Some musings from all over the world of golf …
* What’s the over/below on when Greg Norman is proven the door by his Saudi superiors? Regardless of how a lot credit score the Shark deserves for getting LIV Golf airborne and lording over its first 5 months of flight, his function with the insurgent faction has reached the purpose of diminishing returns. Between his rough-edged persona and the league’s want for extra refined management—somebody the PGA Tour might take severely in any potential discussions on a truce or eventual merger—how for much longer can Norman final as CEO?
Just questioning …
* Was the year-end assortment of occasions often known as the “silly season” a more practical cap to the Tour schedule than the infinite one it has now? The outdated Skills Challenge, plus a few mixed-gender tournaments and the extremely widespread Skins Game, normally held on Thanksgiving weekend from 1983-2008, introduced levity and supplied a welcome respite to the 11-month chain of stroke-play starch on the present docket.
Rory McIlroy and lots of extra of the world’s greatest performed within the limited-field, no-cut CJ Cup in South Carolina—a far cry from an analogous occasion the week prior in Japan.
Stephen B. Morton/AP
* If it takes a restricted subject and no minimize to lure the sport’s greatest gamers into exhibiting up at a $10.5 million occasion in late October, what does that say in regards to the significance of the remainder of the autumn sequence? Last week’s CJ Cup uncovered the obtrusive distinction between the haves and have-nots within the wraparound format—in essence a scoring system that by no means actually labored and shall be euthanized on the finish of this yr.
Given that 9 of these autumn tournaments are anticipated to stay in enterprise, are we what quantities to a two-month session of Q-School? The Tour has already introduced that FedEx Cup playoff eligibility shall be diminished from 125 gamers to 70 in 2023. Only these 70 are assured full-time standing for the next season, an extended overdue transfer that additional stratifies the sport’s elite from its rank and file. With an enormous enhance in “guaranteed money” allotted to that high tier by way of the designation of “super events” that includes purses of as much as $25 million, does anybody outdoors the highest 70 have a sensible probability of transferring into the Tour’s new upper-class neighborhood?
Confused but?
Get in line.
* By the best way, how did the Zozo Championship, which had the identical, invitational-sized subject because the CJ Cup (78 golfers) and much more prize cash ($11 million) than the star-studded gathering in South Carolina, fail to draw greater than two of the highest 10 guys within the Official World Golf Ranking? Have America’s greatest gamers develop into that against competing abroad? Have issues gotten that comfy again dwelling?
Just questioning …
* Those back-to-back, deep-into-fall Tour stops with out a minimize—isn’t the discount of rivals after 36 holes precisely why LIV Golf is considered by many as such a meaningless outfit? For that matter, why was the Tour’s solely journey to Asia all yr, a Japanese event with an apparent lack of starpower and an nearly embarrassing scarcity of illustration from the United States, performed in a format wherein each contestant received paid, no matter what they shot?
If LIV Golf’s tournaments are excluded from the World Ranking, shouldn’t the Zozo have been accorded the identical lack of consideration?
* To that finish, at what level will LIV’s 48-man picnics develop into a restrictive and silly idea? In case you haven’t observed, the no-cut factor is a big deal in skilled golf, particularly on the highest stage. The lack of a performance-related normal for any quantity of compensation invitations all varieties of unsavory creatures into the combination. In the case of Norman’s troupe, it means you would shoot 93-85-92 and earn credit score within the rating, which is solely unacceptable. Forty-eight individuals is mainly half a golf event. When all 48 are nonetheless round on Sunday afternoon, you don’t must ask your self why the institution is popping its again on you.
* Oh, and the way about Adrian Otaegui? After enjoying in three of the primary 4 LIV Golf gatherings, the Spaniard leapt again to his dwelling circuit, now known as the DP World Tour, and promptly cruised to a six-shot triumph on the Andalucia Masters. Haven’t we been advised a thousand occasions that there could be no league-hopping for many who selected Norman over normalcy?
Otaegui joined Ian Poulter and Justin Harding in a authorized problem to their enjoying rights again in July, nevertheless, and had been granted short-term permission to cross the aggressive line by a British company known as Sport Resolutions. As far as one can inform by its web site, this non-profit group has no affiliation with any judicial course of within the United Kingdom, a lot much less standing as a reputable substitute for a court docket of regulation.
Did these three guys soar by way of a loophole large sufficient to permit them to compete on what has all however develop into enemy turf? Why haven’t different gamers sought freedom by way of some world firm that makes a speciality of “arbitration, mediation, tribunal and expert opinion” to resolve 1,700 disputes in 40 sports activities during the last 10 years? Is it actually that simple? Should or not it’s that simple?
I’m not simply questioning anymore. I’m considering this sport is headed to hell in a sizzling rod with greenback indicators painted throughout it.
Editor’s Note: Sports Illustrated’s father or mother firm, Authentic Brands Group, has a licensing and endorsement partnership with Greg Norman. SI just isn’t a celebration to this deal.
Source: www.si.com
