Welcome to the fourth installment of GHIN & Tonic. Our hope is that this space serves as a callback to the spirit of the original writing that appeared on No Laying Up dot com: unvarnished, wide-ranging, and somewhat random, but with golf as the loose thread. Some will be more golf-heavy, some golf-light - think TrapDraw Podcast plus some golf sprinkled in. We’ll pass the ball around on these on a weekly basis and all will be personal in nature, with KVV up next week. And if you can’t figure out which sections are “GHIN” and “Tonic”, that’s on you!
GHIN
Here’s what I’m monitoring in competitive golf right now:
- We’ve got you covered on the PGA Championship front - if you’re yearning for predictions or discussion around Valhalla, please head to our preview podcast and eat your heart out. And then catch up on ESPN2 on Thursday and Friday from 11am-1pm eastern, and ESPN+ on Saturday and Sunday from 9am-11am eastern). My primary focus will be on not cussing on live tv, which takes way more willpower than it should and is probably a sign that I should clean things up across our productions. More than anything, I’m excited to talk golf and watch the best players compete in a meaningful tournament - a fleeting thing these days.
The Midnight Troubadour
Tough and timeless, this polo is built for the long ride. Featuring a crisp, non-collapsing collar and a rugged, stretchy fabric, it's the perfect shirt for any cowboy's wardrobe.
PGA Tour rant:
Here’s a snippet of Jimmy Dunne’s letter announcing his resignation from the board:
As you are aware, I have not been asked to take part in negotiations with the PIF since June 2023. During my testimony at the Senate hearing, I said it was my intention to cast my vote alongside the Player Directors if a final agreement was reached with the PIF. Since the players now outnumber the Independent Directors on the Board, and no meaningful progress has been made towards a transaction with the PIF, I feel like my vote and my role is utterly superfluous.
And here’s a snippet from “Big Jay” Monahan’s statement in the wake of Dunne’s resignation:
"With these foundational elements in place and – more specifically – with an active, focused and engaged Transaction Subcommittee, we continue to make meaningful progress behind the scenes in our negotiations toward a potential agreement with the PIF. Our goal remains to deliver the best possible outcome for the PGA TOUR, our players, partners, tournaments and fans."
Pretty interesting to see Jay continue to gaslight everyone and frame his close ally’s departure from the board as a coherent step in meaningful progress. Reading between the lines, it appears we’re approaching a true Mexican standoff and there are no good guys.
In one corner we’ve got the subset of Cantlay/Tiger/Spieth, who seem 1) intent on a domestic tour that moves forward independent of PIF deadset on barring LIV defectors; 2) appalled at what they’re seeing as they continue to look behind the curtains and get a close-up of how the tour is run (welcome to the party, guys!); 3) naively hoping that they can wait this thing out with the SSG investment in-hand and keep going with current purse sizes despite more corporate sponsors balking, the prospect of additional defections, ratings cratering, and golf fans realizing that nothing matters outside of the majors. While I dig the distrust and hatred of Monahan and Co., it’s hard to envision a scenario where their intransigence yields a positive outcome. Rather, the most likely scenario is the tour continuing to whither away and everyone involved being poorer for it.
In the middle, you’ve got Rory (and presumably SSG/Fenway) who wants a more global tour, a way to fold things back together even if it means amnesty for guys who left and are tired of the divide in the game. But Rory is also still aligned with Jay’s cronies, which makes me distrust him to an extent. Continued support of Jay is a non-starter and the one thing that makes it feel like it could get everyone at least somewhat realigned is ridding the tour of his malignant presence and getting fresh, competent blood in there.
Jay’s got allies all over SSG and throughout golf, but at some point, they have stakeholders and will need to side with competence and strategy over the blind Boston loyalty that has thus far superseded everything else.
In another corner, Big Jay continues to hunker down with independent directors Herlihy and Flaherty (will they follow Dunne out the door?) and Webb, Malnati, Rory’s other foot and Jay’s lieutenants and deep roster of VPs inside the Global Home. Amazing that we’re four years into this and dozens of muffed decisions into this thing and Jay’s still holding on. There are only three explanations for the series of decisions that have been made and the lack of turnover in leadership: 1) gross incompetence + a completely broken governance structure; 2) Tour leadership, with complicity from golf’s ruling class, is hiding malfeasance and a wide variety of skeletons in the closet, whether collusion with the majors, anti-competitive behavior fighting all of this off, some sort of financial fraud or sketchy tax moves, a regime that’s covered up a variety of scandals, etc. ; 3) some combination of the two. In any case, THESE are not the people who should be charged with fixing things and being creative and coming up with solutions.
My armchair analysis (read: hope) is that newly minted DP World Tour Guy Kinnings. My hope is that he and DPWT member Rory can link up, throw the “Strategic Alliance” and the various things underpinning that (PGAT investment into European Tour Productions, etc.) out the window, and partner with PIF on setting up some sort of big money events series in July/August/September that guys from any tour can play and DARE the PGA Tour to block players from playing in that. Rory and others could still play the PGA Tour (particularly from February to June) but this would provide a way forward and show how myopic and self-sabotaging the PGAT is being right now. You’re telling me that other European-based players like Hovland, Fleetwood, the Hojgaards and Ludvig wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to play those events? It’s insane that we’ve gotten to a point in this whole thing where I’m actively rooting for PIF to have a coherent stake in things, but the reality is they’re going to have a stake one way or another and if that investment yields solutions for making the game more global, less dependent upon title sponsors, more creative and nimble, and provides a path forward for reunification, then bring it on. I’m not going to sit here and lament the PGA Tour schedule potentially being trimmed to 25-30 events or for a super league sitting atop a rank-and-file Tour schedule that increasingly feels like a souped-up version of the Korn Ferry Tour, abandons wide swaths of the United States (and works aggressively to diminish the sport globally!) and hosts way too many events in Florida, Texas and California.
Burn it all down. Everyone involved deserves to get thrown out on their asses and given a scarlet letter within the golf world. This entire four year fiasco has been an embarrassment and the sports washing worked. Fly the banner, Yasir.
- Speaking of burning stuff down, I’ve gotta call out this ghoulish lack of self-awareness and cynicism from NBC Sports to send this email out midway through a tournament that they were not televising on linear TV until a two-hour block of final round coverage on CNBC that the LPGA paid for. Good on Damon and Eamon’s sentiment and no issue there, it’s the jarring contrast between that sentiment and NBC/Golf Channel’s week-to-week actions, and then the lack of tact it takes to send that email out.
- Continuing the NBC/GC vent session, there are some telltale events that will yield a window into their strategy over the next 6-7 weeks. Much has been made of NBC Exec Producer Sam Flood’s contradictory comments last we