Liv Golf Central Thread: Events and News

[shootmyage]

Just now, Hobert said:

Niemann was a surprise for me this morning. I guess I missed the rumors about him.

i really thought adam scott would go with c. smith  , they would have a team that could not be beaten . 

[LICC]

42 minutes ago, shootmyage said:

i would suggest people dead why james hahn was the only one voting no on the new pga changes , its the only one that makes any sense in this whole mess ..

well wroth reading .

What are you saying? Didn’t you  previously say the Tour should have made these changes earlier? Now you are saying the Tour shouldn’t make these changes?

[GolfSpy_APH]

54 minutes ago, shootmyage said:

i would suggest people dead why james hahn was the only one voting no on the new pga changes , its the only one that makes any sense in this whole mess ..

well wroth reading .

James Hahn is caught in the middle. Not good enough to make that big of a impact on the Tour (fwiw the new changes actually help him if he is able to step up his game and if he can't he is still in the same situation) and not enough of a name for LIV to offer him anything. Maybe that is more the reason he is so chippy about the changes because he can't go to LIV even if he wanted to. 

[shootmyage]

Just now, LICC said:

What are you saying? Didn’t you  previously say the Tour should have made these changes earlier? Now you are saying the Tour shouldn’t make these changes?

i think like a lot of people the tour should have made these changes years ago , the hahn piece  was very good about bring up things people don't know .

[shootmyage]

Just now, GolfSpy_APH said:

James Hahn is caught in the middle. Not good enough to make that big of a impact on the Tour (fwiw the new changes actually help him if he is able to step up his game and if he can't he is still in the same situation) and not enough of a name for LIV to offer him anything. Maybe that is more the reason he is so chippy about the changes because he can't go to LIV even if he wanted to. 

i agree with everything you said , one thing to think about is what j . rahm said about all the events the top 20 will have to play , what happens when a top 20 player gets hurt  and only plays 18 events , i wonder how a alsor run player gets gets into the to group , when does the tour kick a member of the top group out , is it every year or 2 yrs , that's why i said in other posts that people in the middle will go liv if given a chance like hv3 .

Edited August 30, 2022 by shootmyage

[GolfSpy_APH]

1 minute ago, shootmyage said:

i agree with everything you said , one thing to think about is what j . rahm said about all the events the top 20 will have to play , what happens when a top 20 player gets hurt  and only plays 18 events 

There of course will be exemptions for various things such as injuries and they have even discussed exemptions for players like Rahm and other top euro players who need to play 4 DP world tour events in order to participate for the Ryder cup. 

There is still much to be worked out and as the players have the biggest voice right now and are driving the changes they will be able to make the work for all of them. 

The changes are obviously working because they have changed the minds of a few guys who said they were looking at or were going, but since this have decided to stay (Cam Young).

[sixcat]

Personally, I believe a key piece of this whole fiasco is being grossly underreported and nobody seems to be paying attention to it or asking questions associated with it.

GSE Worldwide manages/represents nearly all of the players that have defected to LIV. That cannot be a coincidence!!! 

[TBS]

2 minutes ago, GolfSpy_APH said:

There of course will be exemptions for various things such as injuries and they have even discussed exemptions for players like Rahm and other top euro players who need to play 4 DP world tour events in order to participate for the Ryder cup. 

There is still much to be worked out and as the players have the biggest voice right now and are driving the changes they will be able to make the work for all of them. 

The changes are obviously working because they have changed the minds of a few guys who said they were looking at or were going, but since this have decided to stay (Cam Young).

This is where I wish Monahan would have been upfront and said "we are taking the players suggestions and implementing these changes... there is a lot to be worked out and we don't have everything worked out yet... top players will play more together for more money for a great viewership product... other players will have the ability to play their way to top while being supported by the tour". Instead he kind of fumbled his way through this. 

I think he is probably a really good behind the scenes guy but not so good in front of the camera.

Also - I like that Rahm said what he said. This is what we want to hear, more player opinion. He's not saying the PGA tour is bad, he is bringing up points to help get them to a better member organization.

[TBS]

4 minutes ago, sixcat said:

Personally, I believe a key piece of this whole fiasco is being grossly underreported and nobody seems to be paying attention to it or asking questions associated with it.

GSE Worldwide manages/represents nearly all of the players that have defected to LIV. That cannot be a coincidence!!! 

It will be juicy if during discovery for the trial, GSE gets subpoenaed and it comes out that LIV is giving them a cut. I imagine that there could be some ramifications from that. Maybe not illegal but definitely shows the shadiness of the business.

Makes me think about how Freddie Freeman was done by his agent this past year. Talk about tanking an agency. Ari Gold would be all about LIV lol. Would make a great show.

[GolfSpy_APH]

1 minute ago, TBS said:

This is where I wish Monahan would have been upfront and said "we are taking the players suggestions and implementing these changes... there is a lot to be worked out and we don't have everything worked out yet... top players will play more together for more money for a great viewership product... other players will have the ability to play their way to top while being supported by the tour". Instead he kind of fumbled his way through this. 

I think he is probably a really good behind the scenes guy but not so good in front of the camera.

Also - I like that Rahm said what he said. This is what we want to hear, more player opinion. He's not saying the PGA tour is bad, he is bringing up points to help get them to a better member organization.

For sure. The NLU guys mentioned that it was clear this was the players idea and they kinda kept him in the loop of what was going on, but during the presser he as you said stumbled around a bit because it wasn't all his planning or idea. 

In the end the PGA Tour is a player run organization and its good to see them taking charge. The other good thing NLU mentioned was it kinda had to come from the players to make these changes work. If the tour had come out and said hey you must play these 20 events there would have been riots, so now that the players are all on board seems like good  things will happen. It is a little too bad it took a semi mass exodus of players to LIV to get all the big name players together to figure out really how they wanted to change the tour. 

I said it from the very beginning, I don't like LIV or really care for the format and many of the players that did leave. However if it leads to a better product and great change for the PGA Tour and a better viewing experience then maybe in the end it was a good thing?

[revkev]

20 hours ago, TBS said:

Biggest issue facing LIV - Who is going to watch golf when college football is wall to wall on Saturday and NFL on Sunday?

I can guarantee that I'm not watching college football - a bigger money grab than anything this side of LiV.  So there's a chance that I might watch a LiV tournament on a Saturday, if there is no rodeo or spelling bee reruns to consider.

[TBS]

4 minutes ago, TBS said:

It will be juicy if during discovery for the trial, GSE gets subpoenaed and it comes out that LIV is giving them a cut. I imagine that there could be some ramifications from that. Maybe not illegal but definitely shows the shadiness of the business.

Makes me think about how Freddie Freeman was done by his agent this past year. Talk about tanking an agency. Ari Gold would be all about LIV lol. Would make a great show.

Thinking back - isn't this a major plot of Entourage. Agent wants his client to make the most money so agent can get rich. Client wants to only do things he's passionate about resulting in tension. HAHA

I need this Netflix documentary to come out. I hope B-Roll becomes court documents, too. What a beautiful disaster.

[revkev]

18 hours ago, LICC said:

The casual sports fan who watches some golf will tune in to the big events and on weekends when other big sports events aren't happening. LIV has been avoiding the big PGA Tour events, but now that doing so puts it up against football, I will not be surprised if the interest and viewership drop substantially.

That's true beyond a doubt

[sixcat]

10 minutes ago, TBS said:

It will be juicy if during discovery for the trial, GSE gets subpoenaed and it comes out that LIV is giving them a cut. I imagine that there could be some ramifications from that. Maybe not illegal but definitely shows the shadiness of the business.

It's difficult to keep following everything Eamon Lynch puts out because of the negativity (something I am trying to keep out of my life as much as possible post cancer) but in a recent piece by him, he points out that the court proceedings from earlier this month that LIV lost, GSE is mentioned dozens of times in the court documents. 

[shootmyage]

one thing i like to do is set up the tour as a 4 man scramble , 10 each  a-b-c-d , we all know who the 10  -a - golfers would be , i think the tour has lost 3 or 4 -a- golfers , 3 or 4 weak b / strong c golfers ( like hv3 ) the rest are c/d golfers , so no big loss for the tour , the tour will go on as the best in the world by not really losing anyone that would really hurt them..

 

[revkev]

16 minutes ago, GolfSpy_APH said:

For sure. The NLU guys mentioned that it was clear this was the players idea and they kinda kept him in the loop of what was going on, but during the presser he as you said stumbled around a bit because it wasn't all his planning or idea. 

In the end the PGA Tour is a player run organization and its good to see them taking charge. The other good thing NLU mentioned was it kinda had to come from the players to make these changes work. If the tour had come out and said hey you must play these 20 events there would have been riots, so now that the players are all on board seems like good  things will happen. It is a little too bad it took a semi mass exodus of players to LIV to get all the big name players together to figure out really how they wanted to change the tour. 

I said it from the very beginning, I don't like LIV or really care for the format and many of the players that did leave. However if it leads to a better product and great change for the PGA Tour and a better viewing experience then maybe in the end it was a good thing?

I do agree here - to me another great change and a way to protect the so called "lesser" tour events would be to make them qualifiers for the top events.  Players 51-60 drop off the list after each big event and the top players in the inbetween tournaments get those spots.  It would be a move back towards how golf used to be prior to the "all exempt" tour.  I don't know about others but I love watching tournaments where guys are playing for their playing lives - I greatly prefer the first two playoff events to the last one - I couldn't get interested in the last one even though it was raining where I live and I could have watched - I made time to watch some of the two playoff events leading up to it and also the last event of the regular season.

[revkev]

6 minutes ago, sixcat said:

It's difficult to keep following everything Eamon Lynch puts out because of the negativity (something I am trying to keep out of my life as much as possible post cancer) but in a recent piece by him, he points out that the court proceedings from earlier this month that LIV lost, GSE is mentioned dozens of times in the court documents. 

It's great to see you back commentating.  I hope and pray that your recovery is going well.  

[sixcat]

6 minutes ago, revkev said:

It's great to see you back commentating.  I hope and pray that your recovery is going well.  

Thanks. It's been a grind to say the least but I appear to be on the other side of things. 

[Middler]

19 hours ago, PeterHenric said:

Well I watched several hours of it with no football and I will watch several hours of it with football.

People interested in watching it will do so either live or on YouTube replay. People who aren't interested in watching it (like yourself), still won't watch it. Since Golf is essentially year round, why is this any different between LIV and PGA?

The most significant PGA tournaments are the Players, Major and FedEx Cup events, all between March and August. Arnie, Jack and Tigers tournaments are also during that period. The Ryder and Presidents Cups are usually Sept. And you may have noticed the TMRW/TGL events will begin on Mondays in January. Guess why? (A: Football for the most part)

[Middler]

1 hour ago, GolfSpy_APH said:

James Hahn is caught in the middle. Not good enough to make that big of a impact on the Tour (fwiw the new changes actually help him if he is able to step up his game and if he can't he is still in the same situation) and not enough of a name for LIV to offer him anything. Maybe that is more the reason he is so chippy about the changes because he can't go to LIV even if he wanted to. 

Nothing against James Hahn, but his criticisms miss the point. The PGA MUST keep their stars from defecting to LIV, by paying them more and taking steps to showcase them all together more often. Legacy, tradition and or morality are factors, but money will trump them in the long run for many. [There are undoubtedly some PGA players who are watching and may move to LIV after more is settled, legal and PGA changes] The mission is to make the marquee PGA players happy, not the James Hahns of the world. While some no names have signed with LIV, that was only to fill out their initial 48 player roster - the bottom players are already being pushed out as better players sign with LIV, 5 players didn't even make it to the second LIV tournament. LIV is even less interested in James Hahn than the PGA in the long run, so maybe he should reconsider. So I guess Hahns POV is sour grapes as much as anything. 

[sixcat]

Another key point I don't see mentioned enough (in my opinion) that came out during the hearing earlier this month, the revelation by the LIV attorney's that up-front monies paid out to the players through these contracts are recouped by the Saudi's by taking player winnings after tournaments. So the players aren't actually winning prize money for these events. The prize money is considered an "advance" through the contracts.

LIV has since denied this suggesting the attorney "misspoke" at trial but I tend to believe what was said under oath more than what Greg Norman says during an interview. 

[GolfSpy_APH]

2 minutes ago, sixcat said:

Another key point I don't see mentioned enough (in my opinion) that came out during the hearing earlier this month, the revelation by the LIV attorney's that up-front monies paid out to the players through these contracts are recouped by the Saudi's by taking player winnings after tournaments. So the players aren't actually winning prize money for these events. The prize money is considered an "advance" through the contracts.

LIV has since denied this suggesting the attorney "misspoke" at trial but I tend to believe what was said under oath more than what Greg Norman says during an interview. 

That was interesting and at least from what I've heard that could be different player to player and contract to contract. However if it is across the board the same for all that would be huge. 

[Undershooter]

2 hours ago, Hobert said:

Niemann was a surprise for me this morning. I guess I missed the rumors about him.

He's a GSE guy, so the likelihood that he went was always pretty high unfortunately.

[bens197]

1 hour ago, GolfSpy_APH said:

James Hahn is caught in the middle. Not good enough to make that big of a impact on the Tour (fwiw the new changes actually help him if he is able to step up his game and if he can't he is still in the same situation) and not enough of a name for LIV to offer him anything. Maybe that is more the reason he is so chippy about the changes because he can't go to LIV even if he wanted to. 

Dude this is it right here.

There's a few guys who are just way too loud and irrelevant...can someone put an outing together for Mark Lye, James Hahn and Hank Haney so they can sit around a fire pit and eat popsicles together.

[chisag]

2 hours ago, GolfSpy_APH said:

I said it from the very beginning, I don't like LIV or really care for the format and many of the players that did leave. However if it leads to a better product and great change for the PGA Tour and a better viewing experience then maybe in the end it was a good thing?

 

... You and I have been on the same page so I will just tweak your comment to say not a good thing but maybe every cloud has a silver lining. While I think competition is always a good thing, Capitalism has a way of reducing all things in life and especially morality to just cash. And imo that is never a good thing. 

[PeterHenric]

2 hours ago, Middler said:

Nothing against James Hahn, but his criticisms miss the point. The PGA MUST keep their stars from defecting to LIV, by paying them more and taking steps to showcase them all together more often. Legacy, tradition and or morality are factors, but money will trump them in the long run for many. [There are undoubtedly some PGA players who are watching and may move to LIV after more is settled, legal and PGA changes] The mission is to make the marquee PGA players happy, not the James Hahns of the world. While some no names have signed with LIV, that was only to fill out their initial 48 player roster - the bottom players are already being pushed out as better players sign with LIV, 5 players didn't even make it to the second LIV tournament. LIV is even less interested in James Hahn than the PGA in the long run, so maybe he should reconsider. So I guess Hahns POV is sour grapes as much as anything. 

The PGA needs to keep their big names, absolutely. But there will be no tour with only big names. You have to focus on both the big and little names at the same time. I know they did some things for the little guys but they probably could have done more.
I work in construction and look at it like this: I need my foreman just as much as I need the rest of the guys on the crew. Without both of them, the work is not going to get done.

[sixcat]

9 minutes ago, PeterHenric said:

The PGA needs to keep their big names, absolutely. But there will be no tour with only big names. You have to focus on both the big and little names at the same time. I know they did some things for the little guys but they probably could have done more.
I work in construction and look at it like this: I need my foreman just as much as I need the rest of the guys on the crew. Without both of them, the work is not going to get done.

Nobody outside of diehard golf lunatics (like me) knew who Scottie Scheffler was three years ago. Now, he's the #1 ranked player in the world. I'm old enough to remember when you could replace Scheffler with Rory McIlroy in that analogy. The big names weren't always big names.

The Tour hasn't done a good enough job promoting the feeder tours like KFT. Just my opinion but they could get rid of the Senior Tour and put KFT on TV more often. Especially now that the PGA Tour will have an actual offseason. 

[TBS]

2 minutes ago, sixcat said:

Nobody outside of diehard golf lunatics (like me) knew who Scottie Scheffler was three years ago. Now, he's the #1 ranked player in the world. I'm old enough to remember when you could replace Scheffler with Rory McIlroy in that analogy. The big names weren't always big names.

The Tour hasn't done a good enough job promoting the feeder tours like KFT. Just my opinion but they could get rid of the Senior Tour and put KFT on TV more often. Especially now that the PGA Tour will have an actual offseason. 

So true! I thought PGA Tour U events were entertaining midweek golf. Show more college content. Get the golf obsessed bought into a person's career when they are young. I love the USGA Men and Women Ams. 

[PeterHenric]

15 minutes ago, sixcat said:

Nobody outside of diehard golf lunatics (like me) knew who Scottie Scheffler was three years ago. Now, he's the #1 ranked player in the world. I'm old enough to remember when you could replace Scheffler with Rory McIlroy in that analogy. The big names weren't always big names.

The Tour hasn't done a good enough job promoting the feeder tours like KFT. Just my opinion but they could get rid of the Senior Tour and put KFT on TV more often. Especially now that the PGA Tour will have an actual offseason. 

So are you saying to let the big-name players leave if they want to because they will just have new big-name players in the near future? 

So are you saying to let the big-name players leave if they want to because they will just have new big-name players in the near future?

If so, I don’t think you are necessarily wrong, but it would be a bold move.

[Middler]

52 minutes ago, PeterHenric said:

The PGA needs to keep their big names, absolutely. But there will be no tour with only big names. You have to focus on both the big and little names at the same time. I know they did some things for the little guys but they probably could have done more.
I work in construction and look at it like this: I need my foreman just as much as I need the rest of the guys on the crew. Without both of them, the work is not going to get done.

So LIV is planning on helping out the little guys? Of course not, they are pushing the "little guys" off the bottom of the roster after every tournament. If both big and little names are important, why does LIV continue to throw big money at recruiting PGA players with name recognition?

The PGA has a long tradition of feeder tours (DP, KF) for the little guys and potential future stars, and a post tour (Champions). I don't see any evidence LIV is planning to develop feeder tours, they just want to poach from every other tour. They are straight up buying a tour, not developing anything for the future.

Your construction experience, while like most of our careers, is not analogous to PGA v LIV at all. Though your foreman would be (much) harder to replace than the rest of the crew - kinda like elite players...