Running 2022 Golf Thread

[Neutral Corner]

Take note of the PGA golfers who play in Saudi Arabia. They’re accepting blood money.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...di-international-phil-mickelson-rory-mcilroy/


"Next month, though, there will be two distinct camps of players making choices that both matter and reflect their values. One group will play in the PGA Tour’s Pebble Beach Pro-Am, a tournament that started as a clambake hosted by the crooner Bing Crosby. Another will fly halfway around the globe to play in the Saudi International, a tournament sanctioned by the Asia Tour and sponsored by a murderous regime.

The stars who assemble in Saudi Arabia — and it’s currently a group that includes Mickelson, the six-time major champion, as well as Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Sergio García — are doing so for the paychecks, which will reportedly be enormous just for showing up. There’s no disguising the fact that it’s blood money.

Follow along. It’s not that difficult. In October, former world No. 1 Greg Norman was named CEO of LIV Golf Investments, an entity that created a “strategic partnership” with the Asian Tour to sponsor 10 tournaments in 2022 and pump $200 million into the circuit over the next decade. The first is the Saudi International powered by SoftBank Investment Advisers, to be held Feb. 3-6 at Royal Greens Golf and Country Club near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The primary investor in Norman’s group is the Public Investment Fund, which is essentially the financial arm of the Saudi government, a regime run by authoritarian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman."

 

[goalmouth]

So they're craven hoors. They don't care what you, me, or the Washington Post thinks. By the way, WaPo will still carry the golf results, right? LOL

Their sponsors should pay a price. Don't buy their ****. Don't watch golf.

Stop posting with a device manufactured by a totalitarian regime that murders ethnic minorities in concentration camps.

 

[playthrough]

No one has a spine here. Not that I expect the players to have one, they only recognize money in the color of green. "Blood money" means nothing to them. But the PGA Tour brass are the real chumps here. Don't want your players going? Then don't grant the exemptions. Or tell them they can go but they'll forfeit FedExCup points or PIP or Wyndham Rewards or their status in whatever other gravy train pool is going. If the players want to fight back by arguing their "independent contractor" status, tell them to pound sand. No pun intended.

I'm already over the whole PGA Tour vs. rival tour thing, it's a pillow fight and the pillows are bursting with cash, which fans don't care one bit about. The PGA Tour is boosting purses this year by more than $100 million, money that came out of their deep warchests (funny how those same warchests couldn't save some rank-and-file employees from layoffs around the pandemic). It's just gross.

 

[Chef2]

Yes. Because any sane person isn’t going to buy a Callaway driver because Phil Mickelson is playing in it, or you’re not going to buy a box of TP5’s because Dustin Johnson is playing in it.

 

[hondo]

No one has a spine here. Not that I expect the players to have one, they only recognize money in the color of green. "Blood money" means nothing to them. But the PGA Tour brass are the real chumps here. Don't want your players going? Then don't grant the exemptions. Or tell them they can go but they'll forfeit FedExCup points or PIP or Wyndham Rewards or their status in whatever other gravy train pool is going. If the players want to fight back by arguing their "independent contractor" status, tell them to pound sand. No pun intended.

I'm already over the whole PGA Tour vs. rival tour thing, it's a pillow fight and the pillows are bursting with cash, which fans don't care one bit about. The PGA Tour is boosting purses this year by more than $100 million, money that came out of their deep warchests (funny how those same warchests couldn't save some rank-and-file employees from layoffs around the pandemic). It's just gross.

The problem with that is the PGA Tour brass work for the players, not the other way around. They're administrators. They can enforce current rules (which were passed with the approval of the players) but they can't decide unilaterally to change the rules about exemptions for international events on the fly.

 

[playthrough]

The problem with that is the PGA Tour brass work for the players, not the other way around. They're administrators. They can enforce current rules (which were passed with the approval of the players) but they can't decide unilaterally to change the rules about exemptions for international events on the fly.

Oh, I know. Monahan can only go so far, he and his people just look like weasels. I'm all for a disruptor in pro golf if it can get the PGA Tour to think more creatively about its product.

 

[goalmouth]

This guy has 11 aces in his pro career, including one at age 51. He's from the city where a creek gave the name to the wagons early settlers used in their treks west. Who is he?

 

[Chef2]

This guy has 11 aces in his pro career, including one at age 51. He's from the city where a creek gave the name to the wagons early settlers used in their treks west. Who is he?

Ty Webb

 

[goalmouth]

Ty Webb

Nope lol

 

[goalmouth]

The answer is Jim Furyk of Lancaster, Pa., where the Conestoga River flows east of town.

 

[Chef2]

The answer is Jim Furyk of Lancaster, Pa., where the Conestoga River flows east of town.

Webb has more than that.

 

[Chef2]

Read a deal today about the Hall Of Fame. Still the biggest disservice in the game that Weiskopf isn’t in.

 

[playthrough]

Disregarding the very-long-in-the-tooth commercials with Gary Player, the HOF is worth a stop if you're in NE Florida. The champions locker room is very cool. The surroundings are a little depressing though, with a housing development and shopping complex that didn't make it all the way. There used to be a massive two-story PGA Tour Superstore but it closed. The Slammer and Squire golf course there is OK, the better one is the King and Bear a mile down the road.

 

[qtlaw]

European Tour does it better:

 

[goalmouth]

Canadian Moe Norman was a legendary ball striker who would have pipelined that on the first swing. You can look it up.

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

Pretty interesting podcast here from Golf Digest on the rise and fall of the golf infomercial. A couple of years back I was at a Salvation Army thrift store and in their barrel of used clubs was The Hammer for $1.75. I bought it, took it to the driving range and yelled “boom baby!” After every single one of my 177 yard drives.

“But wait, there’s more!” Our latest episode of Local Knowledge looks back at the Golden Age of golf infomercials

 

[Noholesin1]

Golfers have never subscribed to the theory of, "It's not the arrow; it's the Indian."

 

[Chef2]

European Tour does it better:

not to spoil it, but I wouldn’t have picked him.

 

[maumann]

Canadian Moe Norman was a legendary ball striker who would have pipelined that on the first swing. You can look it up.

Calvin Peete might have been able to land it on either curb.

 

[playthrough]

European Tour does it better:

We say it every year on this thread -- it's amazing how much better the Euro Tour is on social media than the PGA Tour, undoubtedly with a fraction of the budget and manpower.