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.

The word “stunning” has been used frequently over the last hours to characterize a surprising merger for golf as the PGA Tour, the DP Tour (Europe) and LIV Golf announced they would collaborate with each other, not sue each other.

How does this merger rank in importance to other international developments yesterday? 

Not high.

• Not as important as the war in the Ukraine.

• Not as important as new candidates entering the presidential election field.

• Not as important as reaction to the debt ceiling.

• Not as important as air quality in the aftermath of huge fires.

• Or, many other national and international issues.

Still, for all of us who love golf, the merger was topic one.

Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins used a lot of harsh words to rate the merger – or is it berate?

“What’s the going rate to turn an American executive into a boot boy for a despotic torturer such as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman?  Just how worn out are the knees of PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan’s pants legs?

“But let’s start with this simple question first:  Why would the PGA Tour join forces with a vermin-populated fourth-rate start-up such as LIV Golf, a comedic failure that can’t command any ratings, headed by that king of the white mice, Greg Norman?

“Bought.  That’s the only word for Monahan and his henchies on the PGA Tour policy board, who have made an otherwise inexplicable — and still vague — deal to work with LIV and the European tour to form a new global enterprise, funded by the Saudis.  They were bought.  The only question is for how many bills.”

For golfers like me, the merger was, yes, “stunning.”

What the PGA Tour has done is not line with what it has been saying for months, if not a couple years.  Far from it.

It has now aligned itself with what it earlier described as a tainted source of money from a country trying to “sportswash” its horrible international reputation as a thug more interested in murdering the innocent than conducting itself with high moral standards.

Only one example:  The murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 by Saudi assassins.

So, it appears that Jay Monahan, the CEO of the PGA Tour and soon-to-be the CEO of a new, yet-to-defined golf for-profit company, has opted to take the money.

He now has to live down what he has been saying all along — that the Saudi money was bad for the game of golf.  Might be, for him, a tough sell.

Just think if you were Rory McIlroy who became the chief public spokesman for the PGA Tour against LIV.  He must feel betrayed by Monahan’s defection.

“The guys who stayed loyal to the PGA Tour, it’s kind of a kick in the teeth to them,” according to one PGA Tour player.  “Obviously, Rory was a huge advocate of the PGA Tour, and now it kind of looks like all his hard work and sticking up for the PGA Tour was left by the wayside.”

Then, no surprise, Golf Channel commentator Brandel Chamblee entered the fray this way:

““I think this is one of the saddest days in the history of professional golf.  I do believe that the governing bodies, the professional entities, have sacrificed their principles for profit.”

There are a lot of issues left to resolve after the general merger announcement.  Such as:

• Will players who bolted for LIV be allowed to regain their PGA Tour status and, to do so, will they have to pay some kind of penalty?

• How will the new for-profit entity organize the tournaments among the three tours?

• Will some kind of team format – a LIV creation – live in the new organization?

• How much money from the Saudi Defense Fund will go into the for-profit entity, inasmuch as it was reported that it would be the “exclusive” funder of the entity?

• Would it be possible that Phil Mickelson, given his over-the-top criticism of the PGA Tour, would ever be welcomed back?

• What happens now to Greg Norman, the supposed CEO of LIV who was not involved in the merger negotiations, finding out about it only a few moments before the public announcement.  [Norman has fancied himself as a long-time enemy of the PGA Tour, so it would not be surprising to see him left out of the new organization.]

It could be contended that all of us who care about golf should let the dust settle a bit before arriving at a conclusion about whether the merger is good or bad.

Part of me tends always to think that it is good for disparate interests to talk rather than argue – or even to sue each other.  So, stopping the suits and the arguments could be a good development for golf.

But, first impressions also matter.  And, mine is that golf suffered yesterday.  Monahan wants “new money” and he got it from a tainted source that he has deeply criticized for months.

Just ask the “911 Families” group which blames the Saudis for the disaster and now much live with the new alliance.

They went on record yesterday criticizing the Tour in harsh words.

So, did a friend of mine who, as he was walking by our house in the morning, saw me in our driveway standing around trying to grasp the first announcement of the merger.

His one comment:  “Monahan is a wimp.”

For all I know, that might resonate as more details take shape.