Running 2022 Golf Thread

All 3 in the final grouping were very likable, which was nice

 

I thought he made huge points by emphasizing how the Tour serves the communities, that’s a clear difference than a pure money grab.

 

Justin Rose shoots 60 with 3 bogeys. Eureka.

 

Rumor is Bubba is jumping to LIV as well.
If you’re gonna jump to LIV, then you best do it now, cause I give it 2…..3 years tops before it’s ancient history. It’s just not sustainable.
I dig Pat Perez. He’s one of my favorite guys to watch on Tour, but he needs to get a grip on his wife.

 

Who?

 

Preface: Saudi Arabia is one of the worst countries in the world for human rights, and Greg Norman is a putz. I despise everything about them and wish they'd die under a mountain of sand.

However, I'm fascinated to see how this plays out because NASCAR and the PGA Tour (and perhaps professional tennis) have basically tried to portray their participants as "independent contractors." Which is bull, since both sanctioning bodies have a virtual monopoly. Big Bill France went as far as banning for life drivers who tried to form a union, and rounded up replacement drivers for the inaugural Talladega Cup race when the regulars felt the track was unsafe and staged a boycott.

There have been trial balloons for creating a rival stock car series, most notably rumblings from Bruton Smith about the time he introduced the Legends cars. But the money's always been too good to turn away. Smith realized his alliance with the Frances was more like "better the enemy you know."

So here's a perfect example of "independent contractors" having an option to play somewhere else, and suddenly the PGA Tour is throwing a shit-fit because the players have leverage and the Saudis have what appears to be a bottomless barrel of money. As somebody pointed out earlier, why beat yourself up making peanuts on the Korn Ferry Tour if you can cash big checks with LIV?

The Tour doesn't have to make radical changes, because they still have the best, youngest players in their fold for now. What changes those might be, I really haven't a clue.

Should there be a base salary for all players who earn their card? Appearance money? A shortened season? Better support and purses for the satellite tours?

Banning anyone who jumps and hoping the LIV Tour goes away is a pretty dumb business plan.

 

Guess who supports the LIV tour

Gary Player on golfers joining LIV Golf: 'They need the money' | Fox News

 

Hondo touched on an important point. LIV really needs to extend its events to 72 holes for the sake of its long run competitive credibility. Assuming the thing has a long run existence, which I doubt.

 

As it turns out, Rory’s win gave him 21 for his Tour career, one more than Greg Norman, which he noted