PGL To Players: Time To Tell The Board To Listen

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You can only get your phone calls and enquiries not returned for so long!

After trying to work with the PGA Tour, the Premier Golf League’s World Golf Group has decided to plea directly to players for consideration of their pro golf model. The timing speaks to some momentum for the Saudi-backed LIV Golf and little progress in convincing the PGA Tour and DP World Tour’s to contemplate major changes.

The letter was sent to players and essentially calls BS on a couple of key points, namely that the PGA Tour vetted the proposals through Allen & Co. And of course, noting that Jay Monahan “works for you” also is a concession that the commissioner is still not interested in a discussion.

It also remains confounding that a bunch of players who did nothing but be in the right place at the right time would get $2 million.

Stay tuned!

SBJ: LIV Golf Close To Landing PGA Tour's Preferred Production Company; Discussions With Fox Have Died

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Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand says the LIV Golf group has awarded a production deal bid to NEP Group, which also handles general production for the PGA Tour.

Awkward alert!

As Ourand notes, the PGA Tour has understandably been trying to discourage such deals by its partners.

That’s because NEP already has a deep relationship with the PGA Tour, which has been dissuading its corporate partners from working with the Saudi-backed upstart league.

Essentially, the PGA Tour’s partners have to decide whether it’s worth the risk of angering tour executives in order to grow their business — and presumably cash a big check — with LIV Golf.

For the most part, the PGA Tour’s messaging has been delivered. If NEP signs a deal, it would become one of the only companies to work with both the PGA Tour and LIV Golf.

NEP has been the Tour’s partner as it took control of on the television compounds at their events. It’s led to noticeably upgraded PGA Tour Live coverage on ESPN+.

Ourand also has this on LIV’s efforts to land a major media partner:

The other big question is who will carry the LIV Golf events in the U.S., considering that most of the big U.S.-based media companies already have deep relationships with the PGA Tour. Sources said LIV Golf had discussions about doing a deal with Fox, but those talks died down weeks ago.

Rudy's Golf Club-Swinging Cameo Pitch Will Haunt You For The Rest Of Your Days

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For $325 you too can have former New York City mayor and PGA of America consultant-turned-non-stop farce talk golf with your friends. Or wish them happy birthday.

Rudy Giuliani’s pitch, which was posted for a time on Twitter before someone told him the entire ensemble here might not lure the desired purchases, has been rescued. Thank you to all involved for leaving us this indelible image.

Five Families Would Be Wise To Steer Clear Of The Tours v. Greg & The Sportwashing Saudi's

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There are no sound reasons I could come up with for the Masters, USGA, R&A and PGA of America to uphold possible player suspensions and risk legal exposure should Jay Monahan suspend players over U.S. appearances for LIV Golf’s series.

Things are good right now for the other Families and it sounds like they know it. My latest Quadrilateral.

Norman: Players Had Cashed The Checks Until Mickelson's Remarks

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A Greg Norman interview with ESPN.com’s Mark Schlabach is getting a lot of attention for the Shark opening up even more about “negative momentum” Phil Mickelson’s “scary m&^%$#@&^’s” characterization caused the startup LIV Golf.

I found a couple of other remarks more telling and they probably kept conversation lively around the Global Home’s pizza maker today.

"Quite honestly, we were ready to launch on the Tuesday or Wednesday of Genesis," Norman said. "We had enough players in our strength of field, or minimal viable product, ready to come on board. And when all of that happened, everybody got the jitters, and the PGA Tour threatened people with lifetime bans and stuff like that."

Norman said a handful of the players who had previously signed with LIV Golf have remained committed to play in the series, which now includes eight events -- including five in the U.S.

Norman said they had 15 of the world top 50 at the time committed to play in what was a league concept then and is now a come-as-you-please tour with a team event at the end. If he’s to be believed—always an if with the Shark—that would have been a more significant number of top players than the current 15 of the top 100 most recently estimated.

But this was a shocker:

"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."

So according to the Shark money was wired and returned.

Which would suggest a sizable number of players were and probably will continue to have no qualms about the money source, a significant problem for the existing Tours who have either done business with Saudi Arabia (European Tour) or are afraid to question the source (PGA Tour).

Yet who is proudly all in and publicly committed to the LIV events?

PGA In Tulsa: Tiger Shows His Hand

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Tiger Woods visited Southern Hills last week and delivered excitement. And yet, did Team Reed really take to Twitter to grovel about the scouting trip?

The latest Quadrilateral looks at this strange development and this also inspires a preview of potential PGA madness should Phil Mickelson return. Oh, and a weekend wrap-up of a mostly forgettable one in pro golf.

Wayne Player Speaks: I'm Still A Tool!

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Just over a year since he flashed a sleeve of golf balls over Lee Elder’s shoulder and got deservedly banished from The Masters, Gary Player’s son Wayne speaks.

GolfDigest.com’s Joel Beall tracked Wayne down and learned this.

“I don’t mind letting people know,” Player says. “To be completely transparent I think it is a cool story because you know, the National never really came out formally and said, ‘Oh, we're, you know, not allowing Wayne Player to come back to the Masters.’ They never ever said that to the media. That's just the way they do it. They don't say much.”

Better than having you sleep with the fishes.

And of course Wayne has thoughts on dad’s endorsement of Saudi Arabia this year.

“We can judge, you know, the Arab nation for traditions that they have. I mean, where women are not allowed to walk around like we know women can walk around, they've gotta have a cloak over their head. I mean, I don't know, it's not for me to criticize them, you know?” Player says. “I mean, look, they're very tough on law and order, you know, and they do all the stuff that would be considered barbaric there, right. That's what [Phil Mickelson] basically said.”

Yes and you’ll all be lining up to take their money. How charming.

Australian Open In World First: Joint Men's and Women's National Championships

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Victoria Golf Club (Geoff Shackelford)

While we’ve had tournaments of a similar format, the Australian Open becomes the first to bring the men and women together for concurrent national golf championships December 1-4, 2022.

The DP World Tour will co-sanction the men’s event.

Even better, they have lined up the magnificent Victoria Golf Club for the finale, with the incredible Kingston Heath hosting early action.

From the release:

The men’s event will headline the ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia, while the women’s event will be sanctioned by the WPGA Tour of Australasia.

In another first for the Australian Open, the men’s event will also be sanctioned on the DP World Tour, putting Australian golf on the world stage for two consecutive weeks with the Fortinet Australian PGA Championship to be staged at Royal Queensland the week prior.

Field sizes of 144 men and 144 women will compete for an equal split of the minimum $3.4 million prizemoney on offer.

The Australian Open will also feature the third edition of the Australian All Abilities Championship assembling the top 12 players on the World Ranking for Golfers with Disability from across the world. Golf Australia’s Chief Executive Officer James Sutherland said the new format is a significant strategic move that has involved in depth long-term planning. 

Brooks Has Lost The Bros: Barstool Head Unleashes On Koepka

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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.”

LIV Golf Rolls Out Tickets Sales And A Slogan To Make Live Under Par Almost Sound OK

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Hey parents, have fun explaining that one!

Daddy, why do they say Shot Just Got Real?

Well, Tilly, it’s a play off of…oh forget it.

But more importantly, you can now reserve Grounds passes in the $70-85 range for all but the LIV Golf series tournaments except the finale at Trump Doral. And I know, this sounds pricey for one day of golf where it’s a 4-hour shotgun start. But it’s a small price to pay when you get to see the likes of Garrigus!

Besides the general admission, there are some all-you-can-eat packages and Club 54 options for each event including a premium option that what looks like it goes for $13,000. Lee Westwood’s going to love when there are fans inside the ropes! And the post round Q&A…

Major(s) News & Notes April 28, 2022

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Plenty of notes in the weekly free edition of The Quadrilateral for all the world to see.

In a nutshell: Mickelson's return rollout is panned. Then we look at Collin Morikawa's curious Open defense plan, Scottie Scheffler surfaces in the Green Jacket, a bunch of Open and USGA notes, Tweets and Reads.

As always, here is more on The Quadrilateral.

And The Quad’s Substack home page.

Plus, the free Substack Reader app for a reading experience minus cookie acceptance requests, pop-up ads if your finger nears the screen, random crashes and autoplay videos.

Lawrenson: LIV Event At St Albans Will Test European Tour's Ryder Cup Captaincy Threat

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The Daily Mail’s Derek Lawrenson considers news of Phil Mickelson possibly returning and going for the Saudi money he knows is controlled by a murderer.

And in doing so Lawrenson notes two key points worth keeping an eye on:

The interesting thing will be if the DP World Tour follow through with their threat to prevent anyone who signs up for a Saudi event from becoming a Ryder Cup captain in the future.

It looks as if Westwood, Poulter and Garcia — three shoo-ins for the job under normal circumstances — are ready to call their bluff and see who blinks first. It would certainly damage the credibility of the Ryder Cup if all three were overlooked for the post.

That’s an understatement. It would be a stunner given how all three have seemed like locks to one day wear $1900 jumpers and drive the bright blue buggies of the DP World Team, I mean, Europe.

He also offers this reminder about all of the money talk surrounding the world of golf.

There's a war going on, people are struggling everywhere to pay their bills, and yet 48 golfers, half of whom will be journeymen at best, will play a glorified exhibition 54-hole tournament for a $4million first prize, with even last place getting $120,000.

Is it possible to conceive a worse optic for golf than that?

Ratings: Spieth Delivers For CBS; Zurich And Valero Have Rough Years

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Paulsen at Sports Media Watch with the good news for CBS’s 2022 RBC Heritage won by Jordan Spieth and viewed by the largest non-Masters audience of 2022.

Final round coverage of the PGA Tour Heritage tournament averaged a 1.9 rating and 3.68 million viewers on CBS Sunday, marking the largest audience for the event since 2003. Jordan Spieth’s win, which peaked with 5.04 million viewers, increased 20% in ratings and 43% in viewership from last year. The previous 19-year mark was 3.46 million for Spieth’s previous win in 2015.

Also noted by Paulsen and this should not be underestimated: “The 19-year high for the Heritage came on the same Easter Sunday in which the NBA scored its largest opening round playoff audience in 20 years.”

CBS had the other highest-rated non-major of the year with the WM Open in February.

The two-man team Zurich Classic fared poorly for CBS despite Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele winning. According to ShowBuzzDaily.com, it drew a 1.16 final round rating on CBS, averaging just 1.8 million viewers, down from 2021’s 1.37/2.1 million avg. Saturday’s third round drew a .96/1.4 million average, a tick down from 2021.

The 2022 ratings news for NBC continues to be uninspired. But at least the Tour can go right down the Global Home hall and ask what’s going on?

The Valero Open prior to the Masters was down a million average viewers (1.45/2.3 million avg.) for Sunday’s final round from 2021 (1.80/3.3 million).

Jon Rahm: "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].

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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.”

PGA Field Released With Mickelson And Woods

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Tiger and Phil are entered, but Mickelson’s agent issues statement suggesting his disruptor client is keeping all options open, including a possible Saudi payday.

But does this already suggest Mickelson will return in the disruptor mode that got him in trouble? Thoughts in The Quadrilateral.