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 professional golf tour made headlines last week when it announced a major financial deal with a group called “Strategic Sports Group (SSG).

The tour is getting a $3 billion investment from SSG, but, in the days after the deal was announced, there were more questions than answers.

Such questions as these:

• How would the investors get a return on their investment, assuming that the business leaders would want a return?  No one knows yet.

• How would the PGA Tour players benefit?  No one knows, except that one report said the deal “would give players access to more than $1.5 billion as equity owners in the new PGA Tour Enterprises.”

• How would the deal affect negotiations between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, or would the deal affect those negotiations at all?

• And, who is SSG?  Well, here there is answer on this question.  It is made up of the owners of, among others, the Boston Red Sox (Fenway Sports Group led by John Henry), Atlanta Falcons (Arthur Blank), Boston Celtics (Wyc Grousbeck), Milwaukee Bucks (Mark Attanasio), and New York Mets (Steven Cohen).

Apart from the looming questions, one of my favorite on-line golf magazines, Global Golf Post (GGP), went on record to call the infusion of money, a “monumental deal.”

Early in the story, from Pebble Beach, GGP writer Ron Green, Jr., put it this way:

“PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA | Wind-whipped but smiling after a Wednesday practice round at Pebble Beach, Adam Scott walked off the famous 18th green as a sea spray carried on the gusts.

“As a member of the PGA Tour Policy Board, Scott has been integrally involved in the negotiations that led to the announcement of the tour’s transformational multibillion-dollar partnership with Strategic Sports Group, almost instantly reshaping the tour’s future.

“’I don’t know what chapter this is for the PGA Tour, but it has certainly become a new chapter in the tour taking on an investor, an incredible investor group at that.  This is a partnership that takes professional golf into the future.  It’s excitement.”

GGP wrote that, while there are many details still to be clarified, the essence of the deal is this:

• Strategic Sports Group is making an initial investment of $1.5 billion into PGA Tour Enterprises, with another $1.5 billion potentially coming.  The group, led by Fenway Sports Group, also will take an active role in plotting strategy for the tour on and off the course.
• The Policy Board, which includes PGA Players Scott, Jordan Spieth, Tiger Woods, Webb Simpson, Patrick Cantlay, and Peter Malnati, voted unanimously in favor of the deal.
• The initial investment will go toward giving approximately 200 players an equity share in PGA Tour Enterprises, the for-profit entity that is being created to sit over the PGA Tour. The player grants will be based on several factors, including performance, and will be vested over time.  It’s a way of rewarding players who turned down lucrative offers from LIV Golf as well as others, including future players.

So this shows that, for golf, as well as most other sports, money rules.  Look only so far as the Super Bowl in a couple days.  Seats at the event cost thousands of dollars.  And, there are no more parking at airports near Las Vegas because of all the private planes that already have booked spots.  [Which, by the way, will make it tough for Taylor Swift’s plane to find a place to park – and, speaking of a lot of money, consider that!]

Still, the questions persist about the SSG investment in pro golf.  And those of us who have the questions would like answers.  But, in this as in playing golf in general, patience matters.

So, I, for one will try to be patient to see how all this evolves.