The Bar > Sports
The Least Historic Historic Day Ever.
Ralph Wiggum:
--- Quote from: Drafe Hoblin on June 13, 2022, 10:13:47 PM ---The most cringe-worthy comment from last weekend... which also sums-up the PGA's self-indulgence:
Jim Nance-- " When Rory first came here, he was moved by the knowledge and passion of the crowd. And two years later, the crowd has been waiting to outpour its love and admiration on him. "
--- End quote ---
Nantz and CBS are sycophants for the Tour, and the same will be true for NBC/ESPN this weekend.
While golf is considered a "conservative" sport, that isn't always the case for the media jag-offs. The former players who have gigs in golf media are likely conservative, but the just like the media in general, the sports media might be even more liberal. Which is rather disgusting.
Ralph Wiggum:
Brooks Koepka summed up things nicely today:
U.S. Open 2022: Brooks Koepka gets testy when asked about LIV Golf, blames media for putting 'black cloud' on week
Brooks Koepka has never been accused of being a raconteur, at least when it comes to dealing with the press. This is also a major championship week, the weeks that Koepka said he only cares about, and that type of focus and consequence tends to make the man tense. Even against that backdrop, Koepka was particularly fiery to a line of inquisition Tuesday at The Country Club regarding the emerging conflict in professional golf between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, framing the situation as a byproduct of the media.
“Y’all are throwing a black cloud on the U.S. Open. I think that sucks,” Koepka told a group of reporters. “I actually do feel bad for [the USGA] for once because it's a sh---- situation. We're here to play, and you are talking about an event that happened last week.”
Koepka’s name has been tied to the fledgling Saudi-backed circuit, and more than a few eyebrows were raised when his brother Chase—ranked 1,579th in the Official World Golf Ranking—was among the wave of players to compete in the first LIV Golf event. Moreover, because the subject is the primary storyline in the sport, all golfers that have come through the media’s flash area have been asked their thoughts on the matter.
Koepka handled the first question without controversy when asked his opinion on the battle at the professional level.
“Obviously, LIV is trying to make a big push for golf,” Koepka said. “Look, I mean, I love my brother. I support him in anything he does. It's family. I'll always love and support him. Whatever he does, I'm cheering for him.”
However, a follow-up question—Would he consider jumping?—sent the conversation sideways.
“There's been no other option to this point, so where else are you going to go?” Koepka asked. When a reporter responded “LIV,” Koepka replied, “As of last week [it started]. That's it. I wasn't playing last week. I'm here. I'm here at the U.S. Open. I'm ready to play U.S. Open, and I think it kind of sucks, too, you are all throwing this black cloud over the U.S. Open. It's one of my favorite events. I don't know why you guys keep doing that.
“The more legs you give it, the more you keep talking about it.”
Koepka was then asked whether LIV’s limited schedule, and the fact he’s often said the majors are his focus, speaks to his outlook. “I can come out here and play as little weeks as I want. I choose my own schedule regardless what tour I play,” Koepka said. “I've played, what, Match Play, Augusta, PGA and this one, so I can play as little as I want."
Koepka further explained he hasn’t talked to his brother about the London experience, and the event is in the past. When countered that the Saudi series has more events coming up, Koepka ended the conversation by remarking, “I know, but you can't drive a car looking in the rearview mirror, can you?”
https://www.golfdigest.com/story/brooks-koepka-liv-golf-us-open
Ralph Wiggum:
Trump warns ‘loyal’ PGA Tour players, explains why they need to make the jump to LIV Golf
LIV Golf is set to hit Trump's golf course in New Jersey at the end of the month
Former President Donald Trump has been vocal with his criticisms of the PGA Tour since LIV Golf arrived on the scene. Now, he’s bringing PGA Tour players into the conversation by sending them a warning about their future.
Trump sees a merger between LIV Golf and the PGA Tour coming and for any of the players who don’t make the move to the Saudi-backed circuit, well, they’ll be getting nothing.
"All of those golfers that remain ‘loyal’ to the very disloyal PGA, in all of its different forms, will pay a big price when the inevitable MERGER with LIV comes, and you get nothing but a big ‘thank you’ from PGA officials who are making Millions of Dollars a year," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
"If you don’t take the money now, you will get nothing after the merger takes place, and only say how smart the original signees were."
LIV Golf has been able to sign many big-time players away from the PGA Tour over the last handful of weeks. Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed, and Matthew Wolff are just a handful of the players who have signed enormous contracts with LIV Golf.
Other stars, including Open champion Cam Smith, have been rumored to be joining the rival circuit as well.
The former President has ties to LIV Golf as next week’s tournament will be held at Trump Bedminster in New Jersey. The season-ending team championship for LIV Golf will also be held at a Trump-owned course, the Blue Monster at Trump National in Miami.
https://www.foxnews.com/sports/trump-warns-loyal-pga-tour-players-explains-why-they-need-make-jump-liv-golf
:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:
In addition to the rather lacking of details Fox News story (better than CNN's garbage or what I found at Yahoo Sports), a bunch of well-known players have already jumped to the new tour. Including Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter, Lee Westwood, Kevin Na, Graeme McDowell, plenty of others.
Ralph Wiggum:
Only a few of us are paying attention to this story, but I'll post a couple of items from the past 24 hours. One which I agree with and the other is a horrid take. I'll let you decide:
Davis Love III gives suggestion on how to solve LIV Golf issue
--- Quote ---Davis Love III, the 1997 PGA Championship winner who picked up 21 victories on the PGA Tour, suggested that one way to address the LIV Golf issue was to start a boycott.
Love told Sports Illustrated on Friday he’s grown upset with how LIV Golf has been able to grab PGA Tour players and in turn throw things like the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup into disarray. He said he could foresee a strike among PGA Tour players if LIV Golf competitors are allowed to play in majors.
"Well, here’s the biggest lever, and it’s not the nice lever," the World Golf Hall of Famer said. "But if a group of veterans and a group of top current players align with 150 guys on the Tour, and we say, 'Guess what? We’re not playing,’ that solves it, right? If LIV guys play in the U.S. Open, we’re not playing. If they sue in court, and they win, well, we’re not playing. You know, there won’t be a U.S. Open. It’s just like a baseball strike."
Love said he’s tried to convince golfers from jumping ship and asked whether they were OK with never playing in a Presidents Cup or Ryder Cup again.
"Some of them understood it. Some of them think they are going to court or whatever and are going to prevail, and they’re gonna get to come back," he told Sports Illustrated. "What they don’t seem to understand is that players make the rules. So we can strengthen the rules rather than loosening the rules, right?"
--- End quote ---
https://www.foxnews.com/sports/davis-love-iii-gives-suggestion-how-solve-liv-golf-issue
--- Quote ---Golf war tees off because PGA won’t tolerate competition and LIV and let LIV
Sunday marks the final round of the third LIV Golf tournament, at Bedminster, New Jersey, and a field of 12 international teams totaling 48 golfers is vying for a whopping $25 million in prize money — much to the chagrin of the PGA Tour, Tiger Woods, and most of the knee-jerk liberal sports media.
The controversial new tour has attracted dozens of top-name golfers from Phil Mickelson to Sergio Garcia, Charles Howell III, Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson, and Bryson DeChambeau, as well as sterling golf announcer David Feherty. To hear the golf establishment’s impassioned cries, these men are sellouts, cashing in at the expense of human rights and all that’s decent in the world.
Are you kidding me?
The PGA Tour has long enjoyed such a monopoly on high level U.S. golf that there’s never been a real challenge to its hegemony. As a result, golfers not nicknamed Tiger or Lefty drive from event to event, hoping to make the cut, earning annually about as much as a decent second stringer in the National Hockey League. And until lately, the PGA Tour, not the golfers, kept the rights to NFTs and other means by which the players could get paid.
Fans lose out when there’s a monopoly on golf because most televised events have just a sprinkling of big names, so you seldom have the best in the sport competing head-to-head. The competition is weak, the courses are mostly boring, the winners are guys you’ve never heard of, and the overall PGA Tour product feels out of date.
Now comes LIV Golf with its parade of top golfers who appear in every LIV Golf event, thanks to prize money worth competing for, teams organized mostly by nationality to increase rooting interest, a shotgun start so that there’s tons of action the whole time, no cut, so everybody plays on the weekend, 54 holes (hence the Roman numeral LIV) and no guy with the lead hanging around the clubhouse waiting to see if he won or not. (So boring.)
In short, LIV Golf is a disruptive force. It’s Uber to the PGA Tour’s fleet of aging taxis with shifty drivers and busted springs.
From the outrage in the media, you’d think that LIV Golf had punched the PGA Tour in the face and said its baby was ugly. But here’s the real reason that everyone claims to be so upset about LIV Golf — the money comes from (Shhhh! Not so loud!) the Saudis.
OK, let’s all take a deep breath here. According to a recent ESPN report, the NBA and its owners do more than $10 billion worth of business with China, itself no bastion of civil rights, but nobody says boo about that. When Houston Rockets executive Daryl Morey tweeted about Beijing’s crackdown on the Hong Kong protests, China cut NBA preseason games off TV and canceled NBA Cares events in Shanghai. Noted civil liberties experts from LeBron James on down all did the same thing — they kept their mouths shut. So, it’s not like the sports world really cares about human rights.
The PGA Tour is hardly the right organization to complain about indecency. In living memory, Blacks couldn’t compete at PGA Tour events, and couldn’t belong to or compete at Augusta National, the revered home of the Masters. The 1990 PGA Championship was scheduled for Shoal Creek, an Alabama private golf course that had always firmly and publicly resisted Black members. And more than a handful of PGA Tour sponsors do business with … wait for it … Saudi Arabia, which has been a force in golf for the past five years. So, it’s nice to see the PGA Tour finally developing an interest in human rights.
The sports media, deep in the PGA Tour’s pocket, can’t hide its contempt for the golfers who made the leap to LIV Golf. At the press conference prior to Wednesday’s pro-am (featuring former President Donald Trump, who owns the course), questions were mostly on the snide side: How do you feel about quitting your team on the Ryder Cup for a team called The Crushers? Well, you might ask a question about golf, since these are golfers, but that would be too boring.
--- End quote ---
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/golf-war-pga-tolerate-competition-liv
Drafe Hoblin:
I'm realizing it's tough to wean myself off of the PGA-Tour product.
But the attraction is to do it. Mainly for the wicker-basket of new golf-courses that the LIV will be competing on. The PGA's offering is exhausted and outdated. Even TPC-Sawgrass and Augusta are tediously predictable. A full LIV-season will periodically stop there every few years. Course-records still stand and the nostalgic moments aren't in-danger of maudlinism.
Get rid of the 'Cups' and put the finishing-touches on some sort of draft-system.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version