If you’re a title-playing golfer from the United States who grew up on the PGA Tour and its show-me-the-scorecard ethos, it’s easy to be dismissive. LIFE Golf. Funding (huge sums of Saudi oil money). Format (players competing against each other while, as teammates, pulling for one another). Music, gun start, events without cuts, spread all over the world.
It is always easy to be dismissive of anything from an altitude of 30,000 feet, or from a distance of 3,000 miles. And then you see LIVsters, up close and personal, and something else hits you: Every last person involved is a human being on this earth, trying to figure out how to navigate this thing called life.
These past few days, LIV players and players and team managers, player agents and LIV executives have all been West Palm Beach for photo shoots and interviews, along with less orchestrated opportunities to hang and hook up, hook up and hang out. They’ve been to the wonderful Hilton Hotel here on Okeechobee Boulevard, the Palm Beach County Convention Center next door, and the nearby Dutch Pipe Golf Club.
They’ve been to the beautiful outdoor mall across Okeechobee from the hotel called CityPlace, with the Equinox gym and the Lululemon store and the dancing fountain. Hold, hold: Who’s that at Sloan’s, an ice cream shop where you can buy cheap candy next to the bag, tight white T-shirt, blue baseball cap backwards. It’s two-time US Open winner Bryson DeChambeau and a little posse, loading up on the sweet goods!
In the open spaces of the hotel lobby, there was English golfer Paul Casey, talking about his brother, Simon, the managing editor for energy coverage at Bloomberg News and “the guy with the brains,” in this popular game of brothers being brothers. There was Lara Toscani Weems, head of communications for LIV Golf, talking about her two children and how her husband goes up and in when she’s on the road. HAD Scott O’NeilCEO of LIV Golf, talking about his daughter, a college softball player.
Brooks Koepka said the other day he is leaving LIV Golf and is returning to the PGA Tour. Dustin Johnson just signed on for at least two more years at LIV. Jon Rahm says he’s happy where he is. Bryson DeChambeau is deep in negotiations. Phil Mickelson, 55, doesn’t have a path back to the PGA Tour and likely doesn’t want one. The politics of modern golf. An interesting picture perhaps, but not a pretty one, if you appreciated the old order.
But there’s also this: caramel or caramel? Both are in the air at Sloan’s, behind the counter. It’s a great thing to have options.
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3 things I’m thinking
1. The new tiger muse: Tiger Woods turned 50 and Wednesday night at the Breakers there will be a bash for him, where he will attend Brian RolappThe CEO of the PGA Tour and a new and important person in Woods’ life. Rolapp, a former NFL executive, knows a lot about business and not a lot about golf. Woods knows a lot about golf, but not much about business. Each needs the other.
;)
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2. Fans first: In the wake of Brooks Koepka’s return to the PGA Tour, Brian Harman asked this question: “Where’s the one-year suspension?” It’s a question anyone who believes in rules-is-rules would ask. Such an old fashioned notion. Rolapp is seeing the tournament in ways his predecessor, Jay Monahan, can’t. It’s about this: Give the fans what they want. He believes that only good things can come from this.
3. New lens for the women’s game: Earlier this month, the LPGA announced that it will have its own TGL league, the WTGL. The women’s version of this made-for-nighttime indoor golf competition could do more for women’s golf than the existing men’s version. This is because men are already so exposed. We know what Wyndham Clark, Patrick Cantlay, Billy Horschel is like. Women playing golf on the mic team can give regular golf fans a chance to get to know Jeeno Thitikul and Minjee Lee and Rio Takeda (if those three play) in ways that we don’t.
