This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Anyone who knows me knows that I do not believe LIV Golf is good for the game we love.

Better, I say, for pro golfers to work to improve the PGA Tour.  Better for golfers and fans like me to stick with golf competitions, not exhibitions.

So it was that I read an announcement by LIV Golf that it – finally – had secured a place for its exhibitions to be shown on TV, the CW, which I had barely heard of before the announcement.

Did the announcement matter?  No.

To hear LIV Golf blunderbuss Greg Norman tell it, the answer was yes.  But, after all he has said and done to damage pro golf over the years, not just with his new gig at LIV, but well before that, it is hard for me to give credibility to anything Norman says.

Instead, these two comments.

FROM COLUMNIST EAMON LYNCH IN GOLFWEEK:  “There are many possible explanations for why LIV has failed to gain traction with fans — the format, the frat brats in the lineup, the insignificance of the competition, the garish theatrics, the source of the funding.

“Perhaps ease of access to tournament broadcasts was another factor, but it requires a grandiose optimism to believe that The CW will sustain better results than YouTube’s 2.6 billion active users.

“For all the spin put forth by Norman and his team, LIV has simply found a lesser storefront for the very same product that was ignored when given the largest platform possible.  What was announced this week is less a broadcast deal than a distress sale, which is not to imply that anyone was willing to pay for it.”

FROM THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB:  It’s safe to say the National Press Club is not happy with Nexstar’s decision to partner with LIV Golf.  [Nexstar is the parent of the CW.]

Founded in 1908, the National Press Club is the world’s leading professional organization for journalists.  The Club has 3,000 members representing nearly every major news organization and is a leading voice for press freedom in the U.S. and worldwide.

Its president Jen Judson released a statement regarding LIV Golf’s multi-year TV deal to air its tournaments on the CW Network, which Nexstar Media Group owns.

The statement speaks for itself.

“We are deeply disappointed that a company that makes money from news like Nexstar would agree to participate in such a shameful PR stunt as LIV Golf, which is fundamentally designed to rehabilitate the Saudi reputation, tarnished irreparably by the state-ordered gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018.

“We are left to wonder what if anything Nexstar stands for.  You cannot have a brand in news and act this way.  Saudi Arabia murdered a Washington Post journalist and cut him up with a bone saw.

“Riyadh wants to use golf to get Americans to forget about murder.  We must not let them get away with it.  We call on Nexstar employees — many of whom are journalists — to demand management explain why they have partnered with the murderers of a journalist.

“We urge Nexstar to do the right thing and cancel their bloody golf show.  And if they don’t drop the program here is what we can do:  Don’t watch it; and write each sponsor asking them not to sponsor.”

The National Press Club position is another indication that LIV is not worthy of TV coverage, or, for that matter, for any of us who love real professional golf to watch it.