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.

John Feinstein is one of the best sports writers going these days and he proved it again today.

He wrote a column analyzing the stunning merger – if that’s what it really was, a merger – involving the PGA Tour in the United States, the DP Tour in Europe, and the upstart Liv golf thing, whatever it is.

His column appeared under this headline:  After the PGA Tour caved, LIV and its Saudi backers won golf’s civil war.

Those words pretty well summarize his view.  I agree.  And, so, here, I reprint his column intact rather than editing it.

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Here are the winners in the stunning PGA Tour/LIV Golf/DP World Tour partnership announced Tuesday:  Greg Norman, Phil Mickelson, Donald Trump and, most of all, Mohammed bin Salman.  The crown prince of Saudi Arabia is now, for all intents and purposes, the commissioner of men’s golf.

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Here are the losers in the deal:  PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, who folded like a worn-out pup tent; all of those — notably Rory McIlroy — who stood up for Monahan and the tour; corporate sponsors who are going to have to promote golf tournaments funded by bin Salman and his so-called Public Investment Fund; and golf fans who care that they will be watching weekly winners accept giant, blood-soaked checks.

Trump supported LIV from the beginning, urging players to leave the PGA Tour and join its Saudi-backed rival for two reasons:  First, the tour pulled out of Trump’s golf course in South Florida’s Doral, and second, LIV was willing to rent Trump properties for its events.  Trump will no doubt trumpet LIV’s victory — he already has called it “a big, beautiful, and glamorous deal” — and he won’t be wrong.

Almost no one saw this coming.  Down the road, sure; at some point, every sport needs to have its best players competing against one another on a regular basis.  That’s why the NFL merged with the AFL, the NBA merged with the ABA and the NHL merged with the WHA.  They all needed their stars under the same roof.

This is different because there’s almost no one who doesn’t believe bin Salman was responsible for the brutal murder of Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi and because the rest of the world tolerates Saudi Arabia’s horrific politics and policies for one reason:  Money.

Although the specifics of the new deal haven’t been revealed, here’s what we do know:  The three organizations will merge some of their operations, and the PGA Tour and DP World Tour players who were banned for joining LIV will be welcomed back, although the tours may spin the story to claim that the rebels are returning on bended knee.

The LIV notion of team competition will (sadly) not go away and will be included in some form.  There is only one team event in men’s golf that anyone cares about, and that’s the Ryder Cup.  The good news here is that all the top players should now be in Rome in September for this year’s competition.

You wonder about the music and the players wearing shorts in LIV Golf?  Wouldn’t you just love to see players wearing shorts while AC/DC and Vanilla Ice blared around the course at the Masters?

That won’t happen, but it would be amusing to see someone ask Augusta National Chairman Fred Ridley his position on players in shorts and “Thunderstruck.”  Or maybe Taylor Swift.

The more important issue might be with the tour’s many corporate sponsors.  How will they react to being associated with events the Saudi government also funds?

But the most pressing question for now:  Why did Monahan fold so completely?

LIV has gone nowhere on television in the United States, and no one really knows whether anyone is watching overseas.  No one is buying the idea that the circuit’s team events matter, although the players certainly enjoy the extra money for no extra work.  And the 54-hole format — thus the name LIV, the Roman numeral for 54 — has the feel of a senior tour event minus the carts.

Still, Monahan and the PGA Tour have squirmed since LIV came onto the radar.  The so-called “elevated events,” one of the PGA Tour’s responses, pay the players a lot more money, but title sponsors weren’t thrilled with putting extra millions into events that did not include Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Cameron Smith or Mickelson, among other big names.

In an interview a year ago on CBS, Monahan brought up the terrorist attacks of 9/11, saying he was close to two 9/11 families and still felt their pain.  He then said, “No one who has played on the PGA Tour has ever had to apologize for playing on that tour.”

What does he say now? “Never mind?”

Monahan is a bright guy and a smart businessman.  So, his decision to fold was no doubt calculated.  But on what?

I think two things:  The tour’s position in court didn’t look very strong. What’s more, there was a chance that LIV’s countersuit would boomerang into the government finding an antitrust violation.  What do you mean, you’re the only one allowed to run a golf tour in the United States?

Beyond that was this:  The tour almost certainly would have been required to open its books in the midst of its legal battles.  No one in sports is more opaque than the tour.  It won’t even announce fines or suspensions, and has been known to fine players merely for talking about being fined.

It has always treated its books like a state secret while not paying any taxes because it is a 501(c)(6) non-profit entity, even though it clearly makes millions of dollars each year.  It seems highly unlikely that the tour would want to share specifics about how much money it makes and where that money goes — with LIV, the courts, or the public.

The tour has always thumped its chest about how much money it gives to charity, and it might very well be that every dollar it claims goes to the various charities is a wonderful thing.  But what if some of the money taken in by tournaments has not been spent so wonderfully?

While Monahan will retain his position as commissioner and CEO, the chairman of the new commercial entity will be Monahan’s new BFF, Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the Saudi Public Investment Fund.

The whole thing is a wow.

Monahan will be able to calm the waters among the players by pointing out that they will make more money.  Some will wonder how McIlroy — Monahan’s spokesman on all issues LIV — and star players such as Jon Rahm, Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler, Collin Morikawa and Hideki Matsuyama, who turned down millions from LIV, will feel.

The answer:  Less than great.

In the end, though, they will still be very wealthy men, and after a while, they will stop having to answer questions about the rancor in their sport.

Monahan will claim victory, which is a little like Napoleon declaring that Waterloo was a win for the French.  But Monahan lost.  The only difference is he will still be around to try to spin the outcome.