Thursday Threads - Rory In Winter Edition

It seems the gods are angry, so should be some good fun in that....

Idiots, Post-Usefulness - I'm only surprised that this didn't happen sooner, though it's as if this reporter knew what was coming:

Rory McIlroy faced the press on Tuesday in Dubai, taking questions ahead of the DP World Tour’s Tour Championship. One query proved particularly prescient.

Are you enjoying having a seat at that particular table?

The table in question was the PGA Tour’s policy board. And McIlroy’s answer was blunt.

“Not particularly, no,” he said. “Not what I signed for whenever I went on the board. But, yeah, the game of professional golf has been in flux for the last two years.”

Those comments teased at news that would come out later Tuesday evening in the form of an email from PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan: McIlroy had resigned from his position.

You didn't enjoy all that quality time with Patrick?   

The email, first posted by Monday Q Info on Twitter, said that McIlroy had sent a resignation letter to the rest of the board on Tuesday afternoon, calling it a “difficult decision” made “due to professional and personal commitments.”

So he's using the old, "It's not you, it's me" bit....Although I find this far less of a mystery than the author apparently does:

Until McIlroy comments on the resignation there’s no telling what combination of factors led to his decision, leaving questions about his motive, about the board’s future and about what leadership role he does or does not want to play. But in his Tuesday press conference, even as he trumpeted the financial strength of the professional game, he hinted at the questions it’s facing, too.

Quite obviously he timed it so that he wouldn't have to address it, his reputation for being a straight talker always overestimated.  Alan Shipnuck, like your humble blogger, seems to understand the root causes:

This was inevitable. Jay Monahan and Jimmy Dunne tore open Rory’s chest cavity, ripped out his heart and stomped on it in Softspikes. https://t.co/y9nOJ2MNVh

— Alan Shipnuck (@AlanShipnuck) November 15, 2023

Softspikes?  Rory should only ne so fortunate, as I'm pretty sure Jay had retro nails in his shoes....  They used him to put his name and reputation behind changes that suited them, then they pulled the rug out from under him rathe publicly.  Not clear to me why he would even be on speaking terms with those two guys.

Geoff has some on the news cycle, mostly of an unfiltered ilk.  Here he has praise for Rory, praise with which I mostly agree, though this requires an all-caps BUT to follow:

For two years Rory McIlroy has served as the PGA Tour’s de facto spokesman all while playing

the best golf of his career.

Why has he taken on the burden at the potential expense of his game?

Because McIlroy cares. He’s also not terrified of a microphone the way his $15 million-a-year Commish appears to be whenever confronted by those soft, fuzzy sticks held by friendly faces who usually pitch prepared questions.

You see, unlike a majority of narcissistic pro golfers, McIlroy is generally able to think big picture and far beyond his self interests. And even when he’s offered curious takes on key topics in the sport—notably on the distance issue—he’s had little problem changing his mind when confronted with facts and time to process his prior stance. He’s also able to set his pocketbook aside when declaring a position. It’s why so many respect him and why one-dimensional dimwits clinging to LIV as a remedy for their life deficiencies so openly loathe a genuine article like McIlroy.

Look, I think Rory is a good guy, but he's been a minnow swimming among sharks.  At best, he has allowed himself to be used to move the Tour in Patrick's direction, whereas he's the one guy (two, with Tiger) that could have stopped the limited field money grab.  For those of us that hate the direction he took the Tour, we for a while could console ourselves with the rationale that we were heading off something worse.  But Rory got rather publicly played, so forgive for withholding any plaudits.....

But then Shack makes quite the leap of logic, to wit, that Rory has sacrificed his results to fight that which we're to assume was the good fight:

Throughout this remarkable stretch of his career, one where he’s amassed millions but no majors since 2014, McIlroy’s carried way too much water for overpaid executives. He’s nice that way. And he’s fronted the sport at a time his game is clearly better than it’s ever been.

He’s not even close to the player of 2010-14. He’s way better.

In every facet of the game. Remember, if it was firm and fast, 2013 Rory had no chance. Now he can handle any course in any condition.

Through the saga of trying to compete and double as Chief PGA Tour Spokesman since the Commissioner and his revolving door of lieutenants can’t speak without tripping up, McIlroy’s still done incredible things in the majors he covets. I remain unable to fathom how he played as well as he did at the Old Course in 2022 or LA North in 2023 without taking winner’s trophies home. But the Golf Gods work in mysterious ways I’ll never understand.

Really?  Geoff makes some very valid and good points, specifically about that crazy run of soft venues and I'll even buy that Rory is a better player today than back in 2011-14.  That said, there remain major weaknesses in his game the he appear incapable or unwilling to remedy, and how about comparison with his current bête noire, Patrick Cantlay.  The latter just hired Joe LaCava, a grizzled veteran of the looping game.  Who does Rory keep on his bag?  His childhood best friend, an obvious case of comfort over perhaps being challenged a little more....   

In other news, on Monday we showed those Player Directors, noting that the term of everyone's favorite male sexual organ was expiring.... Not so quick there:

And it announced that Patrick Cantlay, who’d been serving in a one-year capacity, had been reappointed by the Player Directors to serve a three-year term from 2024-26. That formalized his place on the board alongside Charley Hoffman, Peter Malnati and Webb Simpson as well as Tiger Woods, who joined the board in August, and McIlroy.

So the man who split that Ryder Cup team room apart is one of five player directors?  

In related news, the camera-shy Jay Monahan actually communicated with his members this week:

Despite rumors that the framework agreement with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is in

jeopardy, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan asserted to tour membership that conversations remain ongoing.

In a memo sent to players Tuesday (first reported by Golf Channel), Monahan reiterated that his focus remains working “toward a definitive agreement with PIF and the DP World Tour as our priority.”

“Progress has been deliberate given the complex nature of the potential agreement, and we will keep you apprised of the progress, with continued input and direction from your player directors and player advisor Colin Neville,” Monahan wrote.

Deliberate?  That's a useful euphemism, but fortunately we know that Jay wouldn't lie to us.... I can only hope that bi doesn't send Jay into another bout of depression, because emotional frailty is certainly the first attribute I look for in selecting an agent to negotiate a complex deal...

But Jay now has two distinct audiences, that heaving mass of tour rabbits and those whose calls get taken.  See if you can suss out which of those two he's speaking to here:

On Tuesday, Monahan outlined to tour members that the review of these bids remains ongoing following a Monday policy board meeting. Entities in the bidding process include the Fenway Sports Group (which owns the Boston Red Sox, Pittsburgh Penguins and the Premier League team Liverpool F.C.), Acorn Growth, Eldridge Industries and the investment firm KKR & Co. Executives from Endeavor—the parent company the WWE, the UFC, and sports agency IMG—said last month its bid was rejected.

Tuesday’s memo, which came after the PGA Tour Policy Board held a meeting on Monday, also noted that the tour has designed a program that would allow direct equity ownership for players in the new for-profit entity.

Well, gee, that sounds great, although I'm old enough to remember when the players owned everything.... Now just a few players will be cut in.  

Today In Omens - An idiom is a figure of speech as follows:

An idiom is a phrase or expression that usually presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase.

 You're a smart crowd, so of course you knew that, but perhaps an example will be helpful:

the roof falls in

 he situation collapses; everything goes wrong. Typically used in the past tense. I was living paycheck to paycheck and getting by OK, but then the roof fell in. I lost my job, then my car and house. Our sales have been in a slump for months, and now with all these legal issues cropping up, it just feels like the roof is falling in on our company.

 Got it, the roof falling in being a metaphor for things goin g pear-shaped.  I only mention this because:

🚨😦❌ #NEW: The dome structure has collapsed at the SoFi Stadium where TGL matches are slated to be played early next year. Unclear how this will affect preparations for the league. (📸: @luckiestgolfer via @flushingitgolf) pic.twitter.com/I4APp249PU

— NUCLR GOLF (@NUCLRGOLF) November 15, 2023

Have you stopped laughing yet?

Udder Stuff - Just a few things to throw at the wall, starting with Geoff's rather harsh (but amusing) take on yet another ill-conceived chase for the microscopic golf audience:

Rough week for game growers. The TGL bubble burst. Already.

The collapse of SoNotFi Stadium GC Of Greater Palm Beach happened after a power outage put the “tech-forward” show in jeopardy of starting on time. The upstart league is backed by top players and ownership groups hoping to lure under 40-year-olds to bet like crazy responsibly and buy team-logoed hoodies.

The news landed a day after the worst thing ever put on golf television—at least since Shotmakers on Golf Channel—aired as “The Netflix Cup.” If you missed this precursor to the Saturday night F1 race in Las Vegas, (A) consider yourself the luckiest person on Earth, and, (B) if you must know more, just imagine your longest golf course nightmare infused by some wickedly strong magic mushrooms, a schlocky Wynn-infused Fazio, a giant synergistic Squid Games doll, all while experiencing a piercing case of hemorrhoids exacerbated by gruesome announcing, microphones open galore, and random B-listers (Steve Aoki!?). Oh, and there was the giant smiling Sphere (which did look amazing!) displaying shameless plugs for Netflix megahits that are in little need of help to juice their already massive audiences sizes.

Both of these grow-the-game debacles share a common thread: they are co-produced ventures from Excel Sports, the agents of several top players who suddenly seem determined to embarrass their clients in new and cutting edge ways. But at least the Excel team has yet to hit profound lows the way Golf Digest did in unveiling its “How To Cheat At Golf” package, a standout chapter in desperation phase seeking the same elusive demo of under-29, too-stupid-for-Barstool parolees-with-subscriptions that Netflix mysteriously hunted after with its painful knock-off of The Match. But in the latter case, at least the esteemed, trusted and incredible streamer will only take a brief hit as opposed to a fatal blow in proudly selling dishonesty.

So sorry I missed it....  Could it possibly have been worse than a LIV event?

Regrets, he's had a few, though I'll allow the reader to sort through the smoke being blown:

In a press conference in which more than a half dozen of the questions were focused on the Ryder

Cup, what went wrong, second-guessing, what happens next and more, Johnson did highlight one regret, which is a term he tip-toed around that night in Rome.

Johnson, on Tuesday, talked about compartmentalizing. How the best athletes — especially golfers — can do that well. Tiger Woods, he said, was one of the best at it.

“What I’m saying about compartmentalization is I think when it comes down to it, I look at things, every piece of my job is just that. Even within that compartment, there’s compartments. So I try to treat the Ryder Cup in that manner. I’m not one to tell them what to do or how to play, obviously I’m not their coach, but I am trying to put these guys in a position to play their best golf. That’s what compartmentalizing is,” Johnson said. “So I looked at every aspect of the Ryder Cup before and the week of and tried to diagnose it and study it and figure it out, like what’s the most efficient way to tackle each and every item. The common denominator that I go back to that I wish I could have changed, or not changed, I wish it would have dawned on me earlier is just the pure commodity of time and understanding that it’s precious. … If I could have put more value into time management, I could have put my guys in a better position to play golf at a better rate early on. I’m not suggesting that would have changed the outcome, not at all. I can’t determine that, that’s sports, right? I’m just saying I think in my seat I didn’t see what needed to be seen until after the fact. Now, it’s been seen and it’s been voiced by me and probably a couple others but specifically myself, so hopefully next time around there’s a better template put into place so these guys can go play golf.”

Should I wait for the English translation before commenting?  I think it's great that we have this Task Force that allows captains to see their f**k-ups with clarity three months after the conclusion of the event...

But clearly Zach is focused like a laser on these issues....Yeah, NOT:

While Johnson didn’t provide examples when what exactly he meant regarding time management, if he was alluding to the pre-tournament preparation, that was one key storyline that was hit on often. Former European Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley touched on it often during the week, as did others. Only nine of the 12 American players made it over for the scouting trip a few weeks earlier, and the majority of the team hadn’t played competitively since the Tour Championship, which ended five weeks earlier. Europe, meanwhile, had all 12 of its players compete in the BMW PGA Championship two weeks before the Ryder Cup. Seven finished in the top 10.

Asked about it on Tuesday, Johnson said “there could be some truth in that” angle, and said it’s already been talked about, hoping the PGA Tour, PGA of America, DP World Tour and Ryder Cup Europe collaborate moving forward.

“Ideally you want to have some fresh guys. I don’t know if it’s the captain’s role to say, ‘Hey, you guys got to go play.’ I don’t know if that’s the proper way to approach it,” Johnson said. “Bottom line is the FedExCup takes a lot of time, energy and they need to rest, too.”

Yes, they are so very good at the talking thing.... The doing thing?   

And remind me, Zach, why did only nine players go on the scouting trip?  And when that hatless guy started roiling the team room over money, how exactly did you handle that?  I know how Jay handled it, he gave the a*****e a three-year term as director.  So, quite the incentive system, no?  Good luck getting any of these guys to Adare Manor before the 2027 installment.

I shall leave you here and I suspect we'll next visit on Monday.  Have a great weekend.

Weekend Wrap - Miss Congeniality Edition

Not even sure I'll get to any golf, as I'm old enough to remember when the hate was limited to those taking the bonecutters' money.... Wow, gonna be just a wee bit awkward.

Let's Call The Whole Thing Off - Way back when, Alan Shipnuck, in his recurring mailbag feature, asked a source what Patrick Cantlay was like in these closed-door meetings.  I've been milking that answer ever since, which dubbed the hatless wonder a "terrific penis".  We like a memorable turn of phrase as much as the next guy, although sometimes one just needs to say things in plain English....  

You might have thought that LaCavaGate was dead and buried, but scores are still being settle, though I'm agnostic at best as to the wisdom of this:

The revelations come via a lengthy interview with the Irish Independent’s Paul Kimmage published Sunday. Kimmage has talked previously with McIlroy in such fashion, and in the latest story, he also interviewed Shane Lowry, who was also heavily involved in the skirmishes that embroiled last month’s Ryder Cup.

It’s here, then, where you should click over here to give the full 5,500-plus word story a read (and that’s just part one; next week, a follow-up is coming). Go, go, go. We’ll wait.

That's some amateurish journalism there, providing a link and offering to wait, without warning that, as worthy as the piece might be, it's also quite buried behind a paywall.   But I did want to get that tease in for Part II, because we're pretty bored this time of year.

After recounting the events of that Ryder Cup Saturday, it immediately gets interesting:

He also revealed what angered him to start.

“My relationship with Cantlay is average at best,” McIlroy told Kimmage. “We don’t have a ton in common and see the world quite differently. But when I saw he was getting stick on the 17th and 18th greens, I tried to quieten the crowd for him. And I don’t think Fitz and I were afforded the same opportunity to try and hole those putts to halve the match.”

“I shook Joe’s hand and Patrick’s hand,” McIlroy added. “Those three putts he made on 16, 17 and 18 were fantastic, and under that pressure, to give your team a glimmer of hope going into Sunday was big ba**s. So all respect to him. There was a bit of argy-bargy at the back of the 18th green with Fred Couples and Thomas Bjorn — and that’s fine — but as I’m walking back to the locker room, I can feel this red mist coming over me: ‘No! That wasn’t right.’”

Average?  next thing you know he'll be telling us that Patty is a good dancer and makes all his own clothes....

Perhaps it might have ended there (to our entertainment deficit), except for this guy going off:

Soon after, McIlroy, Lowry and the Europeans reached their team base. In the interview with Kimmage, Lowry and McIlroy revealed that Lowry “started roaring and shouting.”

Is that surprising? No. These things happen, especially in Ryder Cups. But we love to hear stories of fire.

Said Lowry to Kimmage: “I was fuming. Fuming. Completely lost the plot. To be honest, I don’t want to talk about it, because nobody has talked about it.”

Said McIlroy: “I think Shane has spent a lot of time around Peter O’Mahony and some of those Irish rugby boys, because he went on a rant in the locker room that was just unbelievable.”

Said Lowry: “It just came out of me. I can’t even remember what I said — a halftime in the dressing room kind of thing: ‘We’re five points clear. … We’re in the driving seat. … Do what we have to do tomorrow and it’s game over.’ I talked about not just wanting to beat them, but to annihilate them. I wanted to get one back for Paddy [Pádraig Harrington] and beat them by more than they beat us at Whistling Straits. I think it went down pretty well.”

Of course, Shane was at least still sufficiently under control to head this off:

Said McIlroy: “Everyone loved it, he was unreal, but as he was talking, I was getting more and more riled up: ‘That was wrong. I was wronged.’ And as we’re getting up to leave, I’m like, ‘I’m going into their locker room now to sort this out.’ And Shane was like, ‘No, Rory. Bad idea.’”

As for Bones, Rory had this contrition:

So why did Mackay, generally regarded as one of the nicer people in golf, get heat from McIlroy? It had been curious.

In the interview with Kimmage, McIlroy said Mackay was trying to settle things — “but he’s wearing an American top, and I know he’s friends with Joe, and I just tripped. Complete rage.

“I felt bad about it afterwards because Bones’ wife was standing beside him, and I used a lot of swear words. So not my finest moment. Then Shane bundled me into the car.”

Notably, Lowry told Kimmage that they didn’t know a camera had caught the incident — and that they watched it on the car ride.

But there's a reason your humble blogger is amused:

Mackay wasn’t the only member of the American contingent that McIlroy got into it with.

In the interview with Kimmage, McIlroy said Ricky Elliott, Brooks Koepka’s caddie, and Claude Harmon III, Koepka’s swing coach, tried to calm him. No luck.

“But I start having a go at them,“ McIlroy said told Kimmage.

What did McIlroy say?

“‘Joe LaCava used to be a nice guy when he was caddying for Tiger, and now he’s caddying for that d**k, he’s turned into a …’ I still wasn’t in a great headspace.”

Said Lowry: “So I grabbed him: ‘Right! Plunge pool! We’ll go down and chill out.’”

Now you understand the Ira Gershwin-infused header?  You say penis, I say dick, let's call the whole thing off.

This to me is just deliciously schadenfreudalicious, because as much as I instinctively think Patrick Cantlay is a, what's the word for it, a dick, I'm not very high on The Ulsterman these days either.  But it's more than a little ironic that Rory spent the last two years upending the Tour to put more money in Patrick's pocket (a lot more, by the way), and now he's treated to first-hand evidence of Patrick's overly-developed sense of entitlement.

There are more revelations:

In the interview with Kimmage, McIlroy said the European captain walked into the team locker room late, sat down and was quiet. He then looked over at McIlroy.

“And I’m thinking, ‘I could be in trouble here,’” McIlroy told Kimmage. “But he goes, ‘Rory! I f**king loved that!” And all the boys started banging the table. It was brilliant. It had been a really deflating finish, but it galvanized the team.”

Said Lowry: “Jon Rahm said to me: ‘Rory is some teammate, isn’t he? He’s the best.’”

These guys seize on these micro-aggressions and milk them unmercifully....And, where they don't  exist, they invent them.... If you haven't seen The Last Dance, that's pretty much every episode.

And this guy who I guess was actually watching:

At that point, McIlroy said he went to his room. In the interview with Kimmage, McIlroy said he had gotten a text from LaCava, but he didn’t reply.

There were other messages, though.

Woods, whom LaCava once caddied for, had reached out. Multiple times.

“There was also three texts and two missed calls from Tiger, because they’re obviously still close,” McIlroy told Kimmage.

“I sent him a quick message: ‘It will be fine … long day … just want to go to bed.’”

With that Tiger-sighting, you'll know that the Tour Confidential panel couldn't let this one pass:

1. In an interview with Paul Kimmage of the Irish Independent, Rory McIlroy laid out more details surrounding the Ryder Cup dust-up with Joe LaCava and McIlroy’s parking-lot tirade. “Joe LaCava used to be a nice guy when he was caddying for Tiger, and now he’s caddying for that d—,” said McIlroy, referring to Patrick Cantlay, who McIlroy added his relationship with is average at best. What’s your take on McIlroy’s candid remarks, and where does this story go from here?

Nick Dimengo: It’s interesting to see Rory reignite this beef after seemingly moving on and focusing on some little project of his called TGL. For someone elite like him to pull a move like this only adds more drama to an already tense golf scene – and I’m here for it!

Josh Sens: The pearl-clutching take would be to act surprised at McIlroy’s gloves-off bluntness, and to lament the (imaginary) time when golf was more of a ‘gentleman’s game.’ But the better take is: at least Rory’s honest. Inevitably, Cantlay will get asked about it, giving him the chance to spice things up further, but my guess any comments he might serve up would be pretty mild.

Dylan Dethier: One of the things that made this dust-up so interesting is the way Rory and Cantlay represent such a contrast in styles — the way they play, the way they carry themselves, the ways in which they see the world. An oversimplified version of that dichotomy would be that McIlroy follows his heart while Cantlay follows his (capped or uncapped) head. What’s intriguing about this story going forward? Both Cantlay and McIlroy will have a hand in shaping the PGA Tour’s future.

Oh, is that what Patrick is following, or did you confuse it with what he would bare to further his aims, because anything he follows seems to have a dollar sign affixed.

I have two follow-ups, the first of which Dylan hinted at.  Kids, this is your current PGA Tour Player Advisory Council,  Player Directors, and the word to which I'm clinging is "awkward":

I guess Charley and Peter Malnati will be playing peacemaker, but oh to be a fly on the wall....Though it seems that Cantlay's term might be expiring shortly, so we'll see how that plays out.

Secondly, Cantlay is one of the many Tour players that live in Jupiter, FL.  Given the roll-out of the TGL and further given that the franchise based in Jupiter has announced only its captain, a guy who released his looper to go work for the dick, I'd certainly expect him to be on one of the six teams, if not Tiger's..... 

As for the verdict on our Patrick, just one more individual that feels compelled to offer his assessment:

Just reading Rory McIlroy’s less than flattering description of Patrick Cantlay. For what it’s worth my own limited interaction with Cantlay left me thinking the same as Rory 😃

— John Huggan (@johnhuggan) November 12, 2023

Yeah, seems to be an unspoken consensus.....

TGL Bits -  Nothing much here:

2. More TGL news dropped last week, as we found out which team Tiger Woods will play for: his own. Woods will be among the ownership group of the last of the six teams announced, Jupiter Links Golf Club. Anything we can glean, about the league or its future, with Woods taking an ownership stake in his squad?

Sens: I take it as a sign that he either really believes in the concept. Or that he believes his participation is critical to its success. Probably a little bit of both. It’s an entertainment industry fact. More people watch things when Tiger is involved. Imagine if he someday gets good at live banter. He’ll be unstoppable.

Dimengo: Like Sens said, I think it shows his belief in the idea; which makes sense. After all, his name is attached, and it’d almost feel like it would be missing something without Tiger there.

Dethier: It establishes that Tiger Woods’ squad will be playing home games every week. It reminds us that that probably doesn’t mean much — to start with, at least. It reminds us that Jupiter, FL is the international golfing capital of the world.

He's been attached to the endeavor from Day One and is also a part owner, so it didn't tell us anything we didn't already know.

But I had an interesting discussion on the subject with Friend-of-the-Blog Bobby D., who is far more optimistic about its prospects than your humble blogger.  It's not for this morning, but it's triggered further thoughts of my own as to how it will be received, and I'll try to work through those in the coming weeks.

But I've had some further thoughts about the schedule, specifically playing this in Florida on Monday nights during the West Coast Swing.  It seems to this observer just another example of the Tour pursuing its own interests to the detriment of its sponsors.  One assumes that they guys don't want to get on a redeye after holing out on Sunday at the AMEX, Farmers', AT&T, so I assume this can't help but weaken those early season fields, especially since many haven't been "elevated" or "designated."  Sponsors keep showing up, and your humbler blogger keeps questioning why.....

Wither LIV - I've no clue where this all goes over the longer term, but I did note quickly that there was no way LIV wouldn't play a 2024 schedule.  It seemed quite obvious that the deal couldn't be finalized by year-end, and obviously those guys need a place to peg it.

They've rolled out the early part of their schedule, which most notably includes a return to their most successful venue:

LIV Golf announces return to Australia as first part of 2024 schedule release

Loads of fans, a party hole with a DJ, a close team competition down the stretch and Patrick Reed

drinking from a shoe made LIV Golf Adelaide 2023 the upstart circuit’s quintessential event.

Commissioner and CEO Greg Norman and South Australia Premier Peter Malinauskas announced on Friday the league is hoping to rekindle that atmosphere by returning to the Grange Golf Club, April 26-28, 2024. LIV Golf Adelaide is the first event on the 2024 schedule to be announced and will be held the same week as the PGA Tour’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans.

“That’s what LIV should be, in its heart and its DNA, I think that’s what it can be every single week, and will be when people start understanding what the real deal is here,” said DeChambeau of league’s Aussie debut back in April. When it came to fanfare and entertainment, Adelaide was by far LIV’s best event of 2023.

LIV did something very smart here, going to a widely-underserved and golf-mad part of Australia.  In general, their overseas events have been more buzz-worthy and those U.S.-based, but Adelaide was a one-off for sure.

Bob Harig has more on the full schedule:

LIV Golf has yet to announce its 2024 schedule but a few things are coming into focus, although nothing is official. It appears LIV will open at Mayakoba in Mexico Feb. 2-4, then head to Las

Vegas the following week, which is also the week of the Super Bowl … being played in Las Vegas.

The international locations appear set: Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore, England, Spain and South Korea.

Events in Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong would be consecutive weeks in early March. Australia and Singapore would be consecutive in late April as they were this year. And South Korea would likely be in September as the final individual event.

Phoenix has long made that weekend work, though Saturday is their Sunday, if you follow my thought.  LIV has to compete with the NFL AND Phoenix, so not sure how they see that playing out.  But perhaps I'm wrong and both of their loyal CW viewers will tune in regardless...

Rory described LIV as being in a sort of limbo, and that seems an apt description.  Their format hasn't broken through, to say the least, and it seems a difficult time for them to solve their field issue.  Although perhaps Patrick might take their call, though I don't think we have that kind of luck.

But changes are afoot, I'm just not sure anyone will notice.  But James Colgan is all over it:

5 changes coming to LIV

1. The play-in tournament

Yes, LIV is landing a play-in tournament. From December 8-10 in Abu Dhabi, golfers will compete in “LIV Golf Promotions,” a 36-hole tournament with a $1.5 million purse and three coveted exemptions into next year’s LIV season.

The tournament won’t do much to fight against the OWGR’s contention that LIV doesn’t have enough opportunities for promotion and relegation, but it will provide some golfers with the opportunity to join the big tour straight off the street.

Oddly, Colgan fails to mention the oddest part of this, which is that Jay is allowing PGA Tour rabbits to play, although we've little insight as to who would actually make the trip.  perhaps the most curious bit is that it's only 36-holes, as if they themselves know how bogus it all is.

2. The re-sign period

At the end of each season, LIV will stratify its players on expiring contracts into three “zones”: The “lock zone,” the “open zone” and the “drop zone.”

You can think of those in the “lock zone” — given only to the league’s top 24 finishers — as restricted free agents. These players are guaranteed a contract extension offer from their current franchise, and can choose whether to re-sign or to reject that offer and enter free agency.

Each year, LIV’s free agency will begin with a negotiation period where members of the “lock zone” are permitted only to speak with their own franchise.

Those who finish 45th and worse find themselves in the “drop zone,” for players who have been relegated from the league. This group is given an automatic bid into the play-in tournament, but is not a guarantee to have any future with LIV.

That Drop Zone we'll call the Matthew Wolff zone, but I'm sure this will knock the Shohei Ohtani free agency off the sports pages...

But wait, it gets even more exciting:

3. Free Agency

After the re-sign period ends, it’s open season for LIV Golf.

Unsigned members of the “lock zone” and members of the “open zone” — who finish from 25-44 — now become unrestricted free agents. These players are free to sign with whichever team they wish.

Notably, these rules leave open the possibility that LIV will sign additional pros from other pro golf tours, like the PGA Tour. Such signings would result in members of the “open zone” losing out on their roster spots in the league.

Should none of those signings happen, however, the only material difference between the “open zone” and the “lock zone” is an assured re-sign bid.

All, I should add, in the service of their team competition which, with the exception of Brooks going medieval on Wolff, was like the tree that fell in the forest.  Really, except for the Range Goats, name three LIV teams!

4. Trades

LIV will now allow in-season trading, opening a window in which teams will be permitted to trade players and negotiate contract extensions.

This window arrives in the wake of Brooks Koepka and teammate Matthew Wolff’s very public falling out during the course of the 2023 season. Under the new rules, Koepka would be able to trade Wolff to a different franchise before the season ended.

5. The draft

It won’t be quite as high-profile as LIV’s franchise-forming draft way back at LIV London 2022, but LIV will now host a draft in which the top-3 finishers in the play-in tournament and the winner of the Asian Tour’s International Series Order of Merit will find themselves plucked by LIV franchises for the season ahead.

Notice what's missing?  Anything anyone cares about...

I'll need to leave you there.  Blogging will be on an as-warranted basis in the near term.  Have a great week. 

Your Friday Frisson - TGL v. LIV Edition

Seven days until Opening Day at Park City Mountain Resort.  Not to worry, I'm not rushing out there until there's actual snow to be found.  They are blowing and will have something open by then, what we call the white ribbons of death.  

Shall we pick up where we left off?

This was quite the shocker, no?

TGL announces Tiger Woods as owner and player for tech league's sixth team, Jupiter Links

Who coulda seen that one coming?

Tiger Woods is now the owner of a professional sports team for which he will compete in a league he helped create.

TGL announced Tuesday that Woods’ TGR ventures has partnered with pro sports mega owner David Blitzer in the formation of Jupiter Links Golf Club, the sixth and final TGL team in the new tech-based golf league developed by Woods’ and Rory McIlroy’s TMRW Sports Group. Furthermore, Woods, a 15-time major winner who has not competed since withdrawing from the Masters and undergoing surgery on his lower right leg, is the first of four players to be assigned to the Jupiter Links roster.

Terms of the investment and the ownership percentages in Jupiter Links were not disclosed, consistent with the announcements for the other five ownership groups.

“Through its use of technology, TGL is a modern twist of traditional golf and ultimately will make the sport I love more accessible,” Woods, 47, said in a statement. “Having the opportunity to not only compete, but also own a team to represent Jupiter is an exciting next chapter for me. I expect Jupiter Links GC to showcase the golf culture of my hometown as we compete against the best players in the world.”

One question: Jupiter?  It's like one of those standardize tests we took back in our school days, Boston, Atlanta, New York and Jupiter.... Which of the above does not belong?

We could have some fun with the list of players who WON'T be offered a spot on the JGC..... Start with Sergio, but also Stephen Ames, Phil and, well, the reader can add his own from Tiger's many little spats over the years.

Mike McCarley is the guy behind all this, and here he seems to be channeling his inner Stefan Schauffele:

TGL co-founder Mike McCarley confirms new league's lucrative first-place prize: 'It's legit competition'

Because, of course, we can't be interested unless these guys are making bank.  

"They're playing for $21 million, the purse is $9 million to the winning team, so it's legit competition," McCarley said on the pod. "And these guys are some of the most competitive guys on the planet."

With four players on each team, that comes out to $2.25 million per player on the winning team. That's a decent chunk of change for a handful of two-hour Monday night matches played in a gigantic simulator. Remember, these aren't four-day, 72-hole marathons like PGA Tour events.

Hats, Mike?  Have you got the hat issue nailed down?  Because you know our terrific peni....

What I'd love an enterprising reporter (yeah, who am I kidding?) is to accumulate the riches that have been thrown at an elite player over the last two years in the name of keeping us safe from Wahhabism, including:

1. The PIP program
2. The TGL
3. The dramatic increase in purses to designated events, combined with the field-size limitation.

Ari Emanuel's recent cameo is amusingly ironic, given the extent to which Tiger and Rory have channeled his brother's famous admonition.  They certainly haven't let the crisis go to waste, using it to dramatically increase the take of their buddies, to the severe detriment of, well, everyone else.  Simply stated, it's quite the money grab perpetrated in broad daylight, so no shortage of chutzpah.

You'll not be shocked that Tiger has been involved with a new venture that fits his unique needs.  If golf is, as Mark Twain put it, a good walk spoiled, the TGL is a good walk avoided.  This observer has long since lost interest in Tiger's recovery, for the simple reason that he refuses to share anything of t with us (not to mention burying any understanding of the bizarre auto accident that caused it).  Here's the latest cryptic non-update from the man:

“My ankle is fine. Where they fused my ankle, I have absolutely zero issue whatsoever,” Woods said Tuesday in an interview with the Associated Press. “That pain is completely gone.

“… But all the surrounding areas is where I had all my problems and I still do,” he said. “So, you fix one, others have to become more hypermobile to get around it, and it can lead to some issues.”

Woods did not elaborate on the nature of those other issues.

There's lots of silly speculation about when he might peg it, including this:

If Woods isn’t ready to play in the Hero World Challenge, set for Nov. 30-Dec. 3 in the Bahamas with a star-packed field of 20, the PNC Challenge (Dec. 14-17) is a distinct possibility for him. Despite his physical limitations and helped by the use of a cart, the event has been a circle-on-the-calendar occasion for Tiger and Charlie Woods. They have competed in the Orlando event three times, making their debut in 2020, when Charlie was 11. They finished seventh that year, were second in '21 and and last year Team Woods tied for eighth.

Distinct possibility?  Is that anything like a mortal lock, which is more likely the case....

I saw another piece speculating about the Hero, then wondering whether he might have his eye on Augusta.... That's some next-gen analysis there, Augusta being pretty much all he cares about....

I get the speculation on The Hero, which is more about taking care of a sponsor than about the golf.  It's just that I see no discernable value in him absorbing the pain this far out from any meaningful golf.  His biggest issue is competitive reps, but getting them in December is pretty worthless methinks.  Riviera, on the other hand,, seems more promising..... Not that I really care.

This Wired.com piece has lots of interesting background on the endeavor's origin, including this Cameron Young demo:

CAMERON YOUNG SLIDES a driver from his bag. He stares at a hole referred to as Texas Hill Country. It’s new to him—a par 4 with sand hazards and rough to avoid. The 26-year-old is in the

top 20 in the Official World Golf Ranking, but he’s not sure how to proceed. He turns to his companion, former pro Roberto Castro. “What’s going on here?” Young asks.

Young makes clean contact. The ball lofts skyward.

But there’s no sky above him. On this steamy day in late October, Young is in an air-conditioned soundstage on the back lot of Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. The building once hosted Nickelodeon TV shows. The “caddie” Castro consulted is virtual—it lives on a 15-inch tablet. The tee is on a patch of natural grass the width of a large mattress. It sits atop wooden pallets on a concrete floor.

As someone said earlier in the week, they'll have to avoid this being tagged as merely simulator golf, at least if they want to be take seriously:

Young’s golf ball hits a billboard-sized screen 35 yards away. The dimpled sphere falls meekly to

the ground, while up on the giant display its virtual successor continues its flight. A phalanx of supersensitive radar trackers and hi-res cameras sends data to a bank of computer servers that calculate velocity and spin to show how the ball will bounce and where it will ultimately settle on the vista of the screen.

Young’s ball lands in the digital rough. He walks over to a tray of 2-inch-high Bermuda grass mixed with rye. The screen now shows him closer to his goal, an 8-iron away. He swings, the ball thuds against the display again, and seconds later his virtual ball lands just outside the green. For his next shot, Young ambles to the back of the soundstage, where an artificial putting surface and fringe awaits him. An official places a ball precisely on the ground. Young successfully chips over a rise to land within 5 feet of the cup. Not good enough. Castro has already sunk his third shot and wins the hole.

The difficulty is that is simulator golf, admittedly with some intriguing bells and whistles, not least that they'll play off real grass, including rough as per the picture above.

As for the technology:

McCarley was still pondering how to condense a course’s 200 acres and 18 holes down to a single arena when, in January 2020, he attended a big golf industry trade event. One evening he sat down with Ryan Dotters, CEO of Full Swing, a maker of golf simulators. Full Swing had bought a company that made interactive, customizable indoor putting greens. “We were the only ones who had a green that could come alive,” Dotters says. On an old-school cocktail napkin, they sketched out plans to make a hybrid game of golf—one foot each in the digital and physical worlds.

More on those greens:

The green. TGL teams will play the short game in a space about half the length of a soccer pitch, with a round—and rotating—green. Underneath the putting surface, Macaulay explains, three concentric circles of steel are held up by more than 500 beams and 49 steel supports bolted to the concrete floor. “Stonehenge comes to mind,” he says. When nothing’s happening, the turntable just sits there. When it’s time to change the green setup to conform to the course architect’s plan, a commercial compressor blows into airbags in the support structure, lifting and rotating the turntable. When Cameron Young tested the system in Orlando, the TGL team demonstrated how to tilt the green surface—changing the direction that a putt breaks—with the push of a button.

Stonehenge?  Worst reference ever?  I mean, you're trying to appeal to today's attention-span-deprived kids, and your touchstone is Stonehenge?  Let me know how that works out... 

But without doubt, this is my favorite item on the TGL, because......well, you'll get it:

TGL is in danger of reliving LIV Golf's mistakes

Not to mention the WGCs... But do tell:

It’s billed as a tech-infused league, which is a fancy way of saying futuristic. The dilemma with TGL is it feels like something we’ve seen before.

For all the hype surrounding the mixed-reality circuit headlined by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, there’s an undercurrent of worry that gains power with every drip from the league’s prolonged rollout: TGL, which has a number of influential entities involved and a sneaky amount of importance riding on it might miss ... and miss big. Might is the operative word. It is unfair to bury what has not lived, and TGL will ultimately be judged by its product rather than the promotion surrounding it. Yet less than two months away from its launch on Jan. 9, what we know about TGL—and just as importantly, what we don’t know—seems to be following a blueprint that we know doesn't work.

Of course, an irony alert is required, because I suspect the very same thing could be said about the PGA Tour itself.

His first concern is valid, though probably unavoidable:

Let’s start with the players in question, for that is arguably the foundation from which TGL is trying to build. It has Woods, who continues to be the fulcrum of the sport despite (we gesture wildly to the past three years). It has McIlroy, the biggest draw in the game, and popular stars in Rickie Fowler, Justin Thomas and Max Homa. But it’s missing three of the top four players in the world in Scottie Scheffler, Viktor Hovland and Jon Rahm (who pulled out of TGL last week), along with Jordan Spieth, who is arguably the most entertaining player in the sport.

To fill out this made-for-TV spectacle, roughly a third of TGL’s roster does not classify as household names, begging the question of why fans would tune in to watch players they normally would not pay to see. There’s also the not-insignificant notion that personality is a big sell with this format, with the need for its competitors to engage in trash talk and banter to give this juice. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen with other exhibitions, most professional golfers tend to default to tepid and boring interviews. That includes Woods, who has too much to lose to be as colorful on camera as he is off.

One of their mistakes might have been making the schedule too ambitious, but it's hard to expect the guys in Scottsdale and Texas to be in Florida for fifteen consecutive Mondays, when the Tour is in its West Coast Swing.

But here's where he approaches the crux of the matter:

Which transitions into the tone of TGL. It should be low stakes and loose and ridiculous. What it’s been is very much not that, judging by its marketing and publicization. There was a cringe-inducing hype video for Team Atlanta (more on this in a second), along with a very staged clip of Collin Morikawa finding out he was part of the Los Angeles club. Boston Common Golf’s introduction was straightforward and professional and mirrored a press conference you would see from any other sports league. In a vacuum these pieces are not thorny, except there is no indication or winks that fun is at the forefront of what this is supposed to be. Again, this is simulator golf, which is not far removed from being a video game.

Tiger doesn't do loose and ridiculous....

There’s no need to relitigate the many missteps of LIV Golf over the past two years. However, one of the central reasons LIV has not gained traction with the golf populace is a failure to understand its audience, both in who that audience is and what that audience wants. LIV Golf insisted it was the hip alternative to the PGA Tour, that it could offer a fresh perspective on a product that had fallen into stasis. After all, the tour alone has 40-something tournaments a year, and the golf played each week looks mostly the same, with a self-importance that often seems unnecessary.

But instead of a reimagination of what the professional game could be, LIV presented the same house with the same structural issues with a fresh coat of paint. Maybe a bigger problem: For all the things golf does well, cool is not one of them. And there’s nothing inherently cool about has-beens and never-wases dressed in clipart demanding to be treated like competitors instead of what they are, which is barnstormers. LIV Golf is a dad in a midlife crisis, desperately trying to be something it’s not.

It always amuses that a game that has adapted sufficiently to survive hundreds of years, suddenly has to get "cool".  Joel might be correct that LIV misunderstood the audience, although I rather think the bigger issue is that they created a product of no interest to ANYONE.

But here's his existential musing:

Which brings us to the biggest question facing TGL: Who exactly is this for?

Ostensibly it’s not for the fan who’s watching the tour week in, and week out. That’s fine, and probably good. In that same breath, what you’re presenting should likewise not turn off the base golf already owns, because that group will help spread the word. If TGL is an ambition to be something more than what the game offers, it could be falling into the same trap LIV fell into, which is not accepting golf is a niche sport. At times the game seems infatuated with growing its reach rather than appreciating and attending to the passion it already has. As for that untapped market, what about TGL will draw new potential fans in? The format is not radically different from the existing product of professional golf, and the players involved—while very good—simply do not own crossover appeal. As is, TGL seems like it’s caught in between two worlds without being a part of either.

The reason this is worrisome is TGL, in its most actualized version, could be additive to the sport. Disney is putting its weight behind the project, agreeing to air the competition on ESPN. That is a platform that can beget success to all invested in the game, from the professional level to the grassroots. One network source told Golf Digest that TGL has the chance to do for golf what the “Moneymaker Effect” did for poker. That comes across as hyperbolic, yet golf doesn’t get many chances to go mainstream and this could be one of those swings. It partially explains why power brokers such as Steve Cohen, David Blizter and the Fenway Group are a part of the financial backing, as well as celebrities such as Steph Curry and the Williams sisters: They think this thing could be big and want a part of the action. For golf, hopefully that’s true. However, a rebuke of TGL from general sports fans could deter future opportunities for golf-related endeavors, to say nothing of potential media deals coming down the pipeline.

I certainly haver trouble understanding who will tune into ESPN, once we get past the curiosity factor.

There's also the issue of how much golf the Tour's core audience can take, and whether this will cannibalize those who might otherwise watch the traditional PGA tourneys.  It might also keep some of these guys from playing events, which is quite the weird incentive structure.

This final 'graph to me is quite the point-misser:

Golf enjoyed a revival from the pandemic and renewed curiosity from Netflix’s “Full Swing” docuseries, yet TGL could be the vessel that proves if that interest has staying power. That is a sober assessment of a supposedly frivolous thing, which, it bears repeating, is golf played on a simulator. But despite its unserious construct TGL is treating itself seriously and it appears others have followed suit, and that could be a serious problem.

Joel seems to make the error that our pampered Tour players often exhibit, to wit, confusing professional golf with the actual game of golf.  Did the pandemic help professional golf?  Even with Full Swing and the ever-present LIV nonsense, ratings are as bad as ever.  People don't love golf on TV, so good luck trying to force-feed it to them.

I was planning to get into the LIV changes announced, but that will hjave to keep for now.  Have a great weekend and we'll pick this up next week.

Tuesday Trifles - Even More Minimalist Edition

I'm gonna give you like an hour..... Not much going on, but at least we'll close a few browser tabs.

All Things TGL -  Color me skeptical, but I'll also acknowledge I'm probably not the target market.  For instance, by now I hate each and every one of these guys, so there's that little detail.

But there's little else to talk about so we're off:

A shot clock (!) and timeouts (!!) are coming to golf as Tiger and Rory’s TGL league unveils more wrinkles

Do you need a shot clock n simulator golf?  I didn't realize that J.B. Holmes was included....

Just days after introducing its 15-hole match-play format and points-based scoring system, TGL announced on Monday that it will institute a 40-second shot clock that will be enforced by a referee,

though teams will have the opportunity to call a timeout before incurring a one-stroke penalty.

According to Mike McCarley, CEO of TMRW Sports and TGL, the format and technology used for the new indoor league allows it to incorporate elements that are familiar to sports fans from other sports in ways that would not translate on a traditional golf course. “Instituting a shot clock and timeouts will help make matches entertaining, fast-paced, and exciting for sports fans,” McCarley said in a press release. “These elements also add another level of strategy for the players in how they approach team decisions similar to other sports.”

Penalty shots?  Didn't know that Tianglang Guan was in the field....

 Lots of rules:

Each team will have four timeouts at its disposal in a match but can only use two per session, and it cannot call timeouts back-to-back without hitting a shot. TGL announced Wednesday that its 15-match season will feature a nine-hole alternate shot session among three players followed by six holes of singles split into three two-hole matches. A team collects a point for each hole it wins. Ties are broken with an overtime session consisting of a closest-to-the-pin contest.

The season standings also will reflect a points system similar to professional hockey. The top four teams among the six teams in the league advance to the playoffs. The six teams, representing different cities, are composed of four PGA Tour players each. Other than the Boston team, which features McIlroy, Keegan Bradley, Tyrell Hatton and Adam Scott, rosters for the league are still to be filled out. Justin Thomas and Collin Morikawa also have committed to teams from Atlanta and Los Angeles, respectively.

 They don't actually tell us what a session is, but I'm sure it'll rock.

Smart how they're doing this, stocking the Boston team with those that have longstanding ties to that community.  Yanno, guys like Rory and Hatton...And the drama of whether Tiger will play.  I mean, simplistically, it's golf without walking, so I'll lay a marker that he'll play.

The Tour Confidential panel weighed in unsurprisingly, as the next Tiger meme they skip will also be the first:

1. As the January debut of Tiger Woods’ tech-infused golf league nears (TGL), last week we found out the format they’ll play in the SoFi Center in Palm Beach, Fla. It’s 15 holes per competition, with three-man alternate shot for the first nine holes (“Triples”), then six holes of head-to-head play (“Singles”). What do you think about the format? Is it intriguing enough to keep your attention? Or the average fan’s attention?

Josh Berhow: I think it is, especially since they are somewhat handcuffed with options. It’s not like we are going to watch these guys play a scramble. But I think the most important aspect here will be the 22,000-square-foot short-game area, which they’ll use for anything inside 50 yards and putting. We’ve never really seen anything like what this short-game area promises to deliver — in a stadium surrounded by spectators, with actuators and jacks to change the slope of the 3,800-square-foot green — so that will be fun to see how it works.

It might be.  It certainly looks crazy:

Intriguing viewers is one thing, it then needs to hold them for fifteen weeks.  That seems overly aggressive, no?

Josh Sens: Makes me think of those old, silly skills challenges, updated for the high-tech, reality-TV age. In that sense, should make for a good showcase for ridiculously talented shotmakers, so golf fans should get a kick of that part. The problem with that kind of entertainment is that a little of it goes a long way. Whether the spectacle draws a wide and long-term audience will depend, I think, on other elements of the production. The quality of the editing. The commentators. The banter among the players. The silly season was fun because it was a short season. I’m not convinced there will be a sustained appetite for what TGL is serving, but then I thought Holey Moley was unwatchable and it went on for several seasons, so what do I know?

Editing?  Is this not being broadcast live?  But Holey Moley was new to this observer, but perhaps a suitably low bar... 

Sean Zak: I really like the idea of three-man alternate shot. And just 15 holes. And a time slot that doesn’t stretch past two hours. I think part of the allure of this product will be creating some form of heroism. Where on a given night, Boston Common wins because Keegan Bradley made consecutive 30-footers and the in-arena reaction flies around social media. But, as LIV Golf realized, you can create a platform for golfing brilliance, but that doesn’t mean it’ll happen right away. (If I’m making the schedule, I’m leading with Rory’s team against Justin Thomas’, and every commercial break I’m playing promo for Tiger’s debut the following week. Unfortunately, I’m not in charge of the schedule.)

Of course.  But that was the aim of the WGC's and LIV, and any actual heroism was of the tree-falling-in-the-forest ilk.

And your humble blogger's takeaway from all 114 installments of The Match is that these guys are pretty boring.  Except, yanno, Barkley, but I'm unclear as to which TGL franchise he'll be on.  Here's one more rendering of the excitement:

Can't you just smell the beers being spilled.....  It's The Wasted, only indoors.

We've got more from Rory today, but this strikes me as an odd sales pitch:

Rory McIlroy shares first look at TGL “clubhouse” locker rooms

 

Hey, I'm completely sold.  Hard to tell from that sepia tone, but they seem to have grabbed Celtic colors.... 

Your mileage may and probably should vary wildly, but what a weird time to launch this venture.  I have little interest in watching these guys play on real golf courses unless there's something important at stake (which happens exactly four times a year), so the appeal of seeing them hitting into screens eludes me.

But I am dying to know whether Patrick will wear a hat.... as I expect all America needs to know.

All Things Rory - About the only they haven't done is name Yasir as a TGL franchise owner, so maybe that's the snag in the PIF-PGA negotiations.  But during our two years of hell, the one constant has always been that Rory shooting off his mouth hasn't helped the process.

So, Rory's opened his pie hole once more, and one assumes it'll be....well, let's see what we have:

During a press conference for Boston Common Golf, one of six founding teams that will represent the mixed-reality league in 2024, McIlroy was joined by his teammates Keegan Bradley, Adam Scott and Tyrrell Hatton at the podium. And after 20 minutes of learning their thoughts on the franchise, their own connections with Boston and what they’re looking forward to, a very specific question was directed to McIlroy.

“Rory, a lot of the things you were mentioning [about TGL] — expanding the demographics and kind of interactivity with players — are a lot of the same things we heard with LIV when they were starting up and trying to change golf and make it more louder—“

“Louder, yeah,” McIlroy said. He didn’t seem thrilled by the topic.

“Why is [TGL] something you are excited about when [LIV] was something you were notably not excited about?”

That's easy.  It's different because Rory ius getting paid.... Anything else matter?

“Again, I think this is meant to be complementary. It’s not meant to be disruptive in any way,” McIlroy said. “So whenever Mike McCarley brought this idea to Tiger and I, I think one of the first things we said, well, ‘If you’re going to do this, we’re going to have to try to partner with the PGA Tour in some way and really try to make this complementary.’ So I think that was the first thing. This wasn’t adversarial at all. It was trying to, ‘How can we be additive to the entire system?’”

 No real issues with that content-free drivel....

But this bit is curious:

“And I think when you look at — we’re pretending to be competitive and it’s a different type of golf, but it’s not the traditional golf you see week in and week out. So, I don’t want to sit here and talk about LIV, but I think you can make an argument that they haven’t innovated enough away from what traditional golf is. Or they’ve innovated too much that they’re not traditional golf. They’re sort of caught in no-man’s land. Where [TGL] is so far removed from what we know golf to be.”

Say what?

I don't even know what to make of that, because I don't consider TGL to be golf.  Oh, I get that golf is involved, but it's a glorified video game.  LIV is golf, it's just the worst possible version thereof, which would be OK if Tiger and Rory weren't determined to turn the PGA Tour into LIV....

Now stick with me, because Rory made another appearance that is also interesting:

If you were watching CNBC around noon ET Monday, the image might have caught you by

surprise: There, on either side of the screen, sat the prospective futures of the PGA Tour.

To the left was Rory McIlroy, the four-time major champion and de facto voice of the PGA Tour, sporting attentive eyes and a warm smile. To the right was McIlroy’s business partner, Tom Werner, Red Sox owner and Fenway Sports Group chairman and founder, wearing the same frog-logo knit sweater as his professional golf counterpart.

Officially, the two men were on CNBC to discuss their partnership with the TGL, McIlroy and Tiger Woods’ techy Tuesday night golf league that will soon feature many of the biggest faces on the PGA Tour. Werner is financially vested in the league as the principal owner of the league’s New England-based franchise, Boston Common Golf. On Monday, BCL had its team launch presser, which brought the squad’s owner (Werner) alongside its star player (McIlroy) for a short spot on The Halftime Report from Fenway Park.

The pair’s shared airtime, though, was much more interesting than a promotional carwash. Monday may have marked the first time that Werner and McIlroy have appeared together in public in an official capacity, but it isn’t the first time their names have been connected in recent weeks.

Here's the connective tissue I'm after:

Werner’s primary employer, sports business goliath Fenway Sports Group, has been heavily linked in conversations relating to its potentially taking a private equity stake in the PGA Tour —

rumors that have only heated up in recent days. McIlroy, on the other hand, is one of six player directors on the Tour’s Policy Board who will likely be tasked with ratifying a potential big-name investor to shore up the Tour’s finances.

Werner hadn’t denied making an offer to the Tour, nor had he denied his involvement with McIlroy in forming that offer. Add in the fact that Fenway’s offer reportedly includes Mets owner Steve Cohen and Falcons owner Arthur Blank — coincidentally the highly influential owners of both the Atlanta and New York TGL teams — and suddenly it seems there’s an awful lot of overlap between the negotiations for the future of the PGA Tour and the entertainment product being launched by its two biggest stars. (A product, mind you, in which the PGA Tour owns an equity stake.)

Ari Emanuel, eat your heart out!  But, gee, I wonder which of those five bidde4rs will win the day:

But before entering into negotiations for a stake in the future of pro golf, it certainly helps to count the two biggest voices on the policy board — Woods and McIlroy — among your current business partners. Werner’s contingent has this backing along with the goodwill of PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, who was a Fenway executive before he joined the Tour.

“Follow the money” has proved a powerful axiom over these last two years in pro golf, and it may be useful again here. The bidding for the future of the PGA Tour is still a long way from the finish line, but right now the money seems to be running through, of all places, the TGL.

Neither Werner nor McIlroy spoke a peep of this on television screens across the U.S. early on Monday afternoon. But then again, they didn’t need to.

As they spoke shoulder-to-shoulder in glowing terms about the future of golf, their sweaters said it all.

It's all rigged.  We just don't know whether the end game is a deal with PIF or to use private equity to freeze them out.  

But wait, there's more.  Rory, who's been wrong about.....checking notes, everything, has good news for us:

On Monday, McIlroy made an appearance at a press conference for his TGL team, Boston

Common, and told reporters he is convinced that Rahm, a two-time major winner and reigning Masters champion, has no interest in going to LIV.

"I spoke to Jon a couple days ago and would be very, very surprised if that were to happen," McIlroy said. "I'm pretty confident Jon is a PGA Tour player."

Rahm has yet to dispel the rumors about any potential departure to the Saudi Arabia-funded league since his TGL announcement last Thursday, when he wrote on social media: "I am sad to confirm that I will not be participating in the first TGL season. While I still think it's a great opportunity, right now it would require a level of commitment that I can't offer. Best of luck to everyone [involved] and may the best team win!"

That's probably right for now, as it would be a surpassingly weird time to jump.  On the flip side, that $400 million ask seems weirdly specific, so there's that....

This should have gone above, as it's more about the TGL than about the Spaniard:

2. Also last week, we learned TGL now has one less star, since Jon Rahm withdrew from the league after he was originally one of the first players to sign on. While there are still several stars on TGL’s roster, how important will securing the big-name players be to its longevity and success? Or can the fun, laid-back format fuel it?

Berhow: It’s going to be crucial, and some players might come and go over the years if this thing sticks around, but it’s a lot like what we see in a regular PGA Tour season: More people are going to watch if Tiger, Rory and Rickie are playing. (I’d really love to see Spieth join this league, by the way! He has the star power and personality to be a really nice addition). That said, one of the most important factors here will be the entertainment element. These guys can hit the shots, yes, but we’ll need some fun banter or stories or conversation to keep it loose. Some of the forced chatter we’ve seen in some of the made-for-TV matches won’t cut it.

Sens: The names do seem crucial for the initial draw. But if it’s going to last, there has to be more to it than Rickie and Tiger and Rory hitting amazing wedge shots and talking their (let’s be honest) pretty boring version of smack. This gets down again to the other elements of the production. There’s lots of competition out there for eyeballs, and attention spans are even shorter than an indoor course.

Zak: Losing Rahm feels like a pretty big deal. He’s slowly becoming one of the most influential voices/figures in the sport. He’s probably the single player most likely to remain in the top 10 for the next 10 years. Maybe he’ll join season two! If there is a season two …

Here's the ironic bit.  The only actual player that's demonstrated a sufficient gift for gab to hold an audience is that Phil guy, and I'm pretty sure he won't be involved.  None of the other guys were sufficiently engaging to hold our attention through a 12-hole match, so fifteen weeks seems a rather large ask.

Overinterpreting Much? - Last it6em for today, one that I'm attaching way too much significance to for sure.  But when it comes to architectural criticism, this is my go-to guy:

Kelly Kraft, after finishing 71st at last week’s World Wide Technology Championship, says the PGA Tour could do a better job at picking tournament courses.

“Best part about this week was having my family here and watching the @rangers win the World Series!! About the golf, not sure where to start. All I will say is the @pgatour could do a better job at picking courses to host these events. In my opinion this wasn’t my favorite course, and I’ve played on tour for a little while. Better luck next week

“Side note, I will say that @wwt_inc did a great job with what they had. Thanks for the hospitality!”

So, click for a wide range of guardedly favorable comments  from Tour players, though with this caveat:

Still, those thoughts were given in Tour settings, in front of cameras, and opinions tend to be reserved.

On Instagram, Kraft’s post was liked fellow by Tour pros Sam Ryder, who tied for 10th; Dylan Wu, who didn’t play; and LIV Golf player Cameron Tringale.

My question is simple, would Kelly Kraft have criticized a Tiger design two years ago?  We can't know for sure, but in those two years Tiger has authored a takeover of the Tour's operations by the elite players, and has now been placed on the Tour's Advisory Board  

To this observer, the most under-reported part of this story is who wanted Tiger on the Advisory Board and to what purpose?  I will speculate that Kelly Kraft assumes that Tiger will not have his interests at heart, and I certainly don't think he's wrong in that.

We saw a similar thing in that Grayson Murray - Rory dust-up in Canada, and I think we'll see a wave of disgruntlement from the Tour rabbits who have been carved out of the gravy train.  Not our kind, Dearie!.

That's it for now.  I'll see you down the road, said without a clue as to what that might mean.