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
"Players competing for 55% of consolidated revenue from roughly $1.5 billion"
/Phil Mickelson’s claim of only 26% of revenues going back to PGA Tour players appears to have earned him a rebuttal from the Global Home, albeit a slow one given that he mentioned it in a September 14th podcast with Gary Williams.
This comes from a Doug Ferguson column advocating against paying players salaries instead of through purses, Ferguson writes of where the PGA Tour is finding money for PIP and Play 15-Get-50K guarantees:
At least two players have coined a similar phrase of $50 million “magically appearing” to pay for the Player Impact Program and another program called “Play 15” that doles out $50,000 to anyone playing 15 tournaments.
The tour would suggest nothing magical about it. In a presentation to the Player Advisory Council, it showed players competing for 55% of consolidated revenue from roughly $1.5 billion, courtesy of a nine-year media rights deal worth about $7 billion. It also includes $32 million from the reserve fund to help pay for the earnings increase.
Obviously “consolidated revenue” is a different way of interpreting the Tour’s revenues and most of us probably don’t really care. But the disparity in Mickelson’s understanding versus the Global Home’s number is worth keeping an eye on as the situation unravels.
Also, it’s a bit surprising to see the television rights valued at $7 billion over nine years, putting the network/cable rights at just under $800 million a year.
Quadrilateral: Ranking The Disruptive Forces
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So much is at stake in the coming months and it’s a pretty stunning change from not that long ago when the “league” idea was declared dead.
Kenyon Points Out The Inconsistency Of New Green Reading Rules
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The pending rule change attempting to restore certain skills by killing off green reading books and other gizmos has run into some criticism. And the point is a legitimate one but I have an easy solution.
Short game specialist Phil Kenyon argues in an Instagram post at the oddity of going after levels and other machinery possibly used to test green conditions. This seems like an effort to cut down on the number of people on greens, devices on greens or, if you’re a bit forward thinking, players bringing Stimpmeters or moisture-reading devices into the practice round equation. The entourages also add unnecessary traffic on the greens. Mostly, the art of golf’s rugged individualist scouting out things on their own is in danger.
Still Kenyon makes this point:
So you can take a TrackMan or quad or range finder on to the course and check how certain shots or holes “play” yardage wise but you can’t take a level onto a “practice” putting green to calibrate your feel for slope.
What a ridiculous rule. It’s stupid in fact. It serves no purpose. It’s indeed skill limiting.
I actually don’t think the governing bodies understand the complexity of the scenarios in front of them.
Is using a level in practice hurting the game more than how far the ball goes or the speed of play ?
There is an inconsistency here. Tee to fringe players can max out the technology and outside sources to gain insight, but once on the greens they must revert to conditions of a decade ago.
The easy solution: lose the launch monitors on the course. Oh, and stop providing slope-adjusted yardages in official books.
As for the ball going too far and slow play, well those two go hand in hand.
Kenyon’s full post:
Foreign Players Entering U.S. For PGA Tour Events Must Be Vaxxed, Tour Has 83% Compliance
/Nice scoops by Rex Hoggard to report on the updated CDC policy for players entering the U.S. in the coming months and hoping to play—vaccination and a negative test will be needed.
Plus, he reports the PGA Tour spokesperson said they are up to 83% vaccination for the combo of players, caddies and essential staff.
McKellar Podcast With Lawrence Donegan And Mark Cannizzaro
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McKellar’s podcast is back and Lawrence Donegan and Mark Cannizzaro included yours truly in a discussion about Golf Saudi’s infusion of cash into the Asian Tour. We explore the possibility of anarchy should top players take some huge cash offers, plus the flaw in the concept and some of the people who’ve signed on to support the effort to remake professional golf.
Listening options: Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your pods.
PGA Tour Adds Green Reading Books Restrictions Effective January 1, 2022
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PGA Tour Memo To Players
This one is a little embarrassing for the USGA and R&A, who tried to limit green reading books by reducing their size and only prompted players to the silly cheat sheets closer to their face. But in a rare and welcomed moment of product introspection, the PGA Tour Advisory Council took bold action to all but limit their use in PGA Tour events.
Brian Wacker first Tweeted the message sent to players:
Enforcement of this should be interesting as players tuck books into leather covers and spotting “Committee Approved Book” may be tricky. But otherwise, it’s a welcome change and one that should have happened sooner in the name of protecting skill as well as pace of play.
Presumably the USGA and R&A will follow suit since they provide players yardage and green reading books at their majors.
The Masters does not allow surveying of their surfaces and therefore green reading materials have not been an option. The PGA of America will presumably follow suit but given their tendency to play an outlier role, there are no guarantees.
"Pro golf is approaching its own mental health reckoning"
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There’s a lot to take in via Daniel Rapaport’s GolfDigest.com story on pro golf “approaching a mental health reckoning”, including some frank disclosures from players and predictions of mental health becoming a big topic in years to come.
But this stood out from Dr. Michael Lardon, a clinical psychiatrist “who has worked with Phil Mickelson, David Duval, Will Zalatoris and dozens of other tour professionals.”
Rapaport writes:
But meditating and blocking Twitter only go so far if there is a chemical imbalance in the brain. A growing number of tour players are seeking professional help not only from the types of sports psychologists that have hung around the tour for decades, but from medical doctors like Dr. Lardon, who can diagnose psychiatric conditions and prescribe medication to treat them.
“There’s a number on the men’s tour that I help,” says Dr. Lardon, “but we never talk about it. There are some super-high-profile golfers, and ones in the past, that are on medication. And what does the media say? They say what the player’s PR person or agent says. I hurt my back. I got dizzy. I wish more would come out and just be honest about what’s happening, but it’s not my place.”
Of course it’s understandable he wants to normalize the disclosure of mental health issues to help the greater good, but it’s ridiculous to expect media to draw this out of players. It has to come from them.
Is Greg Norman Going To Be Golf (Saudi's) Commissioner?
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Golf Digest Australia’s Brad Clifton is very excited about the rumored prospects of Greg Norman leading Golf Saudi’s theft of the Premier Golf League concept. That’s right, rumors are flying that the Shirtless Shark will be the, gulp, Commissioner of this new team venture taking aim at the PGA Tour.
Clifton writes:
One thing that is certain is the global outreach for such a platform will be equally as significant, if not more.
If the latest Norman rumours are indeed true, it’s the best news golf has received in a long time.
Has there been a more influential innovator in the world of golf over the past 40 years? It’s why ‘The Shark’ is the perfect person to help modernise the game at a time when the PGA Tour hasn’t exactly ticked all the boxes in its efforts to deliver a compelling product and give global golf and sport fans what they really want – the world’s best players competing against each other on a regular basis outside of the Majors and, crucially, outside of the United States.
Would this be a bad time to bring up the Shark Experience? You may recall the Shark’s epic tease a few years back:
“In the middle second quarter of next year, I’ll invite you guys down to my office,” he said. “We will tell you exactly how we’re going to break this cast iron that’s been wrapped around golf for so long. We’re going to shatter it. The institutions (USGA, R&A, PGA of America, PGA Tour) will eventually buy into it because they will have to buy into it. They won’t have a choice.”
Turns out, it was a golf cart that plays music.
Now Norman has apparently turned his focus to helping Golf Saudi in a grander fashion than his initial grifts of some course design work and appearances at their grow-the-game summits.
According to this story in Golf Digest Middle East—oh yes that’s not fiction—Norman has lauded the Saudis as “truly at the forefront” of grassroots development. Guess they liked the Shark Experience!
Time will tell what the Shirtless one’s role will be in the disruptor golf league, if and when it launches.
Meanwhile, more disturbing allegations regarding the Crown Prince were aired on 60 Minutes Sunday. Saad Aljabri, former number two in Saudi intelligence, says Mohammed bin Salman forced him out and is in exile, fearing for his life because he knows too much. Nice people.
Phil's Champions Win Edges Out Shriners' Ratings, But No One Was Watching Either One
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Maybe you decided to go for a par-5 in two, dunked it in a pond and lost $20. Or you finally figured out you’re paying more for fewer channels after cutting the cord? Or you just feel understandably duped for having bought a $1,000 patio furniture set that’ll sit under a cover for the next seven months?
But know this, as least you aren’t paying millions to broadcast or sponsor PGA Tour fall golf. Or millions upon millions for the FedExCup.
Last week’s ratings for the 2021 Shriners Hospital For Children Open and Furyk and Friends event on the PGA Tour Champions are posted at ShowBuzzDaily.com and what’s the best thing one can say? At least they drew a rating, while the LPGA’s Founders Cup could not draw a large enough audience to be listed.
It was the rare win for PGA Tour Champions golf, with Phil Mickelson’s third victory in four starts drawing an average of 237,000 to the Shriners’ 210,000. Both drew what amounts to a courtesy number of 13,000 in the coveted 18-49 demo, so this was even more Villages-leaning than normal. Essentially, built into that number are the family dog and college freshman home for the weekend who tip-toed out by the TV while Pops was snoozing in a Barcalounger to Sungjae Im’s stirring victory.
The causes of this dire state were predictable, predicated and are no secret except to those whose bonuses depend on pumping out product: schedule oversaturation, Golf Channel reaching fewer and fewer homes, and too many other more compelling things to watch.
(Side note on the whole cable/cordcutting topic: this David Lazarus column in the LA Times highlights won way Spectrum is trying to woo back the cutters and it’s really quite unbelievable!)
In the embed above, other sports ratings were included from the bottom third for context. The 2021 Shriners numbers were also down substantially from last year when the pandemic cancelled college football games and other sports:
Networks And Betting: "But will they go all in?"
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The LA Times’ Ryan Faughnder and Stephen Battaglio access the push into sports gambling and talk to various figures with an interest, but namely how networks and leagues are balancing the need for revenue and “engagement”. Coupled with their vaccine stance, it’s amazing again to see the NFL trying to lead in a more responsible manner, while other sports dive in for short term ad revenue, dreams of regaining lost viewers and to build a new kind of transactional relationship with fans.
This was fun:
Only the seven betting companies with NFL deals are allowed to advertise during pro football broadcasts. The league allows six ads per telecast: one per quarter and one during pregame and halftime.
While odds analysis can bring another level of sophistication to coverage, NFL executives are reluctant to have explicit gambling references during the regular live national broadcasts. Research indicated that audiences don’t want national broadcasts to explicitly include gambling chatter, according to Christopher Halpin, the NFL’s chief strategy and growth officer.
“The bettors say, ‘I don’t need to hear Jim Nantz and Tony Romo talk about sports betting,’” Halpin said. “‘It’s inauthentic. It’s not their area.’”
Golf’s foray has largely leaned on selling ads to the various authorized gaming partners of the Tours, with a scattershot and comically lame approach on the television side (to date). In reading about the above NFL findings, it’s hard not to think about the painful sound earlier this year of longtime CBS analysts Nick/Ian/Frank having to make their FanDuel picks for next week, or Golf Channel’s Jimmy The Greek, Paige Mackenzie, chiming in on a top parlay opportunity at PointsBet, currently available in four states. At least the CBS crew turned the sponsored bits into a chance to laugh a little.
Good news for the anti-gambling set: if the lazy, awkward and short-sighted integration continues, the whole thing will fizzle based on first impressions.
Case in point from last weekend’s Shriners Hospital For Children Open. Mercifully I didn’t hear the analysis, but won’t be shocked to learn that good golf broadcasters were put in an awkward position of hawking product only the folks of New Jersey and Indiana could gamble on via their phone.**
**The page has been updated today (Oct. 12, 2021) to now reflect seven states with some form of legalization.
The Other Team Event Hanging Over This Week's Ryder Cup
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The PGL’s Andy Gardiner
All signs suggest the disruptor golf leagues declared dead multiple times by Tour toadies are, miraculously, still hanging around. There may even be a conversation or twelve this week between Vice Captains and players about who is in and where.
The Saudi’s and their SGL, a rip off of all things Premier Golf League only with a Middle East-heavy schedule?
Or will the new Strategic Alliance keep everyone a happy PGA Tour/European Tour camper?
Judging by Phil Mickelson’s remarks to Gary Williams, the PGA Champion is still very much interested in the proposals. Armed with major championship exemptions for another few years, his fearless jabs at the PGA Tour model suggest he’s open to the ideas.
A few curious and noteworthy comments by Mickelson:
He said of the wraparound, the Tour is “going away from that next year”. Not sure if that was a slip up or slip of the tongue regarding the 2023 schedule and beyond.
Mickelson lamented that only 26% of the revenue goes to the players and agreements requiring the Commissioner’s approval. He said that while players use the engine of the PGA Tour to be successful, “we don’t make a majority of our revenue from the PGA Tour” we don’t own our media writes, and YouTube “make millions” off it, citing Bryson’s 6th hole tee shot at Bay Hill earlier this year. The clip does have 1.4. million views and in YouTube money, that’s not much barring a massive sweetheart deal with the Tour.
He says “top guys are being taken advantage of” and believes the PIP money offered by Ponte Vedra “sounds like a lot” but in the “big scheme” doesn’t “even come close to being equitable.”
Mickelson said the “competition is going to be good” for all.
He said for the first time “the top players are being valued by the PGA Tour” and the players are “so far down the line on, kind of, the bullying tactics that have been used to suppress the top players on the PGA Tour,” that this will all come down to what’s best for fans.
He said it’s “tough when only 4 people have a vote” and of the PGA Tour, says “I’m not sure we have, internally, the structure to fix it.”
On the PGL side, co-founder Andy Gardiner gave an interview to Golf Monthly and reminded how this week’s event is the inspiration for the concept:
If you can bring any of the brilliance of the Ryder Cup into a more regular format, then it’s got to be a good thing.
It’s easier for a fan to have allegiance to a team than it is to an individual.
Some individuals can have it – that’s where Tiger was utterly brilliant because he was so dominant that you could fall in love with him as the dominant player, or you could be fascinated by him.
But what everyone else was doing was backing the underdog because everyone else was an underdog.
What he did was to ignite both sides.
You had one group who wanted to see him win everything and you had those who wanted someone else to win.
Why The PGA Tour Is Cracking Down On The Unruly Behavior It Encouraged
/It might as well have been since it’s a crackdown necessary, in part, because the get-young desperation got the best of them. Who could have seen that? Obviously not the Global Home’s high-priced adults.
Schupak writes:
The level of decorum at all professional sports has eroded, but as Rory McIlroy pointed out golf was different. It held itself to a higher standard. Yell, “Miss it, Noonan,” when a player was putting and you’d get a slap in the head just as in “Caddyshack.” But it wasn’t that long ago – before golf’s COVID bump – that the game was supposedly dying and the industry was collectively in full desperation mode, trying everything from 15-inch cups to Foot Golf to attract new golfers. The PGA Tour, facing a Tiger-less future, went so far as to build its current marketing campaign around an inclusive, “Live Under Par,” motto that encouraged selfie-nation to get close to the action, document their encounters and share it all on their various social media platforms. Oh, and can you fill out this release form from the Tour’s legal department so it can include you in its next boffo TV campaign.
The Tour was so willing to cater to a younger demographic that it tolerated the “Baba Booey” and “Mashed Potatoes” screams and welcomed the Cameron Crazies-like behavior from other sports.
"The success of the series will hinge on access and authenticity."
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The PGA Tour is certainly going down the right path in trying to develop a show with Netflix and in the vein of “Drive to Survive.” But it was hard to read Golf.com’s exclusive from Dylan Dethier and not laugh at the idea pro golfers will let us know much beyond how upset they were to get a dark grey courtesy card at Memphis three years.
Remember, these are people who won’t wear a microphone for fear we’d learn their state yardage secrets.
And unlike auto racing, it’s hard to do golf action or film the “teams” without distracting from the competition.
Dethier lays out the companies involved, including Rickie Fowler’s media company, and it’s already bizarre to see the references to players as the “cast”.
Still, the players under consideration are a high-powered bunch. The cast includes major champions, Ryder Cuppers and some half-dozen of the top 20 in the current World Ranking.
The success of the series will hinge on access and authenticity. Access will hinge on the final list of participants as well as their willingness to open up on the Tour’s weekly goings-on. Authenticity will depend on all parties allowing the sport’s most interesting subplots to play out on screen.
A few big questions remain: Which top players will sign on? How much off-course access will they grant film crews? Just how “real” will this reality television get?
I repeat, they won’t wear mic’s, do mid-round interviews or even let their caddies be mic’d up. Good luck producers!
Cantlay On The Symptoms Of Fan Behavior Issues, The "Ridiculous" PIP And The "Not Good" Tour Championship Format
/Fresh off his BMW Championship six-hole playoff win, Patrick Cantlay met with media in advance of the Tour Championship. And while he’s always good in these interview room/Zoom situations, Cantlay offered unvarnished takes on the topics of the day: fan behavior, the root causes and this week’s season-ending format.
All of it is here, but the highlights:
Q. Rory mentioned that he was talking, I asked a little bit about Bryson and he said he felt sympathy for him. Having been, having played alongside him last week, just wondering what you feel.
PATRICK CANTLAY: I think it's a tough situation. I think, naturally, of course there is some sympathy because you don't want to see anybody have a bunch of people be against you or even be heckled. I think anybody that watches sports and sees someone being heckled, they don't like that inherently because if you imagine yourself as that person, it wouldn't feel good.
I think, unfortunately, it might be a symptom of a larger problem, which is social media driven and which is potentially Player Impact Program derived. I think when you have people that go for attention-seeking maneuvers, you leave yourself potentially open to having the wrong type of attention, and I think maybe that's where we're at it and it may be a symptom of going for too much attention.
But it can be awesome too because if you succeed and you act perfect all the time and you do the perfect things all the time, and then you also go for the right attention-seeking moves, you get like double bonus points because everyone loves you and you're on the perfect side of it. I think it's just a very live by the sword, die by the sword type of deal. And when you leave it to a jury, you don't know what's going to happen. So it's hard to get all 12 people on a jury on your side.
And if you're playing professional golf on the stage that you're playing on and 98 percent of the people are pulling for you and there are 10,000 people on the green, I don't know, what does that leave, 20 people that don't like you, even if 98 percent of the people like you? And if those 20 people have had enough to drink or feel emboldened enough to say something because they want to impress the girl they're standing next to, then, yeah, like, you're in trouble. Like, people are going to say bad things.
Golf, unfortunately, doesn't and probably shouldn't tolerate that. I think there's a respect level in golf and there's intimacy that the fans can get so, so close to you, and you're also all by yourself, and you don't have the armor of putting on Yankee pinstripes, and you don't have the armor of having, knowing that if you're on the Yankees and people hate you and you're playing in Boston, you can tolerate it for three hours in right field. But you only tolerate it because you know next week or on Friday you're going to show up and you're going to be in Yankee Stadium and no matter what you do, even if you fall on your face, you're going to have the pinstripe armor on and people are going to love you.
So golf is different in that respect, that if you only have 2 percent of the people that are very against you because you're polarizing and because you're attention-seeking, then you're kind of dead because those people are going to be loud, and they're going to want to say something to get under your skin.
And I think golf shouldn't let that happen. I think the Masters is a great example of a place that doesn't let that happen, and it's the greatest place to watch and play professional golf because of the atmosphere they create. I think if you look at the history of the game and you look at the respect that underlies the entirety of the history of the game, we shouldn't tolerate it, and we shouldn't celebrate that. We should celebrate the fan that is respectful and pulls for their side.
So it's a tough situation. It's a tough topic, but that would be my take on it and I'm sure it's not perfect, but after thinking about it a little bit, it's the best I can come up with.
Q. I thought you were reading from a script there. You actually made that up off the top of your head?
PATRICK CANTLAY: I'm looking around here. I don't see any prompters.
Yowsers that was good and the follow-up was perfect!
Regarding this week’s net championship to decide who wins the $15 million first prize, Cantlay can be added to the list of non-fans.
Q. It sounded from the very start of your comments that your focus is on playing good golf and shooting a good score and all that stuff. But I'm curious about something Rahm said a couple weeks ago that when they make the analogy of, Patriots can go 18-0 and still not win the Super Bowl, his answer was, Yeah, but they still finish second. And I'm curious what you still think of that and is there any part of you that is still annoyed about what happened two years ago?
PATRICK CANTLAY: I think, frankly, it's not a good format. I think it's obvious why they went to the format because the previous format was confusing. I think this format is less confusing. But I don't think it's a good format. I dislike the fact that we no longer have a TOUR Champion. So I dislike the fact that no one knows, when they look at the leaderboard, who shot the lowest round this week. I think the fact that Xander didn't get a tournament win for beating the field by two or three shots is absolutely criminal, not just because he's my friend, but I think that if that happened to anybody that would be criminal. And there has to be a better solution. I am not a mastermind on golf formats and there are lots of moving parts, so I'm not saying that I have the answer, there are lots of smart people and I guarantee you there must be an option for a better format out there than the current one we are playing in.
With that said, I am going to do the best possible job I can at winning in this format because that's all I can do. And in no way will that take, impact my ability to perform in this format. I think if you play the best golf this week, you're going to be in a great spot by the end of the week.
And back to the topic of the day…
Q. What's your PIP rating by the way? Do you know? Do you guys have access to look at it?
PATRICK CANTLAY: I don't know.
Q. Do they tell you?
PATRICK CANTLAY: I don't know. I got to be honest, I doubt I'm doing very well in that category. If I were to win any portion of the 10, I would let you know that I win in that 10 and I would be compelled to give all that money back to the fans that made it possible, because there's no way a person like me should be able to get into the top 10 of the PIP if not for people out there deciding that they want me to be in the top 10 and to try to get some of that PIP money for themselves. Because I, if I win PIP money, I am going to give it back to the people that made it possible in some way, shape or form. I won't take any of the PIP money. I think it's kind of ridiculous and I think it's, when I said there's a symptom of a larger problem, I think that's exactly what I'm talking about.
THE MODERATOR: All right. Thank you.
Get the hook, he’s saying way too many smart things!
