LIV Golf (Saudi PIF), "Mergers," and More

[Hardluckster]

It seems that Phil and LIV have helped to bring about some positive change to the PGAT. 🤞🏻

[iacas]

17 minutes ago, Hardluckster said:

It seems that Phil and LIV have helped to bring about some positive change to the PGAT. 🤞🏻

He could have done this without being paid by Saudi Arabia. He didn’t even try.

[jbishop15]

32 minutes ago, Hardluckster said:

It seems that Phil and LIV have helped to bring about some positive change to the PGAT. 🤞🏻

if Phil had wanted to bring about change, he could've gone public with his concerns, or rallied players behind the scenes, or any other number of ways. Phil wanted a $250 million check, and once it was offered, he worked backwards to justify his behavior. 

It's a player-run tour, and he wasn't even on the advisory board. He's the second most famous golfer in the world, for Christ's sake.

[Hardluckster]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

He could have done this without being paid by Saudi Arabia. He didn’t even try.

 

2 hours ago, jbishop15 said:

if Phil had wanted to bring about change, he could've gone public with his concerns, or rallied players behind the scenes, or any other number of ways. Phil wanted a $250 million check, and once it was offered, he worked backwards to justify his behavior. 

It's a player-run tour, and he wasn't even on the advisory board. He's the second most famous golfer in the world, for Christ's sake.

I think that anyone who believes that the PGAT administration makes these moves without the influence and competition that LIV has provided is naive. 
 

Regardless, I feel that these changes are likely to improve their product and be a positive for golf fans. I’m in favor of that. 

[phan52]

This is the kind of competitive thing that you will never see on the pre-paid, exhibition LIV Tour. Theegala made some clutch putts down the stretch to advance to East Lake. Do you think this was important to him? Not only the money but the prestige. It's good that the best are getting paid more, but the PGA Tour is a meritocracy, and rightly so.

Sahith Theegala advances to TOUR Championship after being on the bubble (pgatour.com)

[iacas]

19 minutes ago, Hardluckster said:

I think that anyone who believes that the PGAT administration makes these moves without the influence and competition that LIV has provided is naive. 

 Cool, because nobody said that.

[phan52]

On 8/20/2022 at 4:53 PM, Friz said:

This was my immediate thought.  Ignoring the money, the format of the LIV tournaments suck.  I will likely be tuning out if thats also what the PGA Tour turns into

I think what Monahan proposed today is an excellent response. And the last thing that was going to happen on the PGA Tour was the ridiculous LIV format. That is the #1 thing that destroys their credibility.

[Hardluckster]

3 hours ago, iacas said:

He could have done this without being paid by Saudi Arabia. He didn’t even try.

 

11 minutes ago, iacas said:

 Cool, because nobody said that.

Your post above doesn’t specifically say it, but it strongly suggests that these changes could have been achieved without LIV influence. 
 

I’m not suggesting that Phil (and others that left) went for the money. I definitely think that they did. Having said that, I think that without LIV it’s more than likely that none of the changes we are seeing from the PGAT ever happen. 
 

Edit: I also can’t really say that I blame any of those players for taking the pay day that LIV offered. 

Edited August 24, 2022 by Hardluckster

[iacas]

2 minutes ago, Hardluckster said:

Your post above doesn’t specifically say it, but it strongly suggests that these changes could have been achieved without LIV influence.

No, sir.

I’m simply saying Phil is full of shit and did nothing to “leverage” the Tour to make changes.

[Hardluckster]

Just now, iacas said:

No, sir.

Yes, sir. How else is this statement to be interpreted?

“He could have done this without being paid by Saudi Arabia.”

[iacas]

8 minutes ago, Hardluckster said:

Yes, sir. How else is this statement to be interpreted?

“He could have done this without being paid by Saudi Arabia.”

Exactly as it is written. Instead he did nothing to effect change.

Also the fact that the Tour has had to make these changes hurts LIV’s anti-competitive claims.

If the Tour had a monopoly and didn’t need to compete they wouldn’t have had to make changes.

[Hardluckster]

6 minutes ago, iacas said:

Exactly as it is written. Instead he did nothing to effect change.

Without big name players (like Phil) signing with LIV, I highly doubt that any of these changes occur. I would say absolitely these players have affected changes to the PGAT by signing with the Saudi backed league  

Forcing change in the PGAT most likely wasn’t the reason they signed with LIV. That was most likely money, plain and simple. I would say that it’s possible (maybe even likely) that most of these defectors had issues with some tour policies. 

6 minutes ago, iacas said:

Also the fact that the Tour has had to make these changes hurts LIV’s anti-competitive claims.

If the Tour had a monopoly and didn’t need to compete they wouldn’t have had to make changes.

I don’t disagree with this at all. I don’t think I’ve ever suggested otherwise. 

[Shindig]

The commissioner's letter explains everything clearly to me except I have no idea what the Play 15 program is (I can guess, I guess).  

Is the $500,000 guarantee for exempt players a front of their prize money, or is it in addition to their prize money?  Do they get it up front (with a forfeit of it if they don't play 15) or when they play their 15th event?

I think I'm going to like this even better, and I am going to try to watch more of the elevated events in the upcoming year.  

[iacas]

9 minutes ago, Hardluckster said:

Without big name players (like Phil) signing with LIV, I highly doubt that any of these changes occur.

Cool strawman.

10 minutes ago, Hardluckster said:

I don’t disagree with this at all. I don’t think I’ve ever suggested otherwise. 

I wasn’t replying to you on this.

[Hardluckster]

10 minutes ago, iacas said:

Cool strawman.

I expected better than this. 

[iacas]

Ummmm, you put up a strawman argument. Nobody is saying the PGA Tour would have made these changes without LIV.

If you take offense to a basic term like that, then I don’t know what to tell you.

[Hardluckster]

I wasn’t offended at all.

 You were the one that said that Phil did nothing to bring about changes. 

[iacas]

2 minutes ago, Hardluckster said:

I wasn’t offended at all.

 You were the one that said that Phil did nothing to bring about changes. 

He didn’t.

Go back to #1838 man. You brought Phil into it, and I said he could have made changes without involving Saudi money.

That said, the posts are there and this is now getting meta-discussion, so we are done.

And if you expected better, stop trying to knock down straw men. Why would I respond to an argument nobody has made?

/meta