Running 2022 Golf Thread

Sadly its the perfect encapsulation of where this game is heading with the continued broification.

 

Magafication

 

I'm no lawyer but the PGA Tour is a 501-c-6 trade organization. The Tour staff works for the players. They are independent contractors. The members make the rules, such as the one where they have to get releases from the commissioner to play in events outside the Tour. It's not a sports league with owners and general managers and coaches. Not sure where anti-trust falls here.

 

As far as I can tell, the plaintiffs' case is that the Tour has hurt them as independent contractors by suspending them. That strikes me as akin to the USFL antitrust suit against the NFL back in the '80s. Jury's likely to give Phil and co. like a buck each and say, "OK, but so what?"

 

The Tour's obvious reply would be that they could have abided by the rules approved by the players and not played in LIV events without the release.

 

The players, in their complaint, say the PGA Tour's rules are overly restrictive, to the point of being a monopoly, and thus illegal because of the monopoly status. Deep in the 106-page document is a series of charges that the Tour coerced potential LIV suppliers (everything from TV producers to launch monitors) into not working with LIV under threat of being frozen out by the PGA Tour. Lots of mentions of sections of the Sherman Act. Lawyers are undoubtedly salivating.

 

Imagine thinking the PGA are the good guys here, gross. It’s like choosing between Dahmer and Manson.

 

This week there are 10 various tours around the world conducting tournaments. No one had a gun to any LIVer's head, forcing him to become a member of the PGA Tour; he could have elected not to join the Tour so that he could go play in any of this week's other nine. I don't see how the Tour has a monopoly on anything -- but as others say, I'm no lawyer . . .

 

The LIV model is essentially a fat appearance fee for every player in what amounts to a series of low-wattage exhibitions.

On the Tour presumably you still have to win what you earn.

As an aside, all the Tiger talk for the last few weeks puts me in mind of one thing: what an absolute assassin Jack Nicklaus used to be.

 

This whole thing I’m sure will do wonders for the feeling that professional golfers are a bunch of rich, silver spooned motherfuckers. At no point have they sat down and recognized, “man, I play golf for a living. A game that people spend a ton of money to do as a passion and a hobby I do as my job.” They’re not getting CTE playing football or boxing.

If a golfer woke up one morning and was suddenly making what a professional bowler does they’d hang themselves.