When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
In a blow to slow play and delusional entitlement, Kevin Na announced his resignation from the PGA Tour.
In a Tweet addressed “To my fan-”, Na tells his legion of one that he did not want to deal with PGA Tour sanctions for his future in the LIV Golf event and “the buzz it brings to golf.” He will not be missed. But don’t tell his fan.
This was a very difficult decision for me. I hope my fans will continue to support me wherever I choose to play. Thank you. pic.twitter.com/3Vp2e7cPfH
— Kevin Na (@kevinna915) June 4, 2022
Bailey Davis tees off the 10th in practice (Chris Keane/USGA)
The U.S. Women's Open is here and the Quadrilateral has your final preview.
Plus, Justin Thomas will play his way into majors, Stenson visits Rome, Open rail concerns, vital ticket news, ANGC's Par 3 gets a facelift, Valhalla sells, and many Reads.
You can learn more about The Quad and subscribe to the newsletter here.
The expected showdown over LIV Golf’s Portland stop ended before it began.
Instead, the PGA Tour expedited the inevitable showdown with the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf by denying player waivers to the upcoming LIV Invitational outside London. While many expected the Tour to allow their players that lucrativeplaying opportunity, a memo sent to players—and plenty of media who’ve apparently joined the player email list—explained the Tour’s position. The statement to players was sent at 6:30 p.m. ET and it’s tight! From GolfDigest.com’s Dan Rapaport story:
"We have notified those who have applied that their request has been declined in accordance with the PGA TOUR Tournament Regulations. As such, TOUR members are not authorized to participate in the Saudi Golf League’s London event under our Regulations," PGA Tour Senior Vice President Tyler Dennis wrote to players in the memo. "As a membership organization, we believe this decision is in the best interest of the PGA TOUR and its players."
The key words seem to be Tournament Regulations and “membership organization.”
LIV Commish Greg Norman found time after a busy daydigging new landmines while promoting the London stop to issue a lawyerly response. Bob Harig at MorningRead.com has it:
“Sadly, the PGA Tour seems intent on denying professional golfers their right to play golf, unless it’s exclusively in a PGA Tour tournament. This is particularly disappointing in light of the Tour’s non-profit status, where its mission is purportedly ‘to promote the common interests of professional tournament golfers.’ Instead, the Tour is intent on perpetuating its illegal monopoly of what should be a free and open market," Norman said.
"The Tour’s action is anti-golfer, anti-fan, and anti-competitive. But no matter what obstacles the PGA Tour puts in our way, we will not be stopped. We will continue to give players options that promote the great game of golf globally.”
We can tell Greg didn’t write this because it was devoid of mindless “grow the game” references and contradictions from one sentence to the next.
So where does this leave the showdown?
Lawyers making money!
More curious about all of this in the short term? Consider:
The DP World Tour is more immediately threatened by the upcoming London event and likely to see some of its better players wanting to play. But thanks to the PGA Tour they did not have to act first.
The PGA Championship is next week and perhaps the PGA Tour felt it would be better for their partners in Frisco to get these headlines out of the way now instead of having players get asked for an update on their release? AT&T is crapped on all the time so why not once more?
The 6:30 p.m. ET memo to players came after Norman admitted earlier in the day that the rival tour is a rival tour with long range commitments, not just some alternative opportunity for independent contractors who’ve long dreamed of shotgun starts. Perhaps the Tour’s lawyers had their reason to green light the release denial?
Norman revealed eight days ago that players were still under contract to play LIV Golf’s events. Presumably the contracts are not telling them what to wear.
"To this day, we still have players under contract and signed," Norman said. "The ones who wanted to get out because of the pressure of the PGA Tour gave back their money and got out. Guys had money in their pockets."
Presumably the contracts outline what exactly is required to see Saudi Arabia’s money in their accounts. We can only presume this means mandated appearances to play golf tournaments, not deliver readings of their favorite philosophy books. A cynic might even think these contracts serve as an advance for committing to an exclusive Saudi league with a binding franchise commitment that Norman made official in multiple interviews Tuesday.
Norman told the BBC these are “baiter” events coming up. Generally one uses bait to catch things?
Norman explained that his initial Invitational Series is just a beginning. "Twenty-two and 23 are our baiter years. We are a start up, basically," he said.
"I think people will realise the platform we have out there, the ability of the fans to get a better experience for the players, the stakeholders. Our production budget is mind-blowingly impressive."
A baiting start-up and better experience. Sure sounds like a rival league, one that might allow the PGA Tour to enforce its regulations.
Time and lot of lawyers will tell us who has the right to do what. But it sure sounds like the LIV folks were eager to assure players that their Saudi sugar daddies were in this for the long haul, freeing up Jared Kushner-level money and said a little too much too soon?
A glorious takedown by the Daily Mail’s Derek Lawrenson of Sergio Garcia following the Spaniard’s pitiful display at last week’s Wells Fargo Championship, supposedly one of his last on the PGA Tour before the whiny one takes his aging act to the Saudi Golf League.
I had forgotten about Sergio Garcia.
Given how much he had whined in Dubai at the start of the year about the established tours denying him the chance to make more money, when he's down to his last £100million in the bank, I must admit to feeling a tad embarrassed.
But, fair play to the temperamental Spaniard, he's come roaring back into contention in a style so spectacular as to render null and void any chance of forgetting him in future.
'I can't wait to leave this tour!' he screamed at a PGA Tour referee at the Wells Fargo Championship in Washington last week. 'Two more weeks and I'll be gone!'
You do feel sorry for Garcia, don't you? The purgatory he's had to put up with over the last 20 years in America, on his way to making $54m in prize money, plus a pension pot of at least twice that amount.
Bravo, Sergio. What a classless way to wave adios.
Say what you like about Lee Westwood's decision to team up with this dubious band of mercenaries, but at least he's doing so with a bit of dignity.
As John Huggan documents in this story from the British Masters, the then-European Tour went very far with the Raine Group and Premier Golf League folks discussing a deal that fell apart at the last minute. European Tour Chief Keith Pelley went with a PGA Tour alliance instead and now as the Saudi-backed LIV Golf threatens the rebranded DP World Tour’s existence, players are realizing the PGA Tour may not be the hoped-for salvation.
And there is this:
“I’m 41 and I don't want to be playing golf for the rest of my working life,” says another tour player who asked not to be named. “This week [at the Betfred British Masters] we’re playing for €2 million, which is the basically the same as 15 years ago. And I have to finish in the middle of the pack to clear maybe £1,000. That’s not much, when expenses have quadrupled in that time.
“So I’m tempted. The tour doesn’t care about me. They say they do, but they don’t. If I disappeared tomorrow, it would make no difference to them. Plus, there is hypocrisy here. The Saudi event was OK for three years and now it’s not? I worry for the future of this tour. It might be here in 10 years time, but I can’t imagine it will look like it does now.”
The Telegraph’s James Corrigan reports that 40 players asked the DP World Tour for releases to the forthcoming London event. The deadline was Monday, May 9th and the number appears to be higher than expected.
But given the slow movement strengthening the “strategic alliance” should anyone really be surprised? We learned last week the PGA Tour is still devoting excess energy to its fall slate and and rehashing many of the same issues that have weakened their product in the wraparound/FedEx first era. The Tour was weakened trying to save those fall events and now appears to be vulnerable devoting more time to saving events that attract tiny audiences.
Then you have the players who, besides the unnamed one quoted above lamenting the state of affairs, appear to genuinely believe they are worth extreme courting and lucrative measures to lure them away.
While I’m sure Matthew Southgate is a tremendous human and his cancer survival is inspiring, he spoke on a recent Sky Sports podcast about all the things the Saudi money could do to develop new talent and build something big four or five years from now. His comments provide a window into the kind of delusional thinking that believes we are living in a time of players like the game has never seen before and ones that fans are clamoring to see like no other generation.
Mind you, it’s been years since a European Tour event drew a measurable rating on Golf Channel and the turnover rate of players and parity is extreme. Plus, a new condensed PGA Tour schedule is now hurting tournaments between majors, reducing the amount we see stars in the weeks between the Grand Slam.
But an unsettling number of players believe this moment has become because of them instead of, say, Tiger Woods or the Saudis wanting to use golf to improve their terrible image.
From a Golf.com item summarizing Southgate’s remarks:
“The most overlooked thing with the Saudi tour at the minute is that everybody is focusing on the players of today and nobody is thinking of the players of tomorrow,” the DP World Tour player said on the podcast. “Five years ago, we didn’t know Bob MacIntyre, we didn’t know Scottie Scheffler, we don’t know Viktor Hovland or either of the Hojgaard brothers. When you start going through the list of players who weren’t on Tour five years ago, it’s quite significant.
And most of those names could walk down any street on the planet and not be recognized, but please, continue.
“Should they have a stumbling block today because they can’t get the players of today, there’s nothing stopping them producing the players of tomorrow. That’s where it’s tough.
“If Saudi were to put on a tour school for the youngsters and start to produce their own players, which would be easy enough for them to do, then as soon as you ban one current player going to play, there you can’t possibly invite a future player coming back to play.
“Let’s just say the next Bob MacIntyre is 18 years old, and he’s sat somewhere in Scotland today. He goes to the Saudi Tour school and wins, or gets an invite to play on the Saudi Tour, then in five years’ time, he’s world No. 1. You can’t then invite him back to play Scottish Open if you’re banning everybody else already on that Tour from going off to play in the Saudi events.
That’s true, assuming someone is willing to pony up money to develop players and go off the radar for a few years in hopes of building a tour. Perhaps the Saudis have that kind of long term commitment but so far, they’ve pivoted about five ways to make the upcoming events work and have shown little temperament for the building scenario outlined.
This is going to be tough to swallow. The emotions, the sadness, the outright misery that this man has had to endure playing the PGA Tour as a relentlessly brooding, temper-tantrum prone, club-hurling, green vandalizing jagwagon may be coming to an end. Oh, and say goodbye to a Ryder Cup captaincy, too.
Having hit his shot into the TPC Potomac’s 10th hole junk, Sergio Garcia vented his case for leniency to a PGA Tour rules official over the commencement of timing for his lost ball search. (See below for an update on that.)
"I can't wait to get out of here,” the miserable said not in reference to the overgrown penalty area, but we would soon find out, in reference to the PGA Tour. Then after more of his signature whining and petulance when he didn’t get his way, Sergio announced he’s going to be taking up residence on the LIV Golf tour where the slogan is, “Shot Just Got Real".
"I can't wait to leave this tour. ... I can't wait to get out of here, my friend,” the wee one said.
And just to be sure we were unclear, the 2017 Masters champion wrapped things up with: "a couple of more weeks, I don't have to deal with you anymore."
Though PGA Tour rules officials work all four major championships, something Garcia would know if he actually interacted with humans in an adult manner.
Garcia did not speak to reporters after his Wells Fargo opening round, but his agent did confirm that his client has sought a release for the first LIV event.
The full video from PGA Tour Live of what may be one of his final rounds on the PGA Tour…until he comes crawling back next year:
**The PGA Tour issued this statement explaining that the official was mistaken in his timing the lost ball search. However, because Garcia entered a marked penalty area, dropped and incurred a one-stroke penalty, there is no change to his score. But some lucky person got to notify him he was in the right. I’m sure he handled it with dignity!
Clarification regarding Sergio Garcia ruling, following full review of video by Steve Rintoul, PGA TOUR – Senior Tournament Director pic.twitter.com/WIGc1gGSTa
— PGA TOUR Communications (@PGATOURComms) May 6, 2022
So many sad stories in the news these days and I hate sharing another.
Seems Brooks Koepka reneged on his charity-raising match with Barstool Sports founder and dream influencer of select governing bodies, Dave Portnoy.
Pausing here to let you take it all in.
At least we know this break up is a clean one. No grey area for this brospat! Essentially, Koepka backed out of their “charity” match due to a wrist injury but played Bryson DeChambeau for The Match.
From Bunkered, with Portnoy explaining how this match made in douchedom fell apart:
"Next thing you know, I don't hear from him and he's like, ‘Hey I'm doing a match with Bryson DeChambeau.’
“Listen, you do you but to not give me a heads up that he was doing that first and after all the work we put into our thing? (He’s a) scumbag piece of sh*t.”
A clearly furious Portnoy added: “If I had wasted somebody’s time, it wasn’t his fault he got hurt, but the courtesy would have been to say, ‘Hey, I got this opportunity so I’m going to this first and then I’ll do you.’ Not even a ‘Yeah, I should have told you.’ Piece of sh*t.”
Here’s guessing the World No. 2 has not heard of Tom Morris or Walter Hagen…or about 30 others.
Rahm, speaking to Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis ahead of this week’s Mexico Open, believed what Mickelson said and did shouldn’t damage his legacy.
“That guy has given his life to golf,” Rahm said about Mickelson. “A lot of what we have, a lot of people don’t know, a lot of what we have and what we are competing for right now is because of [Phil]. A lot of people focus on Tiger but he is easily one of the top 10 best players of all time. He is a Hall of Fame and we should recognise him as that. He has given his life to the public, no one has signed more autographs, no one has done more for the fans.”
The Australian golfing great died at aged 72 due to health complications.
Adrian Proszenko and Sam Phillips filed the Sydney Morning Herald’s tribute.
Newton’s Australian Open victory was one of three triumphs on the Australian tour – he also won once on the PGA Tour and was a three-time winner on the European Tour. Having turned professional in 1971 and won the Dutch Open the following year, the Cessnock-born Newton’s stellar career went on to include runner-up finishes at the British Open in 1975 and the US Masters in 1980.
“I always felt that if I came into a major with some good form, then I could be dangerous,” Newton said of his career. “That’s the way I played golf. Once I got my tail up I wasn’t afraid of anybody.”
Newton’s playoff loss to Tom Watson in the 1975 British Open at Carnoustie was particularly unlucky. In the third round, he had set a course record of 65, despite having injured an ankle so severely on the practice tee prior to the start of the championship that pain-killing injections were required just to get on the course.
In the final round, Newton was the leader during the back-nine but dropped shots in three of the last four hole. Meanwhile, a wire fence kept Watson’s ball in bounds on the eighth hole and the American miraculously chipped for eagle at the 14th to ultimately claim the Claret Jug by one shot over Newton.
After a near death experience in 1983, Newton stayed in touch with the game via television commentating, writing, golf course design and his Jack Newton Junior Golf Foundation.
Andrew Reid with that part of his life and the tributes from around the world.
The event has raised more than $3 million for charity over the years, while the Jack Newton Junior Golf Foundation has raked in upwards of $20 million for the development of the country's brightest young golfers since its establishment in 1986.
"Jack and I never started the Jack Newton Junior Golf with the mindset of generating such a significant amount towards golf," Jackie Newton said at the time.
"Jack simply loved the game of golf and we wanted to help children. To be in a position today, where we're now talking about these types of figures is truly incredible.
"We would both agree that this is arguably Jack's single biggest achievement in golf because it has impacted so many children and families over 35 years."
John Huggan interviewed Newton in 2008 for this My Shot item.
The R&A’s flashback film on Newton’s closest brush with an Open Championship win.
Phil Mickelson’s presumed 2025 Ryder Cup captaincy appears to be in jeopardy, after Task Force founding member and driving force Davis Love admitted there may be a gap to fill. Since there are only so many Cup events and so many approved captaincy candidates, the math is easy on this one.
Introducing Fred Couples and Zach Johnson as chief cart drivers for this September’s Presidents Cup, Love was asked why Freddie has never been a captain.
Ryan Lavner reports for GolfChannel.com:
“Fred’s good in the locker room, in a practice round, as a captain – I thought he would have been a great Ryder Cup captain,” Love said. “He could still be Ryder Cup captain.
“We may have to fill a gap somewhere now. Our order is kind of messed up right now. So maybe Fred would be a great home game [captain] in New York.”
Maybe? Yes sir!
That’s as close as we’ll get to a sign from the internal rumblings of the force—a.k.a. their text chain—that Mickelson is out and Freddie may just be in.
From Richard Goldstein’s NY Times remembrance:
Spork finished second in the 1962 L.P.G.A. Championship but never won on the women’s tour. Her legacy, apart from her role as a pioneer of the women’s pro game, lay in her tutoring countless women, from duffers to fledgling pros, and in creating schools to help would-be teachers pass on her knowledge to their own students.
Spork received the Ellen Griffin Rolex Award, the L.P.G.A.’s highest teaching honor, in 1998. She was inducted into the inaugural class of the L.P.G.A. Teaching and Club Professional Hall of Fame in 2000. She won the 2015 Patty Berg Award for contributions to women’s golf and was named the L.P.G.A. Teacher of the Year in 1959 and 1984.
In 1947, while attending Michigan State Normal College in Ypsilanti outside Ann Arbor, a teachers school now known as Eastern Michigan University, Spork won the first national intercollegiate golf championship for women. She graduated with a degree in physical education two years later.
During the 1950 golf season, she joined with leading women’s players, including Babe Didrikson Zaharias, Patty Berg, Louise Suggs, Betty Jameson and Marilynn Smith, to form the L.P.G.A. But in its early years, prize money was meager, the tournaments received little attention in the sports media, and the players jammed together in autos as they traveled around the country.
And maybe some speed training.
DeChambeau said he injured his hand playing table tennis at the Saudi International, but the ailment had been hurting him for some time.
“People are going to say it’s off of speed training and all that and, sure, some of the things have been a part of that, just abuse and working really, really hard,” he said. “But at the same time, I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. I’ve learned so much about my body as time has gone on and learned how to manage things and how important rest is.”
DeChambeau, said he may eventually need to have surgery on his injured hand.
What’s the old saying? Nothing good happens in Saudi Arabia?
The New York Times’ Bill Pennington looked at the youth movement on the PGA Tour and other than suggesting ratings are soaring (they’re definitely not), it’s an interesting read.
But this quote from Commissioner Jay Monahan about the emergence of all under-30-year-olds’s in the world top ten struck me as, well, odd.
“It’s a reflection of the system at work,” said Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner. “The athleticism, the youth, the preparedness, the system is working. You can talk about the top five, but you can extend it past the top five and into the top 30.”
We could also be in a transition period similar to the mid 90s where some top players finally hit a wall, grew older and a new guard stepped in. The system? I guess. But I get we have to go to the whip and play up the athleticism card for the ad agencies.
We should draw a line through ratings for the rain-delayed, Gold Man-infused 2022 Players. But it’s still notable that live action during the weekend windows drew such putrid ratings for NBC.
Paulsen at SportsMediaWatch.com writes:
Monday’s rain-delayed final round of The Players Championship averaged 1.35 million viewers on Golf Channel, with the conclusion of the third round putting up 302,000 earlier in the day. Weekend coverage on NBC averaged a 1.6 and 2.56 million last Saturday and a 1.8 and 2.91 million last Sunday, the latter the tournament’s smallest Sunday audience in at least 20 years.
Some of this has to be the rain-delay forcing second and third round coverage into the NBC windows Saturday and Sunday. But the network’s inability to market “the product” like they could just a few years ago should be a concern down at the Global Home.
Last weekend’s 2022 Valspar was won for the second year in-a-row by Sam Burns and rated ever-so-slightly better than the Honda Classic in the same slot last year.
But both were hammered by the NCAA tournament but the Valspar at least drew a strong field. The ratings affirm that golf can’t compete with a surging NCAA Tournament and continuing a rough start to the PGA Tour’s 2022 Nielsen numbers. Going against Saturday’s 5.18 rating for Michigan-Tennessee and Sunday’s 6.19 for Duke-Michigan State, the Valspar was not able to crack a 1 on Saturday and drew a 1.49 Sunday.
The Honda Classic in the same post-Players/NCAA first weekend slot as the ‘22 Valspar:
Sports Illustrated’s Bob Harig was first to notice contrary to some meager press reports sidestepping credit. He filed a report here on Phil Mickelson sitting out the 2022 Masters and how the past-champion-not-playing status came to be.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
