Welcome! Where are you, you ask. I’m calling this weekend 9. Think of it as a place to warm you up for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We will have thoughts. We will have advice. We will have tweets. But only nine in all, though sometimes perhaps more and sometimes perhaps less. But who am I? The following paragraphs tell some of the story. It can be reached at nick.piastowski@golf.com.
A new format. A comment from Rory McIlroy about the new format. A comment from Lee Westwood on Rory McIlroy’s comment. A tailored qualifying event. A new LPGA tournament. And a few more articles, all from Monday, during the first full week of November no less. LIV Golf and its main supporter flooded your newsfeed this week, interestingly and without a doubt.
Let’s bring out another 9 so the 9s try to figure it all out.
9 for title 9 no. 1: “LIV Golf’s sudden move from 54 to 72 holes is a big stunner.” (History here.)
The news: The LIV format is changing from 54 holes to 72.
Taking food: GOLF’s Dylan Dethier also wrote about the move hereand I will only add these questions:
Will the move make you care more about LIV? Would you be interested in LIV getting world ranking points soon, which was apparently one of the reasons for the format change? Would you be interested that LIV Pros can have a better path to the big championships if they have to get world ranking points? Would you be interested that some other pros could sign with LIV, should they get world ranking points and thus improve access to the majors?
9 for title 9 no. 2: “‘Special move:’ Rory McIlroy left with more questions than answers from LIV Golf change.” (History here.)
The news: On Wednesday, ahead of this week’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, McIlroy had this to say: “I think what’s difficult is that you have the LIV guys and you say they can get the world rankings, but because their strength of fields is going to be very weak, because a lot of the guys have already fallen down the rankings because they haven’t really had points for a long time that will benefit them in the rankings. It will be interesting to see how they do to develop.”
Taking food: It will be interesting. The OWGR was also revised a few years ago, and now includes a metric called “Rating World Strokes Gained”, which you can read more about. here in this story written by GOLF’s Sean Zak.
9 for title 9 no. 3: “Lee Westwood hits out at Rory McIlroy over LIV Golf rule change comments.” (History here.)
The news: On talkSport’s Breakfast show, Westwood said this in response to McIlroy: “I don’t know. I don’t pay too much attention to what Rory says, really. He’ll change his mind next week.”
Taking food: Oh!
9 by 9, title no. 4: “Tyrrell Hatton says LIV pros ‘initially’ rejected format change at poll”. (History here.)
The news: On Wednesday, ahead of this week’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, Tyrrell Hatton had this to say: “I think it’s a good thing that LIV has gone to four rounds. I know at the end of my first season, there was a questionnaire that was filled out and one of the questions was about moving to 72 holes, and I think for everyone who filled it in at the beginning they only said three. I think that’s changed quite a bit over the last year, and certainly from the point of view my, I’m so happy we got through 72 holes.”
Taking food: I wonder what changed.
9 by 9, title no. 5: “‘Checks every box’: New LPGA commissioner makes bold move.” (History here.)
The news: The LPGA is co-sanctioning an event with the Ladies European Tour and will be supported by the Saudi Public Investment Fund. It will be played at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas.
Taking food: Do you like that the LPGA and new commissioner Craig Kessler are offering a big money tournament? Don’t you love that the LPGA and Kessler are doing this to the Saudis (whose human rights record, according to Amnesty International, can be found here)?
9 by 9, title no. 6: “LIV Golf adds new qualifying route with Q-school makeover.” (History here.)
The news: LIV Golf will play its qualifying tournament in Florida, relocating it from Saudi Arabia.
Taking food: This should allow more to enter the event, which will give the game LIV status for two players. But…
9 by 9, title no. 7:The PGA Tour has a problem with qualifying for LIV Golf 2026. (Story here.)
The news: The PGA Tour said the LIV qualifier will be considered an unauthorized event, meaning players with (and without) tournament status who participate will be penalized. Credit to Sports Illustrated’s Bob Harig for seeking tournament feedback on moving the event from LIV.
Taking food: There will be curiosity around the tee sheet, for sure.
9 by 9, title no. 8: “‘Opportunity to join’: LIV CEO reveals talks with new PGA Tour CEO.” (History here.)
The news: While at Sportico’s Sports Investment Conference, LIV CEO Scott O’Neil says he had talks with PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp about the future of pro golf. “Overall we have a shared view of what the golf landscape could be or should be over the next several years,” O’Neil said. “There’s an opportunity for the entire golf world to come together and grow this pie.”
Taking food: But will the golf world unite?
9 by 9 no. 9: LIV is a content machine. And some people will tell you that any news is good news.
Let’s see if we can find eight more items for the 9th weekend.
I know from experience that being in the public eye makes me a frequent target of sensational media coverage. I understand that it comes with the territory, but there are legal restrictions on false reports. And while in the past I may have been willing to “let it go,” I’m no longer…
3. Who does Lee Trevino rank as the top three players of all time – and his best player? He answered that this week on SiriusXM’s “A New Breed of Golf with Michael Breed,” and the audio of his answer is below.
A thoughtful guide for the weekend
4. Post belowby dr. Peter Tiereny, it was very interesting.
A statistic that interests me
5. I thought of this statistic below by statistics guru Justin Ray was good:
With just a few events remaining on the 2025 PGA Tour schedule, Scottie Scheffler is the season leader in scoring in Rounds 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Over the past 40 years, only Tiger Woods in 2000 has led in scoring average over all four rounds in a season.
8. History below by ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt was good:
“Magically, a carriage appeared on our way … so on his last day, he got one last ride.” ❤️
ESPN @notthefakeSVP shares an exciting story and thanks Jason Epstein, PGA, who received the 2025 Bill Strausbaugh Award for his contributions to Congress and golf as a whole. pic.twitter.com/EhFlF8OjIM
As the picture below shows, things went wrong for my friend.
My friend’s scoreboard.
Nick Piastowski
What golf is on TV this weekend?
10. Let’s make 10 items! Here’s a roundup of golf on TV this weekend:
– Saturday
10:30pm (Friday) – 1:30am ET: Toto Japan Classic third round, Golf Channel
02:00-08:00 ET: Third Round of the Abu Dhabi Championship, Golf Channel
3:00-6:00 PM ET: Third Round of the Tech World Championship, Golf Channel
– Sunday
10pm (Saturday) – 1pm ET: Toto Japan Classic Final Round, Golf Channel
1:30-7:30 ET: Final round of the Abu Dhabi Championship, Golf Channel
15:00-18:00 ET: World Tech Championship Final Round, Golf Channel
What are you emailing me?
11. Let’s make 11 items! I recently received this email, which was in response to the email I posted on a weekend 9 a few weeks ago (and can be found here):
Thanks for posting your thoughts on Ryder Cup 2025. It’s not easy to say the emperor has no clothes when the emperor holds the money.
I have one word to describe my reaction to that email from ‘across the pond’ about fan behavior at the 2025 Ryder Cup.
“Exactly.”
I was embarrassed and angry when I read the details of the fans’ behavior. Angrier that it wasn’t condemned more harshly by those experts and American golfers “inside the ropes”.
Watching professional golf has been, for my entire life, a polite and grown-up refuge from the vulgarity of most spectator sports. That risks losing.
There will always be bad actors at sporting events. It is the very nature of the beast to bring them out. (Fan is short for bigot, after all.) But please do what you can to protect golf from normalizing bad behavior.
A way to help someone this weekend
12. To begin this article, know that Kelan McDonagh saved a golfer.
A year ago, nothing in the player’s game was working and he had had enough. He sat in the cart we were sharing and said that if his game didn’t change before the end of the golf season, he was going to quit. And that gave me this thought: We should hook up my friend with a senior instructor and just watch and take notes. Enter McDonagh, director of learning at Metedeconk National Golf Club in Jackson Township, NJ, which is about 60 miles south of New York City. For about three hours, he worked with the golfer and the golfer walked away encouraged (and I walked away with THIS).
I was thinking about all of this this week when I saw that McDonagh had posted about his father, Larry, who is battling cancer. And cancer is disgusting. And cancer care can be expensive, especially in this case. There is hope, but the costs are rising
If you are at all interested in helping, a GoFundMe page has been set up and you can visit it here.
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