Perspective from the 19th Hole 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.
This blog headline puts it as simply as it can be put: LIV golf doesn’t appear to have much future.
Count me among those who don’t care. If LIV comes crashing down, okay.
As it started a few years ago, using tainted Saudi money, LIV enticed players to leave the PGA Tour, which had produced a solid livelihood for those who left. The incentive was to get rich quick.
Many players who were defecting from the PGA Tour tried to say they were doing so for the good of the game and to grow it. Hogwash!
One player, Harold Varner, said he was leaving to take the money for the good of his family and I saluted him then – and do so now – for his honesty.
Today, key players for LIV – Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Cameron Smith, Juaquin Niemann – are trying to leave LIV as it floats just above the surface.
Here is how golf writer Eamon Lynch put it GolfWeek in a column that appeared under this headline: “In the next 10 days, LIV’s free agents will realize how little freedom and agency they really have.”
“It’s a sobering sign of how upside down golf is that we’ve reached the improbable point where Sergio Garcia is a leader among those trying to leave LIV.
“He’s complaining, of course, but only in the legal realm. On September 30, the Spaniard’s lawyers asked a New Jersey bankruptcy court to either terminate his contract with LIV Golf or give him the right to do so, arguing that a lack of clarity on the league’s future unfairly limits his ability to investigate alternative options.”
Lynch said it is ironic that Garcia is becoming a poster child for those who want to leave LIV.
“A cynic might add that advance planning should include stockpiling baby wipes on whatever tour is luckless enough to host Garcia, whether it’s the one he said he couldn’t wait to leave (PGA), the one he shouted was “f****d” because it didn’t take Saudi money (Europe), or the one he reportedly embarrassed with his club-smashing antics at the Masters (LIV).”
More from Lynch:
“Most of LIV’s existing player agreements are expected to be terminated in the bankruptcy restructuring, though players could agree new deals to remain for LIV 2.0. Garcia hasn’t ruled out doing that, but wants the flexibility to investigate other avenues now.
“That can’t happen while the PGA Tour and DP World Tour refuse to entertain approaches by LIV players unless they can prove they’re free of all contractual obligations, a demand that has flummoxed agents accustomed to being taken at their worthless word.”
Per the terms of its proposed investment from BC Partners to reinvent the circuit, LIV has 35 days from filing bankruptcy to sign half of the players to whom it owes money, and those players must collectively represent two-thirds of all monies owed to its roster. The first threshold is reachable since most of its members are washed-ups or never-weres with limited options.
The second is trickier since LIV doesn’t have the buy-in of its biggest creditor, Rahm, who said he had decided to leave. But, LIV might cobble together enough I.O.U.’s from others to satisfy the requirement.
Many of those wanting to leave LIV 2.0 are reaching out to the PGA Tour in America or the DP Tour in Europe.
So far, the doors appear to be closed.
From Lynch:
“In response to an inquiry, a DP World Tour spokesperson acknowledged a ‘high volume of inbound interest and enquiries in recent weeks,’ and said it’s exploring terms on which those players might be accommodated, ‘provided they are free from third-party contractual restrictions and are willing to abide by our membership regulations.’
“What that means, sources say, is that LIV refugees might get starts, but not in lucrative Rolex Series events, and that anyone who re-ups with LIV 2.0 risks being bum-rushed to the exit.”
For the PGA Tour, it is wary of exposing itself to tortious interference claims by talking to still-contracted LIV players. Plus, it appears that the PGA tour is not open to players going the route of Brooks Koepka who was able to cut a deal to return with two at least two provisos — (a) not being as able to play in some high-profile events, and (b) making a $5 million donation to a charity.
My final view: Let’s go PGA Tour. Count on your best players to play. Avoid LIV. Play on.
