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

[Elmer]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

 

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Of the 28 guys who had a decent amount of PGA Tour metrics:

• 10 guys are 2+ shots better
• 16 guys are 1-2 shots better
• Only 4 of 28 are worse, none by more than 0.82 strokes.

Again, another shout out to one of the money list leaders Pat Perez somehow being worse than he was on the PGA Tour stroke average wise.

This is my issue with LIV golf. They have golfers who were paid to play this tour, who are playing to win money in an odd format.
And there is Pat Perez, who I cant even remember the last time I saw him be competitive on the PGA tour. But now he is playing and winning money with a 71.5 stroke average. I am not even sure if this would make the cut on any PGA tour!

I very much feel like the LIV tour is MLS of golf. You know you cant be the Premier League so you get a couple of star players past their prime and some up and comers who could never make the Premier League and then change the format!

In 50 years will golfers still talk about the Liv Tour in the way we discuss the Masters or the Open??????

 

[iacas]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

"Pretty please retroactively include LIV results." Bah ha ha ha ha.

 

[imsys0042]

From the 7 items for OWGR I think this shows that LIV really is not meant to be a serious competitor to any real golf tour.  

LIV is (as of now):

1.  Invite only.  No official qualifying criteria to be included.  Also you'd have to let the professionals who have disagreed with them play, although you can make the case that the high profile ones could be "banned" for bad mouthing the LIV Tour

2. 54 hole only....

3.  No qualifying school...you can say "oh they could add one" but that completely changes a lot (more below)

4.  Yeah....48 with no sign it's upping.

5.  LIV babies won't stand for a cut where they don't get their money.  Or' they'll still be paid, a lot, which makes the cut meaningless

6.  This would make LIV a feeder tour to the 6 International Federation of PGA tours.   LIV operates completely the opposite, grab established players that are already popular/marketable.

7.  They don't have this and they have locked themselves into not having it unless they change their "team" concept.

The fundamental problem with LIV is that I don't see what their long term plan was.   This is 100% speculation but I think the Saudis have a completely different idea of what they wanted than Norman does.   Norman has a gripe with the PGAT and is happy to use this to hurt them.   The Saudis simply want to sportswash and at some point if they feel they've gotten what they want, then they will have to decide if they want to kill it or not.   However the Saudis have zero reason to continue this tour indefinitely.

Yeah, LIV can evoke and maybe someday the Saudis will spin it off on it's own and not pay all the bills.   Maybe it can get a TV deal and sponsors and dial back the guaranteed money and stand on it's own.   but that's a lot of maybes.

What LIV really smacks of is an approach where they will figure out the logistics later.   Like a start-up company run by shady people who throw stock options that end up worthless, LIV seems to think they can throw a lot of money and get big changes in the golf world.   Clearly the golf people who run the day to day on LIV must have been aware that their format and lack of qualifying would be a non-starter for OWGR points.   Yet they either must have figured they could solve that later, or didn't care.   The LIV players care, at least most of them, because them losing ranking points is going to hurt their major ambitions.   I don't think all of them realized that when they signed.

And the whole team format is completely incompatible, as is, with any type of open qualifying.  You can't have teams that persist event to event in a limited field unless you expand the field and only a core group of golfers are in the teams.   Or you draw new teams every event, and that isn't what they seem to be going for.

So how does this really succeed in the long run?   This seems more like the XFL, or even the tedious weeks of the John McEnroe show on CNBC that actually hit a 0.0 rating by the time it was shot in the head and out of it's misery.   It would take substantial change to turn LIV into what would be necessary to make it eligible for OWGR points and those changes directly conflict with major incentives that the LIV golfers who signed wanted.  It also directly conflicts with what we know about their business model, especially wrt teams and turning those into franchises with real money making capabilities.

I wonder if anyone who signed with LIV is wondering what is going to happen since an argument of "well a bunch of golfers are playing here now so you HAVE to include them".   how many people did Norman lie to, or say "we will take care of it".   Maybe somehow they will bully their way in, who knows?   Pat Perez doesn't give a crap, but it seems like a bunch of them are stupid enough over it to want RETROACTIVE POINTS for events that clearly don't meet the criteria.

The only thing I see is that there are events like Tiger's Hero Challenge that manage to get points.   I assume those are one-offs or somehow the event is under the PGA Tour umbrella and maybe there are adjusted points that come out of it.   But things like that seem to be one-off events, not full fledged (half baked!) tours.   This really smacks of Mickelson hitting a bong and thinking "Oh yeah man!  We'll get 48 people together with enough existing points and they'll HAVE to recognize us.  We'll be set and work only 8-10 weeks a year for life."  And then call his bookie and blow all his LIV money and his next stop will be the Kim Jong-Un Tour of Perpetual Happiness where as long as you are second to "Dear Leader" you can keep your head intact.

[ChetlovesMer]

46 minutes ago, imsys0042 said:

The Saudis simply want to sportswash and at some point if they feel they've gotten what they want, then they will have to decide if they want to kill it or not.   However the Saudis have zero reason to continue this tour indefinitely.

While listening to sports-talk-radio I heard that the Saudis have promised to run the LIV tour through 2025. Didn't mention what their plan was after that. 

[dennyjones]

5 minutes ago, ChetlovesMer said:

While listening to sports-talk-radio I heard that the Saudis have promised to run the LIV tour through 2025. Didn't mention what their plan was after that. 

It would be an interesting situation if the league folded after 2025.   

Edited September 20, 2022 by dennyjones

[Moxley]

Interesting, but I thing with Perez is that he's made that money due to being in the Four Aces, who have completely cleaned up in the team competition - he's being carried (obviously not literally) by DJ and to an extent Gooch - his own results have been poor and I think he's probably finished now as a golfer. 

He's just been very lucky to have jumped to LIV early when the money for his sort of caliber was so good. He's definitely not the only one in that category, but more lately those types have been the exception rather than the rule, with LIV trying for players like Niemann, Smith etc whose best days are ahead of them. 

 

[turtleback]

1 hour ago, Moxley said:

Interesting, but I thing with Perez is that he's made that money due to being in the Four Aces, who have completely cleaned up in the team competition - he's being carried (obviously not literally) by DJ and to an extent Gooch - his own results have been poor and I think he's probably finished now as a golfer. 

He's just been very lucky to have jumped to LIV early when the money for his sort of caliber was so good. He's definitely not the only one in that category, but more lately those types have been the exception rather than the rule, with LIV trying for players like Niemann, Smith etc whose best days are ahead of them. 

 

Except now they won't have any best days.  You don't get to quiet quit and still get taken seriously.

[imsys0042]

Greg Norman has been uninvited from his own tournament.  🤣

[Wally Fairway]

20 hours ago, iacas said:

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

"Pretty please retroactively include LIV results." Bah ha ha ha ha.

 

I am not a fan of the LIV, nor the Saudi backers; but then I also have some issues with the OWGR. They have made exceptions to those rules, when it fits the purpose of helping the people they like. 
They give points for the Hero Challenge (an 18 player event for Tiger and a few of his buddies), and for the WGC events (limited field, no cut) the worst of which is the match play where you can get points for getting invited (aka never winning a match - so you can play maybe 50 holes of golf - saying you lose 2 matches and tie the other).

 
Maybe this is more about my dislike for a few of the things that the OWGR does, but if they were truly impartial then they would give an arbitrary points value to LIV events, say maybe 50%. Discounted due to limited field and fewer rounds. This would give an appearance of being impartial, while in reality not allowing more than 2-3 players to earn enough points to really matter if they are only playing in 10 events a year.

[jbishop15]

49 minutes ago, Wally Fairway said:

I am not a fan of the LIV, nor the Saudi backers; but then I also have some issues with the OWGR. They have made exceptions to those rules, when it fits the purpose of helping the people they like. 
They give points for the Hero Challenge (an 18 player event for Tiger and a few of his buddies), and for the WGC events (limited field, no cut) the worst of which is the match play where you can get points for getting invited (aka never winning a match - so you can play maybe 50 holes of golf - saying you lose 2 matches and tie the other).

 
Maybe this is more about my dislike for a few of the things that the OWGR does, but if they were truly impartial then they would give an arbitrary points value to LIV events, say maybe 50%. Discounted due to limited field and fewer rounds. This would give an appearance of being impartial, while in reality not allowing more than 2-3 players to earn enough points to really matter if they are only playing in 10 events a year.

Speaking specifically of Tiger's event, that was played for several years without OWGR points, before it was handed an exception. 

The most persuasive argument in favor of LIV getting an exception is PGA TOUR China (ironically), which got fast-tracked and didn't have to wait a number of years to start getting points. But they also hit all the requirements necessary. 

My hatred for LIV is so strong that I want the OWGR to tell them to shove it up their ass, but I do think eventually LIV will get points if the Saudis dont pull the plug before then. 

Edited September 21, 2022 by jbishop15

[iacas]

5 hours ago, Wally Fairway said:

They have made exceptions to those rules, when it fits the purpose of helping the people they like.

The exceptions are few and far between, and they're not nearly as "exceptional" as you think.

5 hours ago, Wally Fairway said:

They give points for the Hero Challenge (an 18 player event for Tiger and a few of his buddies), and for the WGC events (limited field, no cut) the worst of which is the match play where you can get points for getting invited (aka never winning a match - so you can play maybe 50 holes of golf - saying you lose 2 matches and tie the other).

The thing is, they're sanctioned by the PGA Tour and players have to qualify to get into them.

That they're part of the PGA Tour means that the typical PGA Tour event is a 72-hole event with a cut and 144-156 players in the field. If you averaged in these types of events (and included the Tournament of Champions and the Tour Championship), you'd end up with something like (I'm making this up) an average of 71.2 holes and 137 player fields (with cuts). LIV can make no such claims.

The fact that the players qualify — they're not just chosen like the LIV players — is important, too, because without that you couldn't EVER have a no-cut or smaller-field event which awarded OWGR points. So the Tour Championship, Tournament of Champions, etc. would not be awarding points. Does that seem to make sense?

Again, they're not the exceptions you seem to think they are.

[Darkfrog]

Seems like LIV's only point is "we have some good players, so our fields should be awarded OWGR points".

I wonder if this is a preview for a lawsuit or something.

For those who know the OWGR process better, is there any precedent for retroactively awarding OWGR points? Seems like by the time LIV does get accepted (assuming they do), all the players will have fallen way down the rankings, which I assume will make it difficult for the LIV players to climb the rankings only playing in LIV events.

The LIV player signed letter seems a little desparate...

[turtleback]

5 hours ago, Wally Fairway said:

They give points for the Hero Challenge (an 18 player event for Tiger and a few of his buddies), 

Everything in that statement, other than the fact that points are awarded, is wrong.  It is 20 players, not 18.  And it's not for Tiger and a few of his buddies, it is for the top 18 ranked players in the world with 2 sponsors exemptions.  Misrepresenting the event doesn't help your case.  

[iacas]

1 hour ago, Darkfrog said:

Seems like LIV's only point is "we have some good players, so our fields should be awarded OWGR points".

Pretty much.

1 hour ago, Darkfrog said:

For those who know the OWGR process better, is there any precedent for retroactively awarding OWGR points?

I don't think so.

1 hour ago, Darkfrog said:

Seems like by the time LIV does get accepted (assuming they do), all the players will have fallen way down the rankings, which I assume will make it difficult for the LIV players to climb the rankings only playing in LIV events.

Yup.

[Big Lex]

On 9/20/2022 at 1:37 PM, dennyjones said:

It would be an interesting situation if the league folded after 2025.   

It will definitely fold after 2025. It's dead in the water now. 

[Moxley]

21 minutes ago, Big Lex said:

It will definitely fold after 2025. It's dead in the water now. 

That's but probably wishful thinking , but even if true, what about the interim and the period thereafter ? Do we just accept that Majors will be missing half the players , international team competitions being reduced to meaningless exhibition games and the ranking system being discredited? 

 

It's this sort of thinking that is threatening to ruin golf for years if not decades.

[Jeremie Boop]

4 minutes ago, Moxley said:

That's but probably wishful thinking , but even if true, what about the interim and the period thereafter ? Do we just accept that Majors will be missing half the players , international team competitions being reduced to meaningless exhibition games and the ranking system being discredited? 

 

It's this sort of thinking that is threatening to ruin golf for years if not decades.

Majors missing half the players and internation team competitions meaningless? I don't know that either of those claims are accurate. At least, not with the names I've seen. Granted, I'm out of the loop, so some of the names may have more significance than I realize.

[Moxley]

8 minutes ago, Jeremie Boop said:

Majors missing half the players and internation team competitions meaningless? I don't know that either of those claims are accurate. At least, not with the names I've seen. Granted, I'm out of the loop, so some of the names may have more significance than I realize.

Have a look at the president's cup thread, it is around half the international team at least.

Majors, probably less than half as of now but there'll be more in the interim. It's no longer just Phil, Sergio etc, but recent major champions (8 of the last 19 major  championship wins have come from LIV golfers), good talents like Niemann and Wolff, and solid mid rankers who'd typically make it there like Gooch and so on