company profited so handsomely for so long off its PGA Tour ties.

He also excerpts this quote from Kyle Porter of CBS:

The PGA Tour, by the way, is in some real trouble. A mostly toothless letter on Thursday banning players who traded their PGA Tour cards for LIV Golf lanyards is emblematic of just how little leverage or power the Tour currently wields. When your annual revenue is $1.5 billion, and your rival league has a war chest roughly 400 times that, there is no logistical change you can make to retain all of your players. When your only recourse is to point out to players how much money the other guys have, and how much harder it is to exist and thrive on the PGA Tour than the more comfortable LIV Golf league, then you're foisting a trust upon professional athletes that they will choose legacy and morals over wealth.

Because the PGA Tour is, and always has been, weak.  This was the agony of Nurse Ratched, as all-powerful as they appear, they don't control the four (4 1/2, really) events that people actually care about.  We'll get to this, but they can't control who can play in the majors, so that's the predictable plan of the renegades.

Who's Got Next? -  Did you have Bryson on your bingo card?  Rocket Mortgage should be ashamed of themselves:

Rocket Mortgage, headquartered in Detroit and the title sponsor of the PGA Tour event at the Detroit Golf Club, has ended its relationship with Bryson DeChambeau, who plans to play in the new Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf Invitational Series.

According to ESPN, Rocket Mortgage spokesperson Aaron Emerson said the move is effective immediately.


Why the shame?  Because they should have fired his sorry ass last summer, when he refused to speak to the media at the event in Detroit.  The treatment of Rocket and RBC, among others, should have a chilling effect on the sponsorship prospects for other players, and I do hope they let Phil know how they feel about it...

Luke Kerr-Dineen has a post up guessing what comes next, and here's your bingo card:

Players are moving quickly. A source with intimate knowledge of Bryson DeChambeau’s imminent departure to LIV Golf says that for a while, the deal was dead. But when negotiations resumed, his offer surpassed the previously-reported $120 million signing bonus and came together in less than two days. When DeChambeau jumps, Patrick Reed will join him and potentially Rickie Fowler, too. Bubba Watson and Matthew Wolff recently appeared in recent promotional materials for LIV golf, which raises questions about their futures.

Hard to see how the PGA Tour could survive those losses, but isn't Anthony Kim due to show up one of these days.  More importantly, this is the current state of play:

Yes, for now; 19 of the top 20 in the World Ranking seem rock solid (DJ is 15th, the highest-ranked defector), plus Tiger Woods, but it's impossible to know how secure any of this really is until we get deeper into the process.

I wouldn't go with rock solid, especially in view of this bit on Bryson:

Players are moving quickly. A source with intimate knowledge of Bryson DeChambeau’s imminent departure to LIV Golf says that for a while, the deal was dead. But when negotiations resumed, his offer surpassed the previously-reported $120 million signing bonus and came together in less than two days. 

These guys apparently find $120 million in their sofa cushions, so good luck, Jay.

Dylan Dethier is a young punk, but speaks for many of us here:

The Tour sucks, but somehow the remedy for that seems to be to pay Phil more.  Funny, that!

Nothing To See Here - Nothing says growing the game quite like.... well, it's quite the good look:

Maybe Phil Mickelson has had enough of Alan Shipnuck or Greg Norman wanted to make a point.

Either way, one of the strangest days in recent golf history ended at the Centurion Golf Club near London on Thursday evening with Shipnuck, the author of “Phil: The Rip-Roaring (and Unauthorized!) Biography of Golf’s Most Colorful Superstar,” being removed from what’s known as the flash interview area at the LIV Golf Invitational Series inaugural event.

Shipnuck, a partner for The Fire Pit Collective, traveled to the United Kingdom for the event and followed Mickelson during his opening round. Afterward, Mickelson spoke to members of the press, as is customary.

Here's Alan's take:

Well, a couple of neckless security dudes just physically removed me from Phil Mickelson’s press conference, saying they were acting on orders from their boss, whom they refused to name. (Greg Norman? MBS? Al Capone?) Never a dull moment up in here.

But that's not even the most bizarre part, which is here:

Ironically, it was Alan who told us that the Saudis weren't over the moon about Norman.  Whereas this incident seems to indicate that they're a perfect team.

The Road Ahead - Just a couple of bits, then I need to go take a shower.

In that LKD piece linked above, he does a better than most job of identifying the order of battle:

3. The Tour will try to strike a deal with the majors

The unintended consequence of a spread-too-thin golf product is that the game has consolidated around the majors, which means The Masters, PGA Championship, U.S. Open and Open
Championship have perhaps more leverage than anyone in this debate.

The timing of events means the majors have the luxury of waiting and seeing how things play out. The ship has sailed when it comes to sanctions for this year’s Opens, and it’s not a Ryder Cup year, so the PGA of America (which runs the Ryder Cup) can wait on that decision.

Perhaps I’m wrong, but I struggle to see the majors taking on the burden themselves, and straight-up excluding players from their own field just to do a favor for the PGA Tour.

It's a complicated picture, but the two Opens would be especially hard-pressed to ban players.  It's more complicated for The Masters and the PGA, but LKD gets to the gist of it:

What I do think may happen, however, is that the powers that be will use the OWGR as a kind of proxy to make life difficult for LIV players, should they choose to do so. Could LIV players be deemed ineligible for OWGR? Or could OWGR refuse to recognize those events and therefore not award players playing any points? Could they re-jig their own qualification along the way, to make it ultra-dependent on OWGR points?

This is pretty intense theorizing, of course, but a cursory look at the governing board of the Official World Golf Rankings means I wouldn’t discount any of those as possibilities, if they choose to stand in solidarity with the PGA Tour…

This was the logic for the Saudis throwing money at the Asian Tour.  Even if the 54-hole events are granted points, and I'm a bit surprised that Jay et.al don't seem to have cleaned that up, strength of field numbers will be quite low.

But this is the choke point, though it also explains why Phil and DJ are able to thumb their noses at Jay.  Their recent major wins provide exemptions into the majors, which others considering the jump can only qualify through the OWGR.  Not that some of them care a lick...

Scenes From Golf Twitter - just some random bits:

Well, Folz!  remember, his check cleared as well...

The guys are self-identifying for us.  Those that think they can win a green jacket aren't in London....

Do we think Alex is being ironic here?  I think and certainly hope so:

Do you need a palate cleanser?  I sure do, then a shower and perhaps a delousing... Can't be too safe.

Living The Dream - Which is great, though he's living my dream:

What really pisses me off is that he's living my dream....  Not exactly, because he's doing it as a young man.  My dream involves doing it as a middle-aged man, whereas reality now informs me that, if it is to be done, it will be as an old man.

My job, all summer long, is to capture some of that magic — both the exciting aspects of the biggest tournament in the world, but also the more mundane brilliance of what makes St.
Andrews the true Home of Golf … and an otherwise incredible place to visit. I’ll be doing it from a one bedroom rental on Allan Robertson Drive, named after the original Best Golfer on the Planet. Tom Morris gets all the acclaim, and he rightfully has a street named after him nearby, but it was only after Robertson’s death that the Open began in 1860, an attempt to replace him with a proper Champion Golfer of each year.

On this Summer in Scotland journey, we will no doubt get into some generic stuff like visiting Old Tom Morris’s grave — a classic American golfer pilgrimage — or spending a night among the heathens trying to win a tee time. We will provide updates in the lead-up to the Open, like how the cold, dry spring has the course playing as firm as can be right now. But hopefully, we find some undercovered topics along the way, like how the name “St. Andrews” has become currency in this part of the world, how the Open can dictate the economics of everything in this town, and also my 90-day hunt for a Large version of the sweatshirt Tiger Woods wore during the second round of the 1995 Open.

The grave is still there, but don't bother looking for Old Tom's shop along Golf Road.  That's been rebranded, because Old Tom apparently isn't relevant to millennials...

Sean's first dispatch is here, before he was, yanno, dispatched to London to cover the circus.  This bodes ill for our daily ballot odds in August:

In the run-up to the 150th Open Championship, demand for tee times couldn’t be greater. The course has been hosting more corporate outings than usual, which last week meant a group of
influencers. TikTok-ers, as one course marshal called them, taking parkour leaps and twirls over the Swilcan Burn.

But even with 12 hours worth of tee times, the search for one of them is a bit chaotic in the final 11 days before it shuts down for a month. Visitors are lining up earlier than ever the night before to sleep comfortably on the pavement or in the parking lot just to ensure a tee time. Whereas it might normally be a midnight or middle of the night commute, one golfer began waiting at 7 p.m. last week. A father and son joined him at 8 p.m., followed by another two at 8:30. They snuck comforters and pillows out of their hotel rooms, and laid sleeping bags down on top of yoga mats. I found the bunch at 5:30 a.m., sheltered from the wind whipping off the sea. Temperature: 45 degrees. Feel: a lot colder.

I assume those are folks trying to get on as singles.... but still.  Quite the crazy year.  We have six tee times at Crail, and it's not clear where else we'll play.

Interestingly in a GMTA mode, Sean has discovered street signs:

St. Andrews Thing I’m Now Obsessed With: the lively street signs

I’d like to commemorate this trip with biweekly appreciations of tinier things in town that help explain life in St. Andrews, some of its simplicities, intricacies, and things you’d otherwise miss (when pulled toward the golf). For starters, we have these dynamic street signs.

Now you’ve seen it — the very first photo I took upon arrival: a pic of the ‘Elderly People’ sign that I lovingly sent to my parents. A few things I love:

1. The words Elderly People is not enough. We must make these people look elderly. Give the man a cane! The figures are way more animated than their rigid American counterparts.


2. This feels like the equivalent of the “SLOW, Children Playing” signs found in residential neighborhoods across the States. Only these feel more bustling. More lively. They certainly get the point across more.

In fairness, the signs do feel necessary. Roads are skinny here, with cars parked everywhere. My neighborhood is on the outskirts of town, where many elderly locals and families live. I hope they’re reading along.

OK, Sean, but I got there first, though admittedly Employee No. 2 would be guilty of a hate crime (for the record, this was in Northern Ireland):


I also did a full post on signage back in the Ballyliffin days, though multiple hate crimes are involved.

Have a great weekend and we'll sum it all up on Monday.  Or not.

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