Where sport is concerned people have no memories. Or perhaps as the youth become predominant their limited world view becomes doctrine. Even if their experience and understanding of sports is limited to a twenty year window maximum.
One of the beauties of sports is that generations can argue over “greatness”, though technology and conditioning have changed dramatically over the years. As I grew up dad always said the greatest baseball player he ever saw was Joe DiMaggio, and that Mickey Mantle was the best player of his generation. By the time I came of age Mickey was long in the tooth, and slower with the bat. Great was not the first word that came to mind watching him play.
And of course those days were very, very different, Mick says in his autobiography that he hit more than one home run hung over, or less than sober, something you just don’t hear from today’s well trained athletes.
I’ve lived long enough to see the AFL and NFL merge, the ABA and NBA merge, and for hockey to expand from about an 8 team league dominated by Canadian teams to a league spread far and wide to include Tampa and Miami, not exactly hotbeds of rink action in the Winter months.
And now the same changes and upheaval have come to the world of golf.
And the average fan acts as if this is a travesty, an abomination, something never before seen.
Why golfers are just running to a new league for money. Money! Can you imagine?
They sneer at life-changing, generational wealth as if the golfer accepting the new contract is a traitor. These same fans so critical of the top golfers moving to the new league spit on them as they are paid hundreds of millions of dollars to play the game they love.
They speak of tradition as if you can spend it. They support the status quo of a bunch of stuffed shirts at first use the 9/11 families as a shield, throw around terms like “blood money” because the new league is Saudi backed, only to find out later that these same stuffed shirts have entered negotiations with the Saudis. “Blood Money” turned clean somehow magically, overnight.
The biggest world-wide sport is soccer, or football as it is known everywhere but the US, and in soccer players change jerseys like you and I change socks. Always moving up for the highest bidder. From Germany, to Spain, to England they rotate, the dollar amounts increasing every move.
Golfers try to do the same and are pilloried by the US fanbase. “How much is enough” they cry, as they themselves would strike at work for an added dollar-fifty an hour.
Golf fans can at the same time recite Masters winners back to the 60’s but forget what is happening across the globe in sports right now, buying into this false notion of “tradition”, and “what is good for the game”.
They have no idea as to the craven, insulated, protective, and exclusive world created by the few in charge of golf world-wide. You and I need not apply. These men are low caps and rich, a rare species, they populate clubs you and I can never enter. They grip their lofty positions with an iron hand, and use the power of their holding, be it the US Open, the PGA, the actual Open, or even the PGA Tour as a weapon against all outsiders.
Back in the 1970’s Jack, Arnie, and a few others realized all the weekend eyeballs glued to TV screens were for them. No one was tuning in for Dow Finsterwald, or even Gay Brewer. And so they wanted a bigger revenue share. Behind closed doors they were appeased and the PGA avoided a major upheaval. And Jack and Arnie got to continue to be “the good guys”, not the “bad guys who broke up the league”.
Moving closer to today Greg Norman, a great golfer and an even better businessman approached the PGA Tour with new ideas for growth. More of a world-wide approach, with elevated events, team play, and other things to grow the game.
Not only did they summarily show him the door but they stole some of his ideas and began to incorporate them into the PGA Tour. Then to add some real animus to the negotiations they had their lackeys on the golf channel and golf media paint Greg Norman in a bad light, as if he was all about grabbing for himself, a greedy renegade and threat to the sport.
So Greg went to the Saudis and their trillion dollar investment fund and they put a few billion into a new league, LIV golf. A team inspired league that has a set shorter schedule than the PGAT, with bigger purses for the players, shorter playing days, and a shotgun start so that the entire event only took a few hours. And then they began to poach players from the PGAT causing a war between the “traditional old guard”, and LIV. Of course in this scenario the PGAT were the good guys, and Norman and the Saudis all bad.
As if a man looking out for his family and accepting four hundred million in life altering, generational altering cash was a bad thing. For players always one swing away from a “bad back” that could fell them from ever being competitive again, or one wrist sprain from a ball sitting on a tree root away from missing seasons where there was no guaranteed income.
The PGAT hid behind “tradition” in selling a gullible public they were on the right side of history.
But people on the right side of history don’t need to paint the opposition with cries of “blood money”, they don’t need to hide behind the cloak of “tradition”, all they have to do is demonstrate they have a better model for the game, and players involved.
Except they don’t.
They have all the power, they fully control golf media, the Golf Channel, the narrative. Somehow they have convinced some of the top players to stay by re-arranging payouts to include some nebulous formula that rewards the “big stars”, but not near to the tune of four hundred million.
The one glaring weakness being exposed to all in the PGAT is that they don’t control the major events in their own sport. Which would be like the NFL not having control over the Super Bowl. The four “Major” tournaments are all controlled outside the purvey of the PGAT. Though it is all one “good old boys” network who protect each other to keep their own little piggy trough full and flowing.
So the PGAT has managed to go two-faced and admit after the smear of “blood money” that they are in negotiations with the Saudis. They went and found some added good old boys to invest enough to give them some time to negotiate. I am certain that behind the scenes that the golden boy Tiger Woods is maneuvering for a spot to try to take it all over for himself. His greed and level of self-centered behavior knows no bounds. If he sees an opening to take over the PGAT for himself and some deep pocket investors that back him, he would thwart the Saudis in a heartbeat.
For now the war continues, very much akin to the 1960’s upheaval in football, and basketball. The only difference between a Doctor J moving to the ABA and Jon Rahm moving to LIV is the dollar amount.
The Masters this year is divided between LIV players and the PGAT. Greg Norman wasn’t allowed a free pass by the powers-that-be at the Masters despite his famous history of play in the event. He had to buy a ticket to get onto the grounds. A complete and utter travesty, and which demonstrates the pettiness and callous behavior of those in charge.
Greg had one of the all-time collapses at Augusta on a Sunday where he was supposed to be crowned, his legacy tainted by the day, and one that lives in Masters lore. Oh but that “tradition” goes away quick when today’s “traitor Norman” needs a lousy ticket in. Because the men in charge of August are the same stuffed shirts that control the PGAT, horse’s asses all.
For now we do get to see a DeChambeau of LIV fame at Augusta, for how long the invites will continue remains to be seen. Some qualified LIV golfers were snubbed and not invited. For all the talk of “earning” a spot into the Masters it is an invitational. The powers-in-charge can reach out and invite anyone they want at anytime. Talk that a LIV player didn’t “qualify” is a bogus argument. All they had to do to correct such a glaring error was to write up an invitational letter. Situation corrected. But somehow they’ve convinced the average idiot golf fan that some LIV players “didn’t qualify by the OGWR. The “official golf world ranking”, which has been co-opted by the PGAT to exclude LIV players. A phony ass measurement used against the new league.
A few vocal anti-LIV PGAT players have been flaming out of late. Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth. Their games headed south. If they had half-a-brain between them they’d jump for a few hundred million to the new league and enrich their families for generations. Alas they have been brainwashed by their hero Tiger and the PGAT that tradition is everything. They should walk into a restaurant and try to spend it. Won’t get far with that.
For now the “war” between leagues will continue. The language got pretty hot back in the 60’s too, AFL verses NFL, ABA against NBA. Heard anyone talk about all that lately on a broadcast?
No?
As I said, those who love sport can have short memories.
The greatest football player in history is Tom Brady. Pay no attention to Johnny Unitas bringing the forward pass into the league as a staple and inventing the two-minute drill that Tom used successfully in many comeback victories. Old Johnny U is only seen in black-and-white newsreels for God’s sake, Tom is today and in living color. Why I’ve never even heard of Y. A. Tittle.
One day, and one day soon all this LIV - PGAT mess will be over. The same assholes at the top will make bank. All those fans arguing at the margins will forget. And soon everyone will embrace this new and exciting combined league. All will be forgotten.
The man who will deserve all credit will get none, in Mr. Greg Norman, a visionary who has changed the history and trajectory of the sport. He will go down as the villain. Current tour board members, leaders, and particularly Tiger Woods will go down as those who “saved the game”. Those that control the media control the narrative.
Some idiot fans will just hate that Greg Norman. For what he did to the sport. As if pulling golf into the new age of a world-wide audience was just awful. Doesn’t matter, he will be swept to the side by the money men and pilloried and forgotten. Others will rush in to claim “I did this” falsely.
I’ve enjoyed this Masters tournament watching the best play against the best, the leagues unified for a major. I can see that this is the way it has to be. Week-in, and week-out on tour now we are getting a weak and watered down victor. As a dozen of the very best players are playing in another league. And not there to compete.
I hope they get this all sorted out sooner than later. What I really wish is that a few big hitters on tour would follow Rahm to LIV, break the PGAT, and force the merger. I know one thing, the few that would jump would end up hundreds of millions richer than they’ll be when this whole thing shakes out on it’s own.
Oh well. Not many like me left who can remember the ABA, or AFL. All those sports wars that resulted in bigger and better leagues, higher paid players, wall-to-wall coverage and sports on TV every night of every week.
We are a long way from the Friday night fights days.
If you read this and said “Johnny who”?
Oh well. I tried.
So true! Those at the top of the PGA management the very people the players are currently paying to run their tour will put a deal together and end up with generational wealth. The players who stayed true to tradition will miss the boat on millions. Rahm was smart! Anyone who hasn’t seen the writing on the wall after the secret meetings between the PGA and LIV is being foolish. They should have realized when their Commissioner went incognito they were being sold down the river. By the way has his mysterious illness ever been explained?
Golf...I should have known! Reading your daily column is a lot like watching Jeopardy or being a fan of that show. During major tournaments one rarely sees a sports category, while they focus on more "worldly" and challenging categories like history, art, poetry, literature, geography, and science. But, in leaner, non-tournament times, we are occasionally treated to the rare sports oriented set of questions.
I too have lived through the AFL-NFL merger, the ABA-NBA merger, the expansion of hockey, the explosion of soccer as the world's #1 sport, and now...the PGA-LIV situation. While always a bit more of an NFL,NBA,NHL, and MLB fan than that of golf, I enjoy the game, used to play a lot, and remember Greg Norman as one of the greats of my time. He's also a wildly successful in business and a very intelligent person. The way he has been treated by the stodgy blue bloods of the PGA is horrendous, and the divide between the two golf bodies has actually soured my view and driven me away from the game.
Can you imagine if back in the day, the NFL had decided to blackball the great John Unitas (a proponent of NFL-AFL expansion at that time), restrict his participation, or tarnish his legacy? Its time for the collective golf powers to get their heads out of their asses and realize this divide is a continuing absurdity that tarnishes the product in the eyes of the fanbase.