Thursday Threads - Arnie's Place Edition

Your humble blogger is back in Utah, where it is snowing.....  Quite a bit expected, although it will be more of that wet, heavy stuff....

There isn't much of anything to discuss, so we'll just throw a few things up and see when we want to hit the mountain.

LIV Musings - Their mouths are moving, but not only don't I know what they're saying, but I've no clue as to what they're trying to say....

I'll just lede with a minor sideshow, amusing because it features two guys that no one has wanted to hear from since the Carter administration.  For our benefit, they lede with a little history:

Fred Couples has pulled no punches when it comes to LIV Golf, and more, specifically, his former teammate and fellow Ryder Cup vice captain Phil Mickelson. In the summer that Mickelson defected to LIV Golf in 2022, Couples opined,

  “These guys—you’ve seen their interviews, right? Have you ever seen Phil look so stupid in his life? They know it’s a joke." Then in March 2023, Couples again took shots at Lefty, calling him a “nutbag” and offering, “If you’re willing to give Phil Mickelson $200 million at age 53 to shoot 74 and 75, God bless you.”

The barbs from a mostly beloved character like Couples had to sting Mickelson, especially with Couples nailing it on Mickelson’s play, which has been wholly mediocre in his time on the Saudi Arabia-backed circuit.

That's when he's taken time out of his core obligations of measuring Cam Young for Ryder Cup kits.... Musta dug deep for that pic.

But Fred didn't leave it there, of course:

The skirmish started when Couples did an interview with Sports Radio 93.3 KJR in his hometown of Seattle last week and suggested that his friend and five-time major winner Brooks Koepka wants to return to the PGA Tour.

“He wants to come back. I will say that, believe me, he really wants to come back and play the PGA Tour,” Couples said.

But were you thinking that any of these guys exhibited impulse control?

The feud had seemingly quieted of late, but that changed on Tuesday when Mickelson responded to a Golf Digest social media post by calling an opinion Couples had expressed as a “low class jerk move.” Mickelson later deleted the comment.

Hmmmm, couldn't he have worked in a jerk store reference?  Devastating repartee from the Master, no?  And nothing quite says low-class, jerk move like deleting your low-class, jerk move tweet....

Now we're apparently supposed to sense the auras and penumbras:

Jay Monahan’s latest update on PGA Tour-LIV deal strikes different tone

So we're going for nuance?

Rumors have been swirling that the meeting at the White House between Monahan, PIF governor

Yasir Al-Rumayyan and President Donald Trump didn’t go as well as both sides have claimed. Monahan pushed back on that narrative Tuesday but also made sure to temper expectations on a timeline for the deal.

“I think anything that I’ve said or we said, the three of us said, is consistent with what should be said when you’re in the middle of a complex discussion to try and reunify the game of golf,” Monahan said via Golf Channel. “It doesn’t speak to my confidence level. It speaks to the moment. I view that meeting as a huge step and so I look at that very positively.

“We had a recent meeting with the President, the Public Investment Fund, thought it was a constructive meeting,” Monahan said. “And we’re thankful for the President for his leadership, extremely thankful for him, for his willingness to host us in the Oval Office, and to help us continue those conversations. I feel like if you look at his commentary last week as ultimately seeing a deal happening and Yasir Al-Rumayyan’s comments at the FII about the good meeting that we had, I think we’ll just continue to move forward on those conversations.”

As long as any agreement bans the single-tone green outfit....  Do they know how bored we are by it all?  And, most importantly, we don't care about those guys.

But are they even at the same meetings? 

Following the PGA Tour’s first meeting with Trump, Monahan spoke with reporters at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and made it sound like he expected something to get done on the PGA Tour-LIV front soonish. Monahan spoke of a desire to have all the best players in the world play under the umbrella of one tour. This is antithetical to the rhetoric coming out of LIV Golf, which has been adamant that it plans to stick around and grow even when the merger is complete.

Hey, I'm old enough to remember when we wouldn't even acknowledge the bone-cutters.... 

If there's a competitor to Jay for eating prior statements, this guy is back with a familiar refrain:

Does the PGA Tour still need a deal with PIF? Rory McIlroy answers

As long as Webb Simpson keeps getting his sponsors' exemptions, everyone is happy....  OK, let me rephrase, the eight guys Tiger and Rory worry about are fat, dumb and happy.

“I think the narrative around golf, I wouldn’t say needs a deal, I think the narrative around golf would welcome a deal in terms of just having all the best players together again,” he said. “But I don’t think the PGA Tour needs a deal. I think the momentum is pretty strong. TV’s been good, TGL’s been hopefully pretty additive to the overall situation. I answered this question at Torrey Pines two weeks ago, before, you know, the landscape might have looked a little different than it does now over these past couple of weeks, and I think a deal would still be the ideal scenario for golf as a whole. But from a pure PGA Tour perspective, I don’t think it necessarily needs it.”

It’s important to note his reference to a similar question at the Genesis Invitational last month. There he made it clear the game’s better with the two sides joining together.

“Whatever’s happened has happened and it’s been unfortunate, but reunification, how we all come back together and move forward, that’s the best thing for everyone,” he said. “If people are butt hurt or have their feelings hurt because guys went [to LIV] or whatever, like who cares? Let’s move forward together and let’s just try to get this thing going again and do what’s best for the game.”

Asked on Wednesday what has changed in those couple of weeks since those comments, McIlroy said, “Look, I think it takes two to tango. So if one party is willing and ready and the other isn’t, it sort of makes it tough.”

It's angels on the head of a pin type nonsense, but from a guy that got pretty much everything wrong.   But here's his coda:

To put a bow on things, after the recent optimism with White Hose meetings, does a deal feel closer?

“I don’t think it’s ever felt that close,” McIlroy said. “It doesn’t feel like it’s any closer.”

Well, then, the thing to consider would be to stop pimping it.....

Dare we look at ratings?  There is good news, though that's mostly how bad last year was:

The 30-year-old’s outstanding performance in the first round helped him secure a 12-under par 59 in the 18 holes. That was not enough for him to go all the way through the tournament. But he did draw in a lot of golf fans to watch the action live. Knapp’s efforts, Jordan Spieth’s mishaps, and Rickie Fowler’s near miss to get a ticket to the 2025 Arnold Palmer Invitational helped the event gain an average of 2.15 million viewers on Sunday.

Unfortunately, none of the names above won the tournament. The 2025 Cognizant Classic Championship went to first-time winner, Joe Highsmith. Yet, Jay Monahan & Co. had a lot to celebrate. They have now had 5 consecutive events with high TV ratings. Things have seemingly gotten better after the horrid numbers they received in 2024. Missed it? The PGA Tour struggled with viewership last year, and early 2025 wasn’t much better with big names absent. But with Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler back, the season’s heating up. Still, Jay Monahan & Co. shouldn’t celebrate too soon—ratings are up from 2024 but still lag behind 2022-23. An analyst just dropped that insight minutes ago.

Trusted golf reporter, Josh Carpenter tweeted, “NBC drew 2.15M viewers for Joe Highsmith’s win in the Cognizant Classic on Sunday. Last year’s finish was pushed to Monday due to rain, but taped coverage drew 1.45M viewers. Better comp is the prior two years: 2.38M (Chris Kirk) and 2.57M (Sepp Straka)”. The numbers reveal that the PGA Tour is still lagging behind what it was achieving a couple of years ago. Hence, a jump up from 1.45 million to 2.15 million shouldn’t be considered a win for them.

Carpenter himself also had the same opinion when someone asked him “Ratings up 5 weeks in a row!?”. He responded a few minutes later with “Technically, yes. But I don’t know that I’d really go down that road considering last year was washed out. Better comps are 2023 and 2022, which they’re down from”. This will be a big reality check for Jay Monahan & Co. as they were hoping for a big win soon.

But Rory tells us that TGL is additive, right?  He wouldn't lie to us, would he?

An unfavorable Monday afternoon window on ESPN2 resulted in TGL’s worst viewership number yet.

Monday’s match between Los Angeles Golf Club and The Bay Golf Club, which aired at 3 p.m. ET on ESPN2, averaged just 160,000 viewers, by far the least-watched TGL match so far this season. The simulator golf league’s 7 p.m. ET window on the deuce fared a bit better, averaging 291,000 viewers for a match between Boston Common Golf and New York Golf Club.

 But denial ain't just a river in Egypt:

While those numbers don’t necessarily look pretty for the nascent golf league, it’s all part of a larger plan. Per a TGL spokesperson, the league intentionally scheduled some mid-afternoon windows to better serve their European broadcast partners.

Oh yeah, that's the ticket.  I don't know how much weight to give to that trend line, but they seem to still be shedding viewers, so declarations of success seem speculative.

Counter Musings - Were I a cynic, I might not that the PGA Tour's efforts to place all elite professional golf under their control should await proof that they can fix one of their marquee events:

What needs to happen with the PGA Tour's season-ending Tour Championship? 'It has to be simple'

The Tour Championship was a hot topic of conversation at the Player Advisory Council meeting on Tuesday evening at Bay Hill Lodge & Club. How can the Tour design an end to its season that matches the excitement and fan interest of the majors? Is that even possible? Former Major League Baseball executive Theo Epstein and a senior adviser at Fenway Sports Group, who has advised the Tour on improving the fan experience, and World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, a member of the PAC, were participants involved in the discussion.

“There's a few different formats that I think we're looking at right now. Some of 'em good, some of 'em were bad. I'm not really going to go into details of those formats because we're still ironing them out,” Scheffler said.

Well, there's certainly no urgency.  You're only 25% of the way into the season involved, so totally legit to completely rewrite the rules.  Has Patrick given you his decision yet?

I've been on this since 2007, but the problem is that Tour can't make a simple decision:

Mackenzie Hughes, who served on the PAC the previous two years but not this season, said the FedEx Cup Playoffs need more volatility. “If we’re going to make our playoffs truly the playoffs, it has to be more do or die,” he said. “Every round there needs to be a chance to be eliminated.”

Not to worry, Mackenzie, you can be eliminated at any time.  They just won't allow you to eliminate Cantlay, so good luck with that "playoff" thing....But you can see them defaulting to their core capabilities, talking.   

API Musings - This sounds far better in the header than in the deets:

The cool reason there will be fewer commercials at the Arnold Palmer Invitational this week

 But....

If there’s one thing golf fans hate, it’s commercials. And if there’s one thing golf fans love, it’s player-caddie conversations. For regular PGA Tour viewers, it often feels like the time spent watching car insurance commercials comes at the expense of deeper immersion into the sport and its colorful cast of world-class athletes.

This weekend at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the PGA Tour will attempt to ease those concerns with its latest Fan Forward Initiative, which replace several commercial blocks at Bay Hill with live golf segments focusing on player-caddie interactions. The segments will be presented by Mastercard, the title sponsor of the 2025 Arnold Palmer Invitational, with the support of the API’s broadcast partners, NBC and Golf Channel.

“In addition to wanting more live golf action, fans are telling us they are more entertained when they can see and hear a player’s pre-shot process in the heat of the competition,” said PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan of the new approach. “We are excited to work with Mastercard and NBC/Golf Channel to step back and allow fans to experience those intimate, real-time interactions during the telecast this week.”

Sounds like another "Playing Through" experience, which are remarkable facsimiles of...wait for it, commercials... 

The only other bit from Orlando is this:

On Thursday afternoon at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Joe LaCava will step to the first tee box with a bag slung around his shoulder, and for the first time, a second question will follow that simple act.

Which Joe LaCava?

Yes, on Thursday and Friday at the API, the group of the day — at least for one New York metro area community — will belong to Patrick Cantlay and Joe Highsmith. More specifically, though, the group of the day will belong to the players’ caddies, Joe LaCava III and his son, Joe IV, who will be sharing an afternoon walk for the first time in their PGA Tour careers.

As long as they both keep their caps on.....   A nice moment for Dad, one we usually only see at the PNC.  But Joe IV might have found himself a bag that will make bank for him.

I told you it would be a light day of blogging, and I'm a man of my word.  Have a great weekend and we'll check in to wrap the weekend on Monday.

Weekend Wrap - Bear Trap Edition

Yeah, think Honda is having any second thoughts?  Not bloody likely, as last year Face-Plant Tour™ seems a best-case scenario....

But The Narrative... - We're lucky enough to live in a no-cut Nirvanas, in which the best players in the world can sleepwalk through Thursday and Friday.  It's perfect for the age, as removing any lingering drama from professional golf is only prudent:

Four feet, seven inches.

That’s the par putt that Joe Highsmith had Friday at PGA National to make the cut at the 2025 Cognizant Classic at The Palm Beaches. Highsmith poured the putt in the center to play the weekend, but he had no idea what the next 48 hours would hold.

The Pepperdine product had a terrible warmup before Saturday’s third round but rode a hot putter to a 7-under 64 to vault into contention. On Sunday at the Champion Course at PGA National, Highsmith watched as every other contender stumbled while he fired a bogey-free 64 to finish at 19-under par to claim his first PGA Tour win.

In doing so, Highsmith became the first player in nine years to make the cut on the number and go on to win. Brandt Snedeker was the last to do so at the 2016 Farmers Insurance Open.

“I feel like once I made it on the number, I knew I was going to go out early on Saturday, and that was going to be a good chance because the scores just get so much harder as the day goes on,” Highsmith said Sunday after his win. “I definitely took advantage of that. I played really nicely on Saturday.

But our best players won't endure the indignity of a cut, which is win-win, baby!  They don't have to risk a weekend of leisure and we, therefore, don't need to watch.

Although, this is spit-take funny from the winner:

His putter, one he put in his bag just before the Farmers Insurance Open, propelled him past some of the PGA Tour’s most notable names.

“A lot of big names, obviously, up on that board, and knowing that there’s a lot of great accomplished players that are right around the same score, and I saw, like, Russell Henley was under early, I think, and I was playing so good, and I think I was at 14-under and he was at 17, and I was like, how am I going to catch these guys?” Highsmith said. “Was able to just stick with it.

Big names?  Well, they don't get much bigger than Russell Henley, do they?  In fact, I have a question for Patrick Cantlay, how canm golf grow if we don't know when Russell Henley is going to play?  You see how tenuous this all is....

The man of the week couldn't get it to the clubhouse, though "love" seems more of a personal reaction:

Jake Knapp’s watery demise reminded us why this event is great

They keep using that word..... Notwithstanding that the lede is a bit more candid:

The Cognizant Classic has faded in importance over the years. Ever so slightly, but it has faded nonetheless. There are four tournaments in this Florida Swing and it ranks fourth for a lot of people. It’s okay to say so.

It used to be the Honda Classic — the automobile manufacturer sponsored the event for more than 40 years, but they moved on when things started getting weird in pro golf in recent seasons. The event used to draw Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy and Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson — the Jupiter crew — but none of those guys have played since 2022. (Woods and McIlroy are in town, but saving themselves for the Seminole Pro-Member and some nighttime TGL. Koepka and Johnson are in Singapore.)

But the Cognizant Classic pushes on mostly for those who aren’t in next week’s Signature Event field, or who aren’t in good form, or who aren’t in great standing in the world ranking. It’s a place to tee it up for more money than anywhere else, but more importantly, it’s a place to see if you’ve got some mettle. This is what PGA National reminds us constantly, and did so once again this week. It wasn’t just Sunday when players had to walk through the Bear Trap on their tiptoes. It was the week as a whole.

Well, that's quite the downer.... and quite the about-face from the header.

And a seemingly brutally honest take on  that 59-shooter:

On an overseeded golf course with tame conditions, the best modern golfers — largely built by numbers to be repetitive robots — are going to take this course down. Jake Knapp was our chief aggressor, shooting a 59 with a closing tap-in — the way you’d prefer to shoot 59 if you were a Tour pro. He drove it supremely, which is Jake Knapp Golf. He is not known for his short game, his putter or iron game. He’s PGA Tour Average in a lot of spots but way above average in distance and well below average in accuracy. But on the days when he is accurate? Look out. That was Thursday.

Fifty-nines are rare enough that they still feel special, though their lore is, like the event, fading as well. A 59 is special enough that if it comes in the opening round, all the tournament’s eyes are locked on you now. There have been 15 59s, but only five have led to victories. Don’t get too full on the appetizer and ruin the entrée.

Knapp was never going to pull off that round twice. He is not made to thrive on this golf course. He’s made to thrive on big, wide courses without water everywhere. You can ignore those hazards for 18 blissful holes, but eventually they will greet you. How you respond says a lot. Knapp made a double on Friday when he met those hazards for the first time, but otherwise kept his ball dry all weekend. He teed off Sunday with the lead and appeared on cruise control, up one shot on the field when he found the 11th fairway.

Spoiler alert:  Here's how it ended:

Was it love for you?  I can't even guess how many venues have similar issues (Kapalua will jump to mind), the the place just isn't what it used to be:

Naturally, this miscarriage of golf justice had Golf Twitter up in arms. This was once a

tournament where single-digit winning scores were the norm. A U.S. Open-like test, in Florida of all places. Much of that was often due to high winds and crispy, almost-brown-colored Bermudagrass fairways and greens that baked in the Florida sun.

That changed in 2023 when the tournament began overseeding the Bermudagrass with Ryegrass, a practice to help soften conditions and make the golf course greener. Chris Kirk won that year at 14 under. Last year, Austin Eckroat won with a score of 17 under. In the previous 19 editions of the event, no winner had shot any lower than 14 under.

This has not only come as a shock to those on the internet. Some of the players playing in the actual event sounded off on the soft setup, too. Among them was Billy Horschel, a Florida man through and through who contextualized what's taking place so far in the first round in Palm Beach Gardens.

"There was no wind so it helps tremendously," Horschel said after shooting a first-round 66. "You've got to tip your hat to him [Knapp]. He shot a 12-under par 59 at PGA National, which no one ever thought. I know we had a discussion earlier this week and I've probably changed my tune a little bit. I think the overseed has -- the rough is not long enough. It's not penal enough when you miss the fairway.

"I really wish we would just play this as a straight Bermuda," he added. "From tee to green, everything be straight Bermuda. I know it doesn't look prettier on TV and I know that's one of the reasons why it's overseeded."

The Tour Confidential gang took a swing at this issue as well:

After Jake Knapp shot 59 in unusually tame conditions on PGA National’s Champion Course, some pros were wondering what happened to the beastly Bear Trap. Is that unfair to the 15th sub-60 score in PGA Tour history? Or do 59s no longer carry the same historic weight as they used to?

Zak: They just don’t mean the same they used to. And that’s okay! We’ve been traveling down this road for quite a while. The course had been overseeded, received some rain, had zero wind and one of the best drivers on Tour drove it extremely well. Someone was bound to go low. It just becomes a bit inevitable.

Hirsh: No, Sean, 59 is still 59. PGA National is easier than it used to be, but it’s still a rating over 75 from the back tees. That’s a hard golf course. Is it as hard as it used to be? No, and that’s unfortunate after the recent renovation. But just because a 59 comes on an easier setup, that doesn’t make it less impressive. I don’t think I’d be able to swing a club if I was 11 under with one hole to play.

Dethier: We’re asking these tournaments to walk a very, very fine line. Too hard? They get ripped for sloppiness and slow play. Too easy? Your 59 means nothing! But yeah, it means less. Yeah, it’s still cool. Yeah, it’s fun to watch when this tournament is a suffer-fest. But it’s tough to do it all.

Journalism On Parade - We all instinctively understand that sports journalism isn't really journalism, and when you fall short of even those degraded standards...

I mean, what are the going for here?

First reported by Golfweek, Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler will not receive sponsor’s exemptions into the Arnold Palmer Invitational, a Signature Event with a 72-man field. While it’s easy to agree with Fowler’s “at the end of the day, play better” comment, is it more complicated than that? Regardless of current form, Spieth and Fowler are two huge draws. With the pro ranks still split and the best players not on the same tour, is there an argument to load tournaments with star power?

Zak: It’s extremely complicated! Webb Simpson took a bunch of these invites last year and got criticized by his fellow pros for it. Adam Scott took a bunch of those invites, too, and played well enough to finish within the heralded FedEx Cup Top 50. You want to invite players fans will cheer for, pros who will deliver some pep for sponsors, and you also want to appear dutiful in assessing all your options. It’s lazy to just choose the biggest names. It’s commendable to take Rafa Campos’ letter to heart and hand him a ticket to the biggest event of his season.

Hirsh: I’m with Zak here, too. If you’re going to argue that LIV has a diluted product because it hands out spots to guys who were supposed to be relegated (looking at you, Bubba) just to maintain a draw, then you shouldn’t argue the same for Spieth and Fowler. It is interesting because Spieth seems to be finding his game again and Fowler had a good week at the Cognizant, but obviously these decisions get made before that. I also love that a heartfelt letter still has some weight and I’ll be pulling for Rafa Campos, whom I interviewed back in college about being the lone PGA Tour player from Puerto Rico.

Dethier: There’s definitely an argument to load tournaments with star power! And there’s also an argument that the PGA Tour should lean in on meritocracy and ditch these sponsor invites altogether. If you’re gonna have ‘em and keep anybody from getting mad, well, that’s impossible. But this may be the most thoughtful way to do it, even if you’re leaving some big names out.

Guys, is there any context to this discussion?  Any changes in the last few years that maybe impact how folks are reacting....

They seem to be having the "How should sponsors use their exemptions" conversation, which is Ok as far as it goes.   But isn't it, in this moment, the least interesting aspect of this all?

The first thing I would be inclined to note, si that it's their a*****e buddies Tiger and Rory that have cared them out of these events, while concentrating vast sums of the PGA's treasury on these events that Rickie and Jordan are not, boo hoo, qualified into.  The first question is whether, with the field limited only to Tiger's BFFs, should there still be sponsors' exemptions?  Yes, they've committed money with those in play, but such delicate feelings about fair play didn't stop the Tour from giving it to Honda up the you-know-what.

But, as an alleged journalist, how do you mention those Webb Simpson and Adam Scott exemptions without adding in the dark underbelly.  Their votes were needed to ensure that Cantlay got paid, and the votes seem to have been purchased with sponsor exemptions.....  Add Peter Malnati to that list, and the Golf Magazine writers seem all too happy to bury that not-so-little bit of ugliness.....  Remind me again, they're all gentlemen selflessly serving the game?  Sure, and now I suppose you have some swamp land for me....

Par For The Course - Anyone surprised?

Tiger Woods won’t play Arnold Palmer Invitational but will play another exclusive event

Tiger Woods’ PGA Tour season debut will have to wait at least another week as the 15-time major champion is not in the field for next week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Woods, however, will tee it up Monday in the annual Seminole Pro-Member tournament, which is played at Seminole Golf Club in Juno Beach, Fla.

Woods is playing with former PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh for the second consecutive year. The field at the Seminole Pro-Member includes Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Nelly Korda, Tom Brady and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, among others.

OMG, what a brutal week for the guy:

Woods is also in the lineup to play in Tuesday night’s TGL match between Jupiter Links and the Atlanta Drive. Jupiter needs a win Tuesday and some help to make the playoffs.

I'm supposed to be excited, right?  

Udder Stuff -  A little copying and pasting and you can get your week under way:

Florida State junior Luke Clanton made the cut at the Cognizant Classic — his ninth made cut in 12 career PGA Tour starts — to earn his 20th point in the PGA Tour University Accelerated program, securing his PGA Tour card at the conclusion of this college season. As the top-ranked amateur in the game and a future Tour player, what should the average fan know about one of the game’s most promising young talents?

Zak: He isn’t just making a bunch of cuts to earn his way into this Tour card. The kid has contended! Multiple times. He already fits in among the well-known names on Tour, stats-wise. Entering the tournament, DataGolf gave Clanton the same expectation of making the cut, finishing top 10, and winning as Cameron Young. You know, the guy everyone thinks would be a good Ryder Cup asset. That’s who Clanton is, too.

Hirsh: People need to realize how quickly his rise to stardom was. He didn’t earn his first point in the PGA Tour U Accelerated program until the U.S. Open last year when he made the cut and battled Neal Shipley down the stretch for low amateur (Shipley beat him out on the last hole after Clanton missed a tying birdie putt). But by the end of November, he had 17 points, the quickest accumulation of points in the three-year history of the program. When the Tour announced PGA Tour U Accelerated, it said since 2010, only three golfers would have earned their Tour card through it. Clanton is now the second after Gordon Sargent earned 20 points and deferred to this season. It’s just another example of how much better players are, younger.

Dethier: What should people know about Clanton? In high school he won the Florida state title three times…and finished second the other year. He also might make the Ryder Cup team.

It's crazy how well he's played out there, though I suspect it will get harder for him and turn into a grind. 

Lydia Ko won the HSBC Women’s World Championship on Sunday in Singapore to capture her 23rd career LPGA victory. Nelly Korda didn’t play, but she has two top 10s in two starts already this season. Who wins more in 2025: Korda or Ko?

Zak: Ko does. She’s already one up! Having spent some time with Lydia recently, she seems so incredibly centered. She speaks a lot like Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler these days, which is great company, mindset-wise. We were treated to a Korda-Ko battle early in 2024, and even at the Open in St. Andrews. Frankly, it’s becoming time for Korda to punch back.

Hirsh: Ko had one more on Korda early on last season, too. It’s kind of amazing to me that Ko is actually third behind Jeeno Thitikul in the Rolex Ranking. That said, I think Korda has a bit more to prove after last season, which sounds strange after she won seven times. She’ll want to capture more majors this season after watching Ko win the Open last season.

Dethier: Korda wins more. But it’s a great sign that we’re asking the question. This era of Ko has been a welcome addition to the golf landscape — and the fairytale continues.

This stage of Lydia's career has been shockingly productive.... Hard to see her staying at the top, though I'm not completely sold on Nelly as well.

That's it for today.  I head West on Wednesday and will see you from out there.

Thursday Threads - Ancillary Product Edition

The tell is that there's nothing related to the PGA Tour's core product that I feel compelled to discuss....Perhaps my "tell" should, yanno, tell them something.... Not that they're listening to mere fans.

Full Swing And Miss - Wherein my two sports passions, golf and the N.Y. Yankees are mashed up.

Season Three is out, can you feel golf growing?  I had been reliably informed that Season One would transform golf into Formula One, so I'm sure further growth in the game isn't feasible.

Despite being in the bag, Shane Ryan seems less than thrilled by it all:

In Season 3, 'Full Swing' struggles to connect until it's too late

Hard to connect with the audience when you're FIGJAMing them..... This does sound about right:

Each season, Netflix's “Full Swing” features dozens of players, spouses, children, commentators and other personalities around the world of professional golf, but it's hard not to conclude that the show's favorite character is “Full Swing” itself. This belongs to the class of documentary that can't resist showing off its means of production—a clapping slate, a producer's voice—and if it were possible to get Vegas odds on how the very first scene of the season would play, the heavy favorite would have paid off.

There's an inherent smugness to the whole undertaking, the cool kids deigning to share said coolness with those less well endowed....

If you hadn't guessed by then that you were watching Season 3 of “Full Swing," the cavalry was on its way: more slates clap over more famous faces, Tom Kim tells his puppy "you're on Season

3 Netflix, buddy," and within five minutes, they even get Ben Stiller on camera saying, "I started watching ‘Full Swing,’ it's great. … It's really well done."

This is nothing new—“Full Swing” has always been a show that insists on itself—but where in past seasons the self-consideration verging on narcissism seemed like tactical bombast, promoting something bigger, louder and sexier, now all that "this ain't your daddy's golf" bravado feels like insecurity. When you're afraid that you don't have the goods, one time-honored strategy is to loudly proclaim that you have the goods.

And they'll proclaim it repeatedly....  My biggest memory of the first two seasons is that each clip is repeated ad nauseum.

Sounds like we don't need to tune in for a bit:

If this sounds a little brutal so far, rest assured that at times in its third season, “Full Swing” really does have the goods, mostly in the final two episodes. In fact, the very last scene of the last episode is classic “Full Swing”: just when you feel at your most underwhelmed, they hit you with something so jaw-dropping that it not only makes the entire ride feel worth it, but instantly adds a level of almost delirious intrigue to the 2025 season. (I won't spoil it, but I won't need to—it involves Keegan Bradley, and you're going to be seeing it everywhere soon enough.)

Other times, though—frankly, too often—they're drawing dead. In the trailer, there's a focus on Scottie Scheffler's arrest, Rory McIlroy's divorce, Bryson DeChambeau's comeback from the dire days of 2021 and the U.S. Open drama at Pinehurst. As it happens, they end up putting all four of those stories in one episode, and from my perch as someone who was very excited to get new information or at least a deeper perspective from the main figures on any one of them, the result is a significant disappointment. There's just not much there that you haven't seen, and it seems that the principal characters—all of them featured subjects this season—simply didn't want to talk about it.

 And some amusing bits:

While we're enumerating complaints, there is also the persistent feeling from past seasons that the talking heads are being fed their lines rather than speaking them organically, and that certain proclamations are meant to build drama in ways that stretch belief (the show's depiction of Gary Woodland and Camilo Villegas was mostly superb, but the assertions in the final two episodes that they're "one of the most beloved players on tour" is not based on any reality I recognize). There are narrative issues, too. We see a full hour of Olympic build-up, but aside from a throwaway mention in an earlier episode, you’d barely know Scheffler won gold. And in a throwback to Season 1, the coverage of majors seems disjointed at best. (It must have been annoying for the producers that Xander Schauffele, who allegedly had a major hand in limiting their Ryder Cup access last year, won two of them.) In these moments, it becomes impossible for “Full Swing” to feel immersive.

Allegedly?  I guess someone is still worried about access.....  But the bigger issue is, if players such as Xander and Patrick are that worried about protecting their image, there isn't much of a reason to watch, is there?

The very same Shane Ryan seems to be reacting quite differently here:

6 key lessons we learned from 'Full Swing' Season 3

I didn't know it was supposed to be educational.

1. Keegan Bradley is even more intense than we thought

Last season, Bradley was a great subject, and having the cameras follow him around as he tried

and eventually failed to make the Ryder Cup painted a picture of a man who, more than other professionals, lives and dies with his fortunes on the golf course. After Bradley endured a decade in the wilderness, with a few snubs along the way, his Rome rejection at the hands of Zach Johnson hit you like a sledgehammer, even though you already knew what happened. This season, there's redemption for Bradley, who not only makes the Presidents Cup team, wins a big Day 1 match and clinches the winning point, but also gets named Ryder Cup captain.

Through much of the season, the story is uplifting, but in the final moments, with a speech to the Presidents Cup team that begins with "I've been underestimated my whole ****ing life," you can see the red-hot fire burning. We won't spoil what comes next, but to call it bulletin board material for Team Europe is a massive understatement, and it shows yet again that beneath a sometimes placid exterior, Bradley burns with a desire to prove himself, fueled by a strong undercurrent of resentment for the respect he feels he deserved but never got.

Spoiler alert, bet you didn't see this coming?

"I'm gonna get criticized as the captain next year. They're gonna underestimate me, they're gonna doubt me. I've been doubted my whole f-----g life. That's when I do my best work.

"We're gonna go to Bethpage to kick their f-----g ass."

Great, Keegs, now do a road game....

To me, these bits actually sound far more interesting than the Scottie/Keegan/Rory bits:

1. Ludvig Åberg making coffee

In some ways this is the heart of this show right? To see some human side to these golfing cyborgs? After all, we know what it’s like to watch Ludvig Aberg hit a golf ball. (It’s very cool

and impressive.) We know what it’s like to watch him win a tournament. (Also very cool and impressive.) We know that look; he’s in his golf uniform, in his golf mindset, hitting shots under pressure, going through the ritualistic car wash after, celebrations and interviews, all within the confines of a TV broadcast.

But what’s it like when he’s trying to froth milk with a new coffee machine in his new North Florida residence?

2. Neal Shipley pondering a late-night order — at Augusta National

Aberg takes the role of leading man during the opening episode, but amateur Neal Shipley is an

unexpected delight. He’ll make you laugh and he’ll make you feel and he’ll take you inside a round with Tiger Woods, but first he’ll take you inside a different corner of Augusta National than we’ve ever seen: the Crow’s Nest, where the amateurs stay tournament week (though often just for a night), and where we learn that dinner is served until 10 p.m. The fact that Shipley is coming from dinner doesn’t seem like a disqualifier as he mulls a second session.

Shipley is a known character, and I've acknowledged that Ludvig's facial reactions might be the best the TGL has to offer.

I will probably watch it in Utah, though the timing does oddly conflict with the Tour's other non-traditional offering....

The Day After Golf League - The memo has gone out and it's a home run....  Oops, wrong sport from which to analogize.  Still:

‘Golf’s getting better’: Pros discuss secret key to TGL’s continued surge

The technology has made the pros look silly at times. The simulator has seemingly had moments where it didn’t read the flight of the shot properly, leading to pros looking confused when a shot they thought was hit well drifts off course.

While the tech remains imperfect, the players are starting to figure it out, as evidenced by the lessons Tony Finau got from teammates Collin Morikawa and Sahith Theegala during his lone practice day at the SoFi Center.

“When it came to hitting into the screen, I noticed for my fade, it’s easy to hit it up the left side of the screen, and I felt like it wasn’t coming back, so I started to aim a little bit more to the right, and I kind of watched Collin and Sahith hitting, and it wasn’t anything they told me, but just watching them,” Finau, who signed a one-match contract with LAGC said.

Makes sense that there might be a learning curve, but it's probably more important that the matches have been more competitive.

It would take a heart of stone not to laugh at this, however:

TGL has been a success in Year 1 but a potential playoff issue looms

Rory keeps telling us that the key to the future is that we know when he (and his BFF) are going to play.  So, this has to be a positive, right?

As a result, the last few weeks of TGL have shown the best of what the league can be. The matches have been competitive, the golf has gotten better as players have figured out the tech, the stars have completely bought in and it’s attracting interest from a wide swath of people.

With the playoffs on deck, TGL is set up nicely for a big second season that could see the league

expand and bring in more of the world’s best golfers. Tony Finau just played on a one-match contract for Los Angeles Golf Club and raved about the experience. Jason Day and Brooks Koepka (who knows what the future of reunification holds) have been in attendance. The league should also look into adding LPGA players as they look to the future.

A strong playoff season would do the league wonders as it looks to capitalize on its new-found momentum. There’s just one problem: TGL’s two biggest needle-movers are currently on the outside of the playoff picture with one match to go.

As TGL looks to build to a crescendo at the end of its inaugural season, it would greatly benefit the league to have both Woods and McIlroy’s teams in the playoffs.

I have not been able to confirm this, but you know that Tiger and Rory are already working on how to reduce TGL field sizes for Season 2....  

Meanwhile,  this is the latest viewership trend line I can find:

Week 1 - 919,000

Week 2 - 1,005,000

Week 3 - 682,000

Week 4 - 864,000

Week 5 - 544,000

Week 6 - 365,000

Week 7 - 546,000

Week 6 is a bit of an asterisk because that was 3 separate matches and an average of those three.

Removing the Pilot in Week 1, the two big weeks featured Tiger Woods.

That paints a pretty good picture that without Tiger, you are looking at in the neighborhood of a little over half a million viewers.

Two weeks in that 500,000 viewer neighborhood and this observer seems to assume it's sustainable.  Color me skeptical, but shouldn't we expect those numbers to jump for the playoffs?  I mean, it's all on the line....  The audience sizes seem awfully small to this observer, though it's true enough that nobody actually watches real golf.

I shall leave things here.  My travel schedule is up in the air, so please do check back early and often and have a great weekend.

Weekend Wrap - Return Of The Prodigal Blogger Edition

Since my last post, how many times have you hit refresh?  Go ahead, you can admit it.... We don't judge here at Unplayable Lies.  Yeah, that's not quite right, we don't judge our readers, that is.

It was my intention to blog our trip, a grand, old-style road trip in which your humble blogger covered 2,442 miles, from Henefer, UT to Golden, British Columbia and back, covering three resorts, in addition to the heliskiing.  But I'm out of control with photos and haven't seen any of the video my nephew captured on his fancy new Go-Pro alternative I bought him in December in anticipation of this adventure.

We got stiffed on fresh snow and there was much else that didn't go according to plan, but it was still a grand adventure shared with my brother and nephew.  Bear with me as I still intend to share it with you when Zack gets through the video. 

But for now, let's gently dip our toe back into the golf worlds....

Mexico - I plucked myself down Sunday afternoon intending to watch a taped Yankee exhibition game in front of the fire, only to discover that Optimum overruled my taping instructions.  There was golf on, allegedly an actual PGA Tour event, just one unburdened by recognizable players.  Shack noticed:

Person-American Named Brian Campbell Books Masters Trip

Hmmmm, I'm guessing he wasn't enthralled....

The field was dreadfully weak:

The field featured just two top 30 players (Aaron Rai and Akshay Bahtia), four top 50 players, and just 26 in the top 100. And that’s with the OWGR heavily tilted toward the PGA Tour.

Which often can provide surprisingly dramatic viewing, because the guys are actually fighting for their professional careers.....  Though I'll have to agree with Geoff, this one laid an egg.  Campbell has a compelling story of survival and the young South African will be heard from, yet it was all as flat as three-day old seltzer....

Dylan Dethier, in his Monday Finish column, provides a good summary of relative firepower:

Imagine, for a moment, you’re in the shoes of a particular player this past Sunday afternoon in the Mexico Open at VidantaWorld.

Good news: You’re in a playoff to win on the PGA Tour!

Some bad news: Your opponent is 20-year-old rising star Aldrich Potgieter. He’s unscarred and unafraid. You? You’re about to turn 32. You’ve earned your PGA Tour card and you’ve lost it and, after 150-plus starts in the minor leagues, you’ve earned it back. You know the preciousness of this opportunity and you know the consequences of a misstep. It’ll be tough to play free.

Some more bad news: Your opponent’s swing speed is 17 mph faster than yours. His ball speed is nearly 30 mph higher. He carries his tee shots, on average, 51 yards longer than you do. He hits 59 percent of his tee shots longer than 320 yards while you clear that threshold less than four percent of the time. He is arguably the longest driver on the PGA Tour. You are arguably the shortest.

Some more bad news: You’re playing a par 5.

But then he was the beneficiary of an unbelievable bounce:

Some more bad news: Even though you are one of the straightest drivers in professional golf — your “good drive” percentage is over 90, ranking second on Tour — now your tee shot is slicing

so far right of the fairway that it’s almost certainly headed out of bounds. A tee shot out of bounds means you’ll re-tee hitting three which means, really, your goose is cooked.

Who are you? You’re Brian Campbell, southern California native and Illinois graduate. You’ve spent the better part of a decade bouncing between the Korn Ferry Tour and PGA Tour and back to the Korn Ferry Tour. You’ve remained relatively anonymous because you’ve never quite played your way out of anonymity; you’ve never finished inside the top 10 in a PGA Tour event, never cracked the top 100 in the world and less than two years ago you’d fallen outside the top 1000. A strong 2024 season on the KFT got you back to the big show and now you’ve gotten yourself to the brink of a career-changing victory. Until this sliced drive, of course…

But then something wild happens: Your ball crashes into the woods and then it crashes out. You’re fine. You have a second chance. Pros often say that you need some luck to win, that you need a few bounces to go your way. They’re not usually this literal.

Crazy lucky, but Campbell and his caddie paid homage:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by PGA TOUR (@pgatour)

Not a day the Tour wants us to remember, which could also be said about most events this year.  As they head to Florida, I'm reminded that the West Coast Swing is the best of the Tour, quite the depressing thought.

The Tour Confidential panel did deign to cover the event, for what that's worth:

Brian Campbell won the Mexico Open, beating rookie Aldrich Potgieter in the second hole of a playoff after Campbell’s drive ricocheted off a tree out of bounds and he still made birdie. What impressed you most about Campbell’s first Tour title?

Marksbury: Anytime a player wins a playoff, it’s usually indicative of some serious mettle. Campbell is no exception. But I’m inclined to look beyond his performance this week to the journey he’s been on for the past 10 years, grinding on the Korn Ferry Tour. He showed some serious grit to simply get his Tour card for this year, and now he has his first PGA Tour win. I love stories like that — and his looks like it’s just beginning.

Sens: For starters, it came after long years in the wilderness, trying to regain the Tour card he’d lost. But this week, he was also paired for the last two rounds with a kid who was knocking it some 40 yards past him off the tee. He could have easily gotten away from his own game trying to keep up. But he stayed patient. I don’t think anyone would call the round a pretty one, but grinding isn’t supposed to be pretty.

Bastable: Color me impressed by how Campbell managed his nerves. On Sunday evening, he admitted he felt like throwing up most of the day, and perhaps never was that jitteriness more evident than when, on the second playoff hole, he sliced his tee shot into the trees. But instead of letting that bit of messiness undo him, he took advantage of a break for the ages and still made birdie. Pretty cool stuff. How much did the win mean to him and his wife, Kelsi? Her tears said it all.

Curious.... You presume to know the spouse's name, but get an important detail wrong?  Not sure you're quite on board with this journalism thing:

Girlfriend of golfer Brian Campbell gets emotional after his chaotic first PGA Tour win

Perhaps you should have checked the AP's style book (a little topical humor for those who get it).  And even a query on the youngster:

Potgieter, at just 20 years old, nearly became one of the youngest winners in Tour history, and this comes after he became the youngest winner in Korn Ferry Tour history last season. What did you think of his week, and is he the best young prospect in the game?

Marksbury: Is it just me, or does it seem like there’s a new young gun to discuss every week? We had Blades Brown making his first PGA Tour cut on Friday at 17 years old, Ludvig Aberg is ranked fourth in the world at just 25, and Nick Dunlap and Akshay Bhatia already have two wins each at age 21 and 23, respectively. And let’s not forget about Luke Clanton, who’s 21! Given the ball-striking prowess we witnessed this week, I certainly expect Potgieter to make a name for himself in a similar fashion. But the “best young prospect” race boasts a pretty competitive field.

Sens: Combine this week with his final-group showing at the Farmers, and he’s made a strong first impression. But if today’s balky chipping was any indication, his short game still needs polish. I’m with Jess. He’s obviously a huge talent, but I don’t know how you single out the best in such a thick crowd.

Bastable: Is 25 still considered “young” on the PGA Tour? If so, you won’t find a better BYP (Best Young Prospect) than Luddy Aberg. Potgieter is the real deal, though. I liked what he said about learning how to play under Sunday pressure, first at Torrey and then again this week. The only way to experience it — and improve at it — is by getting yourself in the mix.

Hits it a mile and I'm guessing that he might fit Employee No. 2's parameters, especially now that Lumpy is retired.  We need more jowly players out there....

Deal Or No Deal -  Do we even care?  Rory keeps beating the drums on reunification, but I'm thinking that four times a year is about right:

The latest PGA Tour-PIF “reunification” meeting was initiated by President Donald Trump and held at the White House on Thursday, leading to more speculation that some sort of

long-awaited deal could come soon. Regardless of how soon a deal is made, based on what you’ve heard and learned over the past several months, what might the future of men’s pro golf look like? One tour? Two working alongside each other? And what about the team component? What’s your best prediction?

Jessica Marksbury: My best guess is that we’ll see the creation of a new series of tournaments that will be set apart from both the PGA Tour and LIV but will be open to players from both leagues — with significant investment from PIF. It’s clear that both sides want to see the best players in the world competing against each other more than four times a year, and adding events as opposed to fusing the two tours together seems like the most logical way forward. From what we’ve been hearing, LIV isn’t going anywhere, so this would allow both leagues to continue to exist independently while still “unifying” the world’s top players.

Josh Sens: Agreed, Jess. LIV doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. I see both circuits continuing on in their parallel universes, with some kind of limited-event world tour that gets the big guns together more often than the four times a year we now see in the majors. On a side note, whatever happens, I would expect LIV-ers like Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka to appear on opposite teams in this year’s Ryder Cup.

Alan Bastable: Just what pro golf needs: another tour. But, yes…some version of what my two wise colleagues have sketched out does seem like the most likely scenario, because what’s the alternative? Hard to fathom LIV contractees having carte blanche privileges on the PGA Tour, and it’s equally hard to fathom PGA Tour stars moonlighting at LIV events; the LIV model doesn’t support drop-ins, or at least the tour’s current construct doesn’t. Whatever happens, it seems likely President Trump’s courses will continue to be part of the equation. Why else would he be so involved?

Having ruined the Tour through limited-field moneygrabs, we'll now superimpose WGC-like moneygrabs on top, with presumably even larger purses? What could go wrong?

Leaving the Tour with a series of weeks like the one we just had?  Will Nielsen be able to discern an audience?   

That Other League - I actually looked to see if the TGL was on last night, and failed to find it buried on ESPN2.  That's a good sign, no?

While I was lost in British Columbia they had a triple-header, and the sycophants thought it rocked:

TGL’s triple-header was electric. Can it maintain the momentum?

The formula has always been about the best players in the world caring and coaxing the viewers

to invest in the outcome. If they care, the viewer cares.

TGL seems to know what it is and what it isn’t. McIlroy and Woods have been upfront about wanting the league to be additive to the professional landscape. They don’t want it to be a substitute for tournament golf, but hope it can drum interest from people who aren’t attached to traditional golf. Halfway through its first season, TGL seems to have a competitive identity. It has a backyard feel, playing around with college buddies, only with the best golfers on the planet, all of whom are competitive psychos.

The players also seem to be settling into their role as entertainers. The banter was never going to be the draw, but we are now getting insight into their thought processes and how they feel about the other players in the league. That was never more apparent than in their commentary around Aberg.

“Ludvig is just different,” McIlroy said after Aberg hit the longest drive in TGL history. “He’s feeling himself right now.”

But is anyone watching?

The ratings tell a similar story. Monday’s Presidents Day triple-header (featuring two matinee matches and an evening bout split between ESPN and ESPN2) delivered some of the league’s

smallest TV ratings to date, delivering 347,000 (ESPN), 377,000 (ESPN) and 357,000 (ESPN2) average viewers, respectively. Those holiday numbers, while only a fraction of the 1.05 million who tuned in for Tiger Woods’ debut in week 2, represent modest gains over the broadcasts in the same windows last year, and fall generally in line with expectations for the holiday, time slot and home network.

Of course, it’s probably not in the TGL’s long-term best interests to have its telecasts vacillating between a quarter-million and a million average viewers on any given week (if not growth, consistency is a sought-after trait in the TV world), even if this most recent batch of TV numbers weren’t totally out of character with the schedule. One of the league’s biggest advantages is its partnership with ESPN, which has broadcast the league’s matches on Monday and Tuesdays as part of an agreement that sees the TGL cover production costs. The so-called “Worldwide Leader” provides plenty of cover (and a high floor) for a sports property emerging into the marketplace, and the Monday and Tuesday primetime slots given to the league have mostly paid viewership dividends.

Two obvious points present.  First, it's hard to imagine that  these audience numbers can support the valuation underlying the SSG investment, much less the capital under discussion from PIF.  Of course it can't help that these paltry viewership numbers are similar to the audiences tuning in for the Tour's actual events.... Making Rory's case that TGL be additive ironic.

Secondly, the trend line points down, so at this juncture it's unclear if they're still shedding those tuning in out of curiosity.... In other words, we may not yet have scraped the bottom.  A cheery thought that...

The good news is that the product seems to be improving.....though the golfing press isn't exactly going to tell us otherwise, are they?  I will tune in again, assuming I can find it.

That will have to do for today kids.  I'm going to try to appear more consistently, but we'll see how that plays out in the real world.  Have a great week.