NCAA Caves On Athlete Endorsements: What Now For (Golf) Amateur Status?

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Steve Berkowitz and Dan Wolken report on the NCAA caving in rather spectacular fashion to California’s fair pay act, voting “unanimously to permit students participating in athletics the opportunity to benefit from the use of their name, image and likeness in a manner consistent with the collegiate model.”

But this was eye-opening given that California’s bill zeroed in on 2023 as the likely start date for such a move.

The statement about the board action did not provide specifics, but said changes to NCAA rules in each of the three divisions could occur immediately, as long as they occur within principles and guidelines that include:

• Assuring student-athletes are treated similarly to non-athlete students unless a compelling reason exists to differentiate.

• Maintaining the priorities of education and the collegiate experience to provide opportunities for student-athlete success.

• Ensuring rules are transparent, focused and enforceable and facilitate fair and balanced competition.

• Making clear the distinction between collegiate and professional opportunities.

• Making clear that compensation for athletics performance or participation is impermissible.

• Reaffirming that student-athletes are students first and not employees of the university.

This would naturally open the door to golf manufacturers to sign players to deals that they already have informal arrangements with to provide equipment. Which, in theory, would be the end of the elite amateur game including top college golfers.

The USGA is monitoring the situation. A statement from Thomas Pagel, Sr. Managing Director, Governance:

“We have been reviewing these same issues for some time, It’s clear that this topic has the potential to impact many amateur sports, including golf. It will continue to be a primary area of discussion as we review the Rules to reflect the modern game, while still staying true to the spirit behind what it means to be an amateur golfer.”

Given the erosion there of amateurism since players could start receiving free equipment and dress like corporate billboards, there may be sympathy for those receiving endorsement income. Ruling them ineligible for prominent amateur events may get chippy!

However, given that golfers like Tony Romo and Lucy Li retained their status even after clearly endorsing products on the back of their golf ability, perhaps some clever lawyer will find a way to maintain the distinction between pro and amateur golfers. But right now, I’m struggling to see how that will work.

Davis Love Joins CBS Golf Team In 2020

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Moving swiftly after not renewing Gary McCord and Peter Kostis, CBS hires Davis Love.

I spoke to Love for Golfweek not long after the announcement below.

For immediate release:

HALL-OF-FAMER AND MAJOR CHAMPION DAVIS LOVE III JOINS CBS SPORTS GOLF TEAM 

Davis Love III, PGA champion, 21-time PGA TOUR winner, two-time Ryder Cup captain and World Golf Hall-of-Famer, joins CBS Sports full-time as golf analyst for its coverage of the PGA TOUR, the Masters and PGA Championship. The announcement was made today by Sean McManus, Chairman, CBS Sports.

“Davis is one of the most accomplished and respected players in the game of golf,” said McManus. “With his playing experience, reputation and relationships across the golf community, he brings a unique perspective and insight that will enhance our broadcasts. Davis is the perfect fit for CBS, and we look forward to him making the best broadcast team in golf even better.”

“I have long considered CBS Sports the gold standard in golf coverage,” said Love. “Whether playing or coaching, I have always loved the team aspect of golf, and I am thrilled to now be a member of the best team in television. My playing days are not totally over, as I will play select events, but my focus now shifts to broadcasting. I have been fortunate to spend a lot of time with the men and women of CBS Sports, and I look forward to getting started in January.” 

Love will make his CBS Sports debut as an announcer on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2020 at the Farmers Insurance Open when the Network tees off its 2020 golf season. 

Love started his professional career in 1985 and won his first PGA TOUR event in 1987. Throughout his illustrious playing career, he ranked in the Top 10 in the Official Golf World Rankings for more than 450 weeks while winning 21 PGA TOUR events, including the 1992 and 2003 THE PLAYERS Championship and the PGA Championship in 1997. After winning the Wyndham Championship in 2015, he became one of three players ever – joining Sam Snead and Raymond Floyd – to win on the PGA TOUR in four different decades. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2017. 

Love was a U.S. staple during international competition, as he was selected to six U.S. Ryder Cup teams and six U.S. President Cup teams as a player. In 2011 he was named team captain of the 2012 U.S. Ryder Cup team, and led the team to victory as captain in 2016. 

Along with his play on the course, Love has consistently been honored for his demeanor off it, winning the USGA’s Bob Jones Award in 2013, the PGA TOUR Payne Stewart Award in 2008, and the Jim Murray Award in 2016, presented by the Golf Writers Association of America each year to the golfer who best cooperates with the media. He also has been elected by his fellow players to the PGA TOUR policy board four times.

Love was a three-time All-American at the University of North Carolina, and won the 1984 ACC Championship.

Cypress Point Opens Up For College Golf (Again), Check It Out!

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And if you’re in the area Tuesday you can get a rare glimpse of Alister MacKenzie’s masterpiece.

Or there’s Instagram!

A sampling from some majestic fall days on the Monterey Peninsula for the occasional Cypress Point Classic with one day to go:

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Tiger's 82nd By The Numbers And What It Means For More Wins

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While there were no ShotLink numbers to validate the supremacy of Tiger’s iron play and putting, some writers have dug up some fun stuff in analyzing Woods’ 82nd PGA Tour win.

PGATour.com’s Sean Martin ponders whether Tiger can win a lot more and offers this:

He has to lean on decades of experience instead of marathon range sessions. He can’t outwork the competition, but he can outthink it. His length no longer separates him from the competition, but his iron game still does.

 He hit 76% of his greens last week, ranking third in the field. He was first in putts per green hit, which shows that he was hitting it close and rolling it well enough to convert.

He’s by far the best iron player of the ShotLink era, gaining +1.1 strokes per round with his approach play throughout his career. Jim Furyk is a distant second, averaging +0.7 strokes gained per round.

 Woods hits his approach shots high and low, and curves them left and right.

Brian Wacker at GolfDigest.com reminds us of two things: Tiger hit 65 percent of his fairways for the week on a pretty tight course in sports and proved he can win without overpowering a course. And, old legends tend to remain legends longer than everyone else:

• Gordie Howe had his first 100-point season in the NHL at age 40 with 44 goals and 59 assists, and played until age 51 when he scored 41 points in 80 games for the Hartford Whalers.

• Brett Favre threw for 4,202 yards and 33 touchdowns at age 40, leading the Minnesota Vikings to the NFC Championship.

• Nolan Ryan, who threw seven no-hitters in his career with the first coming in 1973, threw his final one 18 years later, at age 44.

• Michael Jordan had three 40-plus-point games in the middle of his final season in the NBA for the Washington Wizards, shooting over 50 percent in all of them.

David Dusek looks at Tiger’s equipment through the years and it’s astonishing to see what he started winning with versus what he’s playing now.

As for straight numbers in fun anecdotal fashion, check out Alex Myers’ list at GolfDigest.com and Todd Kelly’s list at Golfweek.com while Golf.com’s Josh Sens narrows things down to nine big numbers.

PGA CEO: Less Than 2000 Customers Shut Out Of Ryder Cup Tickets...

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We have no way of knowing the numbers, but PGA of America CEO Seth Waugh tells Golfweek’s Roxanna Scott that only 2000 were shut out of 2020 Ryder Cup tickets.

Apparently nearly all of them just happened to take to Twitter to complain.

“We’re thrilled obviously with the reaction of it being sold out to the point where we got overwhelmed with tickets,” he said, while noting the PGA went back and found less than 2,000 customers who were shut out of the online process and delivered their orders.

“I think the reality of anything is mistakes are going to happen, problems are going to come up,” Waugh said. “How you deal with them is what defines you.”

When asked how there was ticket inventory available to fulfill the requests, Waugh joked, “We’ll be a little more crowded now. We created inventory; that was fair. We had clients that did everything right and didn’t get fulfilled.”

This does not address the most common refrain from those scorned by the balky system: why were there already inflated tickets on the resale market offered as an option to those rejected?

McCord: "Bottom line, they fired me"

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There is a lot to digest in Dave Shedloski’s Golf World story catching up with Gary McCord, now a former CBS broadcaster.

McCord, a former PGA Tour player and winner of three PGA Tour Champions events, is smarting over the decision mostly because he didn’t have a chance to personally thank all his CBS teammates behind the scenes who have supported him through the years, people who have become like family. “You just don’t do something like this,” he said. “You shouldn’t do it this way. No chance to say thanks to the viewers, to all my CBS friends? That’s what you get for 35 years?”

“Bottom line, they fired me.”

The story says CBS offered McCord the opportunity to work the first two weeks of 2020’s broadcast schedule, but he declined.

He also shares the one bit of reasoning given to him by the head of CBS Sports, Sean McManus.

“He [McManus] tells me, and he told Peter the same thing, that ‘We think CBS golf is getting a little stale, and we need to go in another direction,’ ” McCord told Golf Digest by phone from his home in Scottsdale. “I’ve been called a lot of things, but one thing I’ve never been called is stale.”

There was a great deal of sniping in recent years over McCord’s act having grown thin, but never felt that way. He was often the one person trying to inject some life into telecasts, but without his old foil David Feherty or many opportunities to exhibit his knowledge of the swing, McCord was often limited to the role of 16th hole traffic cop. Therefore the notion of “stale” strikes me as more a statement about the CBS production elements (Yanni?) or overall energy than the work of any one announcer.

ZOZO! Tiger Wins 82nd PGA Tour Title Over A Surging Matsuyama

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The Monday finish went much faster than the ensuing trophy ceremony, but even though he came out looking a tad tight, Tiger Woods finished off the 2019 ZOZO Championship for his 82nd PGA Tour win. He is now tied with Sam Snead for the all-time tour victory total and did it nine years before Snead recorded his final win.

Steve DiMeglio with the Golfweek game story on Woods holding off Hideki Matsuyama.

Bob Harig noted how a week that seemed about checking off come corporate boxes ended up checking off a big feat box.

The journey to Japan was ostensibly about fulfilling corporate obligations, participating in a made-for-TV exhibition and getting in some reps following knee surgery and physical challenges that dogged Tiger Woods' throughout the summer.

Nobody -- including Woods, if he is honest -- was thinking about a victory, or a record-tying one at that.

Love this from ESPN.com’s Ian O’Connor:

In his healthy prime, Tiger Woods was Mike Tyson in a red shirt and slacks. He arrived at the tee box as if he were stepping through the ropes and into the ring, where cowering, wide-eyed opponents all but prepped themselves for the knockout.

Woods is no longer that heavyweight champ who rules through intimidation. He still has muscles, yes, but they don't look as forbidding on a balding man made vulnerable by age, gravity, surgery and the disclosure of his own personal failings. And yet a diminished Woods can still win golf tournaments.

Michael Bamberger writing for Golf.com:

Tiger rolled in his 10-footer for a closing birdie, the three-shot win, his 82nd title, a closing 67. It was subdued, but it was big. This has been, in ways, one of the most remarkable years of his career. The Masters win, followed by a lot of futility. The win in Japan. The Presidents Cup coming up. The baby steps to a reconfigured life. Amazing. “I know what it’s like to have this game taken away from you,” Woods told Todd Lewis of Golf Channel. Yes, he does.

You know it’s a big win when the big names pop up on Twitter to congratulate Woods, and that was the case after win 82. And Tiger posted this Tweet:

It was a great week for the PGA Tour’s first official stop in Japan, and I noted that along with other winners and losers for this Golfweek column. I had to file before the trophy ceremony ended, otherwise it would have been included. Then again, the column would not have been posted until Tuesday if I waited.

Rachel Bleier with a roundup of Tweets about the trophy ceremony that almost never ended. Nothing like some good Twitter snark!

Harig impressively details all 82 wins here for ESPN.com, if you have the time and need the recap.

GC Digital posts Tiger’s 82 vs. Snead’s 82 and actually calls them by the name of the tournament at the time (so no Snead Sentry TOC wins on this list).

David Dusek with Tiger’s clubs for the week.

For his effort, Tiger received this Dyson fan to remember win No. 82:

View this post on Instagram

The trophy case just got heavier. 🏆

A post shared by PGA TOUR (@pgatour) on

PGA Tour Entertainment’s highlights:

Kostis: "Bye for now! I’m off to UPS to send some packages!”

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Many are still trying to wrap heads around the abrupt end to long runs for Gary McCord and Peter Kostis, particularly given their longevity and CBS’s general unwillingness to make sudden changes.

Awful Announcing’s Jay Rigdon attempted to decipher the news and added this conclusion:

CBS has their current rights through 2021, so it’s unlikely this move is the result of a vote of no confidence in their own bid. It could be a move signaling a revamp of their coverage, or at least a willingness to evolve; maybe that’s something the PGA Tour is looking for in the next round.

In a farewell statement posted by Sports Business Daily’s John Ourand, Kostis said he’d “been thinking quite a bit about requesting a reduced travel schedule, but CBS made my decision easier when they elected to not exercise the two-year option on my contract.”

More interesting was an apparent jab at the PGA Tour’s partnership with FedEx.

Finally, I have to say a big thank you to all the announcers I’ve worked with over the years. I believe that the CBS golf announce team is the gold standard. A special shout out to Gary McCord who has been with me every step of the way, (including that infamous 1989 Ryder Cup broadcast team!) and Jim Nantz who has been there for my entire CBS career. To the cameramen, technicians and support staff at CBS I simply say it was a privilege to work alongside you. Bye for now! I’m off to UPS to send some packages!”

McCord And Kostis Not Returning To CBS Golf Coverage

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A bit of a stunner as the two long-time veterans are out at CBS.

Here is my report for Golfweek.

With CBS having two more years on its current deal, plus two major championships, the move opens up two key positions on their broadcast team. It’s been a year of cost-cuts at CBS, with multiple longtime crew members offered buyouts in February and goodbyes said on air in May.

Sanctioned Gambling's Coming To Pro Golf, So What Will Be Done About Cell Phones?

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An unbylined APF story quotes PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan saying gambling is coming to golf next year, saying “it’s all about engagement”. The focus continues to be on integrity matters.

"Once you start to participate, you can eliminate negative bets," he said. "We've done a ton of work to make certain that that's the position we're in.

"I think when we come forward, you'll see that we've taken significant steps to address that. We're going to participate in a thoughtful way and I'm really comfortable with that."

While the engagement angle is absolutely spot-on and key to keeping people interested during languid five hour rounds that the tour embraces, the lack of concern about interference continues to confound.

As I write for Golfweek, Bio Kim’s silly three-year suspension in Korea is still a silly one-year ban that warrants compensatory sponsor’s invites.

(Full news story here on the KPGA’s softening of their original suspension.)

While Kim was no angel in flipping off a fan whose cell phone went off as he was trying to win a golf tournament and pay his bills, he’s also a victim of golf’s reversal on phones and belief that fans could behave. The sport went from from policing, confiscating or banning phones at tournaments to encouraging fans to become documentarians.

Look, we all love our phones and the younger demographic that golf wants to attract will not attend a tournament if they were to be separated from their baby or unable to promote their presence. The same goes for older adults now too. That’s fine. But policing the use of mobile devices near competition must not be solely up to caddies and volunteers to police. Golf cannot be naive to the inevitability that a noisy mobile device could be used to alter the course of a tournament (and therefore, a bet).

I have no idea what the solution is, but an incident in the gambling age seems inevitable. Then there’s the overall look is peculiar and energy deadening to a sport already deprived of fan noise. Just look at the scene from this week’s ZOZO Championship:

An (Eye Opening) Majority Do Not Think Marijuana Is Performance Enhancing

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In 2019 Robert Garrigus and Matt Every failed PGA Tour drug tests and as Rex Hoggard notes, the views are mixed, with an amazing amount of social media hostility toward the PGA Tour. Even though, as PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan reiterated in Japan during this week’s Zozo Championship, this is not a Tour policy:

On Wednesday at the Zozo Championship, Tour commissioner Jay Monahan was asked about the policy.

“Ultimately, we don't determine what is a banned substance and what's not, we rely on WADA for doing that,” Monahan said. “We'll continue to stay very close not only to that substance but any potential substance that would come on or come off the list.”

In voting for this site—the early returns are overwhelming. A stout 80% of you do not believe marijuana can be performance enhancing.

Granted, this is a sport that has seen major changes to courses to accomodate distance gains and where huge numbers of seemingly bright people convinced themselves that athleticism was the sole cause. So maybe golfers aren’t the best a self reflection, or maybe marijuana really isn’t performance enhancing.

At some point the PGA Tour may have to study the matter and consider breaking from WADA if society continues to embrace marijuana and golfers insist it’s not performance enhancing. But for now, with only a Garrigus and an Every as the poster children, and golf’s Olympic-eligibility tied to WADA rules, I wouldn’t count on any change in policy.

R&A Women Members Might Be Getting Their Own Locker Room Eventually, Probably

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Given the R&A’s progressive push under Martin Slumbers, this story from Ewan Murray of The Guardian reveals plans are (finally) in motion to add a women’s locker room to the Royal and Ancient clubhouse are finally in motion.

He provides the backstory, hiccups and an update on the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews’ very slow efforts to add a place for the many new female members to gather, change and…act like members. Not that anything related to the plight of Princess Anne and the other lucky few compares to real world problems, but this is worth noting…

“We are in the early stages of planning upgrades to the clubhouse, including the installation of women’s changing rooms,” a spokesman for the R&A said. “We are consulting with members before we finalise our plans. There is no firm timetable but it will be a phased programme which will take us beyond 2021.”

The number of women among the R&A’s global membership of around 2,000 is unknown. Princess Anne, Laura Davies and Annika Sorenstam were among the first to gain admission. Perhaps it is unfair to castigate the R&A for doing the right thing. The clubhouse, as opened in 1854, will not be a particularly easy building to modify. The enhancements will be costly.

Nonetheless, it is bizarre that having admitted women to such fanfare, the delivering of equal facilities was not an immediate goal.

Bum Knees Unite: Tiger Understands If Brooks Has To Bow Out Of Presidents Cup

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The buried lede in Tiger’s comments from Japan: world No. 1 Brooks Koepka is weighing a possible surgery to repair the knee he re-injured last week in the CJ Cup.

The main headline, for now, is Woods leaving things up to Koepka to decide if he’s Presidents Cup worthy, depending on “what his protocols are going forward,” Tiger said.

From Steve DiMeglio’s Golfweek story quoting Tiger on news of Koepka’s injury:

“As of right now, we’re just waiting on what the surgeon says and what Brooks is going to do,” Woods added. “He is getting other opinions on what are his options. You want to go through as many different opinions as you possibly can before you decide what you are going to do.

“I told him to take his time. No hurry. You’re part of the team. You earned your way in the top eight spots. You’re on the team. You have to figure out what is best for your career and your knee and if you decide you can’t play, great. I totally understand. We’ll cross that bridge when it comes.”

Tripp Isenhour and I discussed this run of left knees going back today on Golf Central:

Rory Signals Intent To Play For Ireland In 2020 Olympics, Do Many Care Like They Did Four Years Ago?

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It was a neverending, bizarre and unfortunate chapter in Rory McIlroy’s career: having to decide between Ireland and Great Britain for 2016 Rio games representation. With the Zika virus a concern and most golfers largely apathetic toward the Olympic movement, he ultimately chose not to play.

Four years later he’s near Tokyo and the 2020 Games are less than a year away, with no Zika and a golf-crazy country welcoming the players, and McIlroy has declared his intent to represent Ireland should he qualify.

Rex Hoggard with that news for GolfChannel.com.

More interesting will be the reaction to his decision given how inflammatory the topic was four years ago. So far, the topic seems like old news and not particularly intriguing to most. Is that a product of the old debate, Brexit distractions, or overall Olympic golf apathy?