We just so happen to be at the midway point of the 2023 United States Open. Our National Open is being contested for the first time at the Los Angeles Country Club’s North Course. The century-old course that is primarily a George Thomas design has shown itself to be urban-neighborhood beautiful as well as mighty tough. Then again, can you imagine coming down the stretch in the toughest tournament in the world to win with the final three holes measuring 542, 520 and 492 yards. To clarify the matter, all three holes play to a par-4. Throw in a pair of par-3s that measure out to 284 yards and 290 yards and you have one tough golfing experience. Then there’s the issue of the ankle-high Bermuda rough and the lightning-fast greens. By the conclusion of the weekend the best golfer will have readily been identified.
On a positive note, last weekend’s Canadian Open was riveting golf theater. The deciding stroke was a 72- foot eagle on the fourth extra sudden-death playoff hole. The big-time eagle putt marked the first time in 69 years that a Canadian-born golfer had won his national championship. Nick Taylor will forever become a part of Canadian sports lore following his dramatic victory. The Canadian Open, is golf’s fourth-oldest championship after the British Open, the U.S. Open and the Western Open (BMW Championship), and I do believe it is safe to say that the last two years of this tourney have been nothing short of dramatic. Last year Rory McIlroy outlasted Tony Finau and Justin Thomas in a final-nine shoot-out.
Sad to say but that is the extent of positive golf news for this week. Normally we write about great moments and interesting figures. However, it was just over one week ago that the power structure of men’s professional golf announced that the PGA Tour, the DP (European) World Tour, and LIV Golf would be unifying its three golf circuits under one umbrella starting with the 2024 season. The litigation between the three circuits would be dropped immediately and the titular head of this new operation would be current PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan. Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the head of the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF), would be a member of the joint tour’s board, supposedly PIF would be a serious financier of the new entity. As an aside, Monahan announced Wednesday that he was stepping away from his duties as tour commissioner while he recovered from a “medical situation.”
The LIV Tour got under way in London just about one year ago. LIV induced the likes of Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Sergio Garcia to join the upstart operation. Cameron Smith would follow later on. The inducement to join the new tour was upfront contracts that paid out north of $100 million to golf’s biggest names. Six-time major winner Phil Mickelson got the biggest piece of the Saudi pie. The structure of tournament golf had always been one of merit. The golfer with the lowest score won the tournament hardware as well as the first-place purse. Golfers finishing farther down the line received less money. Never had a tour offered an advance salary just for joining its circuit. It was sort of like a hot-shot baseball player getting bonus baby money.
The LIV Tour would be different in other ways as well. There would be a team component (12 teams of four golfers), play would be 54 holes instead of 72 holes, and to attract a younger, more hip audience, the pros would wear shorts and music would be blasted throughout the tournament experience.
The PGA Tour and the DP World Tour contended that those pros that jumped to the LIV Tour had breached their contracts with their home tours. The two main tours didn’t want the breakaway pros to play full time in all of the LIV events and then cherry-pick certain PGA and DP Tour tourneys. They wanted their pros to support “secondary” tournaments such as the Canadian, Pebble Beach and the Quad Cities. This back and forth led to back-and-forth lawsuits over a bevy of issues, including anti-trust and monopolistic threats. During the course of the last nine months, both sides have postured over far-ranging issues such as World Golf Ranking points, access to golf’s four major championships, and which side held the moral high ground.
Following the merger announcement on June 6, Commissioner Monahan had a players-only meeting prior to the Canadian. Monahan was called a hypocrite by some of the golfers. Rory McIlroy, who had been blindsided by the announcement, was told to “shut up,”and McIlroy contended that his critic needed to work more on his game so that he could make more money. It was suggested that golfers such as Rory, Jon Rahm and Patrick Cantlay had stayed loyal to the PGA Tour and ended up leaving millions of dollars on the table by walking away from LIV’s financial offers. There were also rumors afloat that Monahan would be the new head of LIV Golf and that he would disband the tour in 2024 as well as make it difficult for the breakaway golfers from returning to their original tours.
On top of all that, it was suggested that perhaps the Department of Justice would get involved in this new arrangement. Senator Richard Blumenthal stated that he thought his Senate committee should get involved in investigating the merger since Saudi Arabia is a foreign government and the PGA Tour is a “cherished American institution.” Families of the victims of the 9/11 tragedy felt betrayed by the proposed legal settlement.
Monahan stated to his staff that the PGA Tour couldn’t continue on the path of litigation from a financial perspective with the Saudi government. And just to even things out and realize that there are reasons athletes should never weigh in on important matters, Bryson DeChambeau stated in an interview with CNN regarding the Saudis that “No one is perfect.” With regard to the Khashoggi murder, DeChambeau said, “That is something I can’t speak on because I am a golfer.”
It’s the weekend of the 123rd annual United States Open Golf Championship at the North Course at the iconic Los Angeles Country Club. If you are a fan of the game, be sure to enjoy the extensive television coverage Saturday and Sunday. You’ll see brilliant shotmaking, tough conditions, and perhaps the pressures of the moment.
As for all that has gone on in the last nine days with regard to the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour, LIV Golf, Jay Monahan, Keith Pelley, Jimmy Dunne, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, and the Public Investment Fund, one thing seems very apparent to me. Regardless of all the talk, we have absolutely no details as well as no schedule, no prize structure and no real resolution. No nothing. Maybe we need Sgt. Schulz of “Hogan’s Heroes” to keep us in the loop.
