OT: LIV Golf and The PGA Tour Merge
In what so far has been a slow news day, LIV Golf and The PGA Tour have merged. Also appears to include the DP World Tour.
https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/37805785/pga-tour-liv-golf-dp-world-tour-announce-merger
Very slow golf clap.
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
I'm ready.
Word is that one of the merger provisions is that the PGA will control holes 1 through 8 and 12 through 18.
The Saudis will do 9-11.
Bad taste. Not enough downvotes. Just wrong and disrespectful.
I worked in Tower 1 and didn't make it to the office that day but knew people who were there. I knew people who died that day. And I laughed. I laughed because the joke is funny, and because laughter can be therapeutic. And because, while the Saudis are still reprehensible, 9/11 was a long time ago and much has happened since. So...just try to relax
Fuck the PGA. My mom spent years providing therapy for a woman who got a finger back from her husband after 9/11; these people mistreat everyone; they cut off people's hands in their public squares. They killed a journalist who criticized them IN WASHINGTON. Fuck the PGA.
Came here to say the same. I normally would not care what the PGA does but, they and the players have sold their souls to MBS. I sure hope he doesn’t get mad at one of them….
Players didn’t know and are f’ing pissed
With regard to the PGA, I agree but it goes deeper than that.
The PGA’s legal strategy sucked and the US laws don’t appear to protect them against a kingdom that wants to both cross subsidize their sports washing with trillions in monopoly profits from fossil fuels that have ruined the planet and who can also use those same profits (in the sovereign wealth fund) to spend 100X the resources that the PGA has on law suits.
When China tried to cross subsidize into other industries (and destroy ours which had to make a profit) we had anti dumping laws that blocked them.
LIV’s financier would have no problem pursuing a race to the bottom that would destroy the PGA because they will still be left standing. If the PGA had balls they would have to get congress on board. We have to assume those conversations took place. Apparently congress wasn’t sympathetic. That’s not a good sign. We all know who in government (in many cases currently out) is in the pocket of certain middle east rulers.
At a home game every September since 9/11 occurred we honor Michigan alums killed by a bunch of Saudi-trained terrorists. One of my cousins was also in the Towers and died that day.
Please excuse my language but fuck Saudi Arabia, fuck LIV and fuck the PGA.
https://alumni.umich.edu/michigan-alum/the-names-on-the-plaque/
Money still reigns supreme, I have to imagine this is LIV realizing they couldn't keep up and will take the pga buyout. I don't think I saw one shot of LIV on tv.
Speaking of money, Mickelson, Koepka, Johnson, and friends took wads of cash to defect. Tiger, Rory and many others did not. (Tiger was reported to have turned down $700 million!). How are these accounts going to be squared?
What do you mean? These professional athletes were basically paid an endorsement deal. Others choose not to take it. The ones that took it are going to go back to the ones that used to pay their endorsements.
They chose not to take it (in part, but a BIG part) because they were threatened with expulsion from a league that is now welcoming these guys back. If Jay Monahan doesn't walk into the player meeting at 4:00 with an enormous bag of cash they are going to eat him fucking alive.
They chose not to take it because they didn’t want to sell out to a murderous kingdom that treats women like slaves. Tiger and Rory don’t need the extra cash. Mickelson didn’t need it either so he is just a greedy worthless POS.
And yes, players are pissed. Not about the cash. You have to believe there is some kind of SWF payment planned to players to avoid all out revolt. Will that be enough?
As it turns out, holding out for your morals is apparently NOT a good call.
Sell out, one and all!
I haven't stayed up on it, but I find it hard to believe that the initial decision whether to leave the PGA for LIV was ever a moral decision. That's certainly part of the spin. I'm sure that was as much a calculated financial decision as it was for those that decided to leave. And for those that did not jump ship, they were compensated in some form or another--praised as being the morally superior group, etc. Whether the golfer could turn pats on the back, atta-boys, and smug self-righteousness into something tangible I'm sure would depend on the golfer. The question they are left with now is whether that choice turned out to be a good one given recent developments. Looking from a purely financial perspective, that would appear to not be the case.
I'm sure you're right about some, maybe many of the golfers. I'm confident that some acted against their financial interests, though. It's hard to imagine how it's a sound decision financially to turn down $700M.
You can't buy integrity, you can only sell it.
For some like Tiger, massive amounts of cash is not something he necessarily needed, but for others it is life altering money.
True, the old adage, "no good deed goes unpunished" strikes again.
All the PGA, with its own sordid past history of exclusion, had to do was not allow LIV players to play in major tournaments and LIV would have eventually folded. Tiger and Phil were two major reasons for the explosion of golf and they are just about through.
Lots of good golfers but no one in recent memory had the appeal that Tiger had. You would have to go back to Jack and Arnie to find a similar connection.
For real - it seems stupid to make this deal with them now. The Saudis may have been throwing insane money at them but that league did not seem to have a long term future. Those guys were in it for the ridiculous $ but when those contracts expired, I doubt they would want to sign again, especially if they weren't allowed to play in the prestigious PGA courses and tournaments. Every one of those dudes grew up wanting to play in and win the Masters - that's something the Saudis can't buy (although they'll probably try).
The PGA doesn't control the majors. The Masters is run by the Augusta club, the US Open is run by the USGA, the British is run by the R&A.
Quite the opposite actually. It was never about money for LIV. They have literally an endless supply of money. The PGA tour was getting a ton of bad press and quite honestly being made to look like hypocrites and foolish for some of their behavior.
Cam Smith!!!! Let’s gooooo!!!
Yeah, LIV has literally endless financial backing. It was essentially state sponsored, by freaking Saudi Arabia. They weren't going to go anywhere.
I am amazed at how much bad press the PGA tour had begun to get. Stories framed in a manner that the PGA tour was made to look the bad guy for not letting LIV players play in majors, calling it bad for the sport, etc. Yeah, that splinter organization was bad for the sport. But it wasn't the legacy league's job to bend to the oil money.
But they did anyway.
I mean what’s the point of having fuck you money if you never tell someone to fuck off
Wait, you saw this news and you think LIV is the loser in the scenario? The PGA comes out looking like complete fools.
Well when I first saw this come out there was no details, But yeah PGA folded.
Asking for those in the back: is all of golf going to be considered sportswashing now?
This is a good development. Frankly golf has kind of sucked ass since LIV took half the players and never has any tournaments. The only downside to this is that I will probably have to occasionally pay attention to Sergio Garcia again now.
Nah, he'll never be in contention for anything, so the few times they do show him you can just turn the channel quick. He's nothing now.
I don't follow golf, other than the two or three times a year i find myself wandering around a golf course looking for the ball i just hit, but weren't those two organizations trash talking each other like Chael Sonnen and Vanderli Silva a couple months back?
The PGA Tour, DP World Tour and the LIV Golf League, which have been embroiled in a bitter legal battle for more than a year, have agreed to merge and move forward in a larger commercial business, the circuits announced Tuesday.
The tours called the stunning development "a landmark agreement to unify the game of golf, on a global basis."
The cynic in me believes this was the goal all along. Just like an magician, we were watching the wrong hand while it moved through the air...
They both seemed to subscribe to the old saying that there's no such thing as bad publicity.
THAT'S your cynic voice? Damn, you're a real straight shooter.
The goal all along was for an extremely rich country with an extremely dark and extremely recent history to spend a fraction of its money to win the hearts and minds of rich westerners.
LIV only plays 3 rounds, correct? So I imagine the new tour will also do so, because the players don't want to play 4 rounds.
There is going to have to be a lot of sorting out done with this. The structure of the two leagues is not similar at all. PGA has no team component. What is LIV going to do with the huge contracts guaranteed to players? How many people is Donald Trump going to sue when they don't play scheduled tournaments at his venues?
So many questions.
Are they going to have something like the old Designated Hitter rule? "We play 3 rounds at these courses and 4 rounds at those parks..."
They already got the information they needed from him. What's he gonna do? Call the cops?
330 - personally, I think there's a place for different formats in golf. Team play - known casually as either 1) alternate shot (foursomes), or 2) two man "better ball" (Four ball - two players vs two players) - as well as match play - contrasted with stroke play - all have a place an can make for an interesting "change of pace".
There aren't many events where golf is a "team" game - the Ryder and President's Cups are the two most notable.
The LIV was trying to build interest - and, I doubt the PGA will embrace 54 hole events, or the "team" concept - but, one never knows.
Hence the name - LIV = 54 in Roman numerals
I need to read and understand more, but my initial reaction as a golf fan is disgust.
So far, I've come to the conclusion that the PGA Tour gets a HUGE influx of cash from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), whose governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan now has a seat on the PGA Tour board and is chairman of the new PGA Tour commercial group (whatever that means).
So far, I'm not a big fan of this on a few different levels, and currently I share the same feeling of disgust.
It will be interesting to see what the PGA's sponsors think about it and whether it will cause them to pull their sponsorships.
And - what will the "Fedex Cup" look like in the future? Will there be Playoff play at International locations?
A lot of questions - and, a sell out by the PGA to just get more money into the game. When is enough .... enough? Apparently, never...
Who needs sponsors now? Soon we'll be watching The Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund Cup.
I think the PGA had a very unfavorable feeling on the current lawsuits, and bent over to LIV. Most of the time you know who had the upper hand based on positions on the new merged unit. PIF's guy is the Chairman of new company/Manahan is the CEO. Also one thing that is always mentioned in this deal; current litigation is forfeited.
PGA Tour execs got played. Feel bad for the guys who stayed and turned down 100's of millions of $$.
Thought this would happen eventually, but didn't think it would happen before another year or two.